The long-awaited Mötley Crüe biopic, The Dirt, based on the 2001 New York Times bestselling autobiography, debuted last Friday, March 22. The band immediately became the top searched topic on Google Trends with a 4300% spike in searches.

Speaking with Virgin Radio UK host Pete Mitchell, bassist Nikki Sixx and manager Allen Kovac talked about the band's rise to fame and the journey behind making The Dirt biopic from the book.

Kovac: "We were sitting around and coming up with ideas, and I threw out, 'What if we sent books to every rock festival and asked the promoters to put the book in all the stars' buses?' With artists having to drive all the time, they get bored. So they all read the book. Social media back then was the tribal experience of an arena or a club or a theater, and they would tell the fans, 'You've gotta get this book. I've never read a book that actually put this stuff in it.' And all of a sudden, the book became a bestseller, and it just kept selling and selling until it became the biggest rock book, or music book, ever sold. And at that point, Tom Freston, who was CEO of MTV, part of Viacom, which was Paramount, optioned the book. And then the problems started. You go to a corporation, they wanna make a different movie than the book, and after about seven years and six different heads of production, we agreed to disagree and we moved to Focus Films. And then Focus Films gave us another five years of, 'Yes, yes, yes. We'll do it. Oh, we're not sure.' And then finally, we settled on Netflix, and they've been great."

Streaming partners have been quick to support the film's soundtrack and Mötley Crüe's catalogue with the Global Marquee feature on Spotify, and Apple Music building a dedicated Mötley Super Room. The pay back was instant with a 570% stream increase on Spotify, a 900% stream increase on Apple Music, and Apple iTunes downloads growing 2027%. Amazon, with triple digit streaming growth is benefitting from sales of the book being back at #1 music book, and Mötley's Deezer streams are up 669%.

The Mötley Essentials playlist is now charting higher than Drake Essentials on Apple Music. The effect is being felt globally in 150 markets with top 10 iTunes charts around the world.

Early returns show the movie at 85% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes, on par with Bohemian Rhapsody's 87% and ahead of Black Panther's 79%. It is changing perceptions too, as women are enjoying The Dirt just as much, if not more than men, giving it a higher grade (7.4/10) than their male counterparts (7.1/10), according to an IMDB survey.

The cautionary tale aims to deglamorize the sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle led by the notorious rockers. It unflinchingly portrays domestic violence, drunk driving and drug addiction to a mass audience. The Guardian's Stephen Snart writes "Real-life manager and producer Allen Kovac has said in interviews that the mission of the movie is to deglamorize the rock'n'roll lifestyle. That does come through."

Queen's Roger Taylor, who appears in the book, was similarly awed at a preview screening, exclaiming: "Wow, that took me back! Brilliant."

The film's stars, Douglas Booth (Nikki Sixx), Game of Thrones' Iwan Rheon (Mick Mars), Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) (Tommy Lee), Daniel Webber (Vince Neil), David Costabile (Doc McGhee) and Pete Davidson (Tom Zutaut) have all been getting critical kudos. "They possess similar abilities to navigate between charm and repulsion, all working together to create such a chummy group that their power as an ensemble elevates the material. Just like their real-life counterparts," wrote The Guardian.

Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx says, "In the film we show painful examples of domestic violence, DUI, manslaughter, drug overdose and the loss of a child. We couldn't possibly have crammed everything from a 430-page book into an hour and 50-minute movie, but we felt we achieved our objective of showing the downside of sex drugs and rock and roll."

Nikki Sixx hopes to use the message of the film to draw attention to the USA's opioid crisis. Sixx, a recovering addict himself, has established a music program for kids at Covenant House in Los Angeles and is instrumental in drawing attention to the root causes of addiction. A personal mission, Sixx is collaborating with the U.S. Surgeon General to fight opioid addiction, and will bring his best-selling Heroin Diaries book to life with a musical of the same name, due to debut in 2019 with partners including Live Nation Ticketmaster, 11-7, Scott Borchetta, and Downtown Music.

Meanwhile, on the music side, The Dirt Soundtrack on Mötley Records and Eleven Seven Music immediately reached #1 on the iTunes All Genres Chart and currently stands at #4 US and #5 worldwide. The Greatest Hits album currently stands at #2 in the US on iTunes and at #11 worldwide. The soundtrack features four new songs including the first single, "The Dirt (Est. 1981) (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)" and their unlikely cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin." In addition, Spotify garnered an 8-fold increase in daily streams, from approximately 400,000 to 3,600,000, and still increasing.

"Our strategy was to use both the film and music algorithmic echo chamber to have a virtuous circle, each propelling the other to greater heights. The new song is 'The Dirt feat Machine Gun Kelly,' the film is titled 'The Dirt,' The Book is 'The Dirt.' And the audiences have voted on the music streaming platforms and on social media, critics are a thing of the past as Bohemian Rhapsody has shown," said Kovac, who served as a producer on the film.

Kovac gave kudos to Eleven Seven Music senior management and Mötley Crüe Managers at 10th Street Entertainment, "I want to tip my hat to Chris Nilsson and Konstanze Louden, and the rest of the 10th Street Management team, Eleven Seven Label Group COO Steve Kline, GM Rose Slanic, VP Mary Thayer, Europe MD Dan Waite, CFO Dan Lieblein, and their teams who are some of the most innovative and progressive marketers in entertainment today. The success of the music and this film comes from their efforts."

After almost two decades since the ground-breaking publication of The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band by HarperCollins in 2001, the film version has come to life, causing just as much controversy as the book did when it was all the talk of bands on the rock festival circuit, where copies were strategically placed. From the film's overall buzz, the book landed at #1 on several of Amazon's book charts.

BraveWords' review of The Dirt soundtrack can be found at this location. Read Aaron Small's review of the film here.

The Dirt Soundtrack tracklisting:

"The Dirt (Est. 1981)" (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)
"Red Hot"
"On With The Show"
"Live Wire"
"Merry-Go-Round"
"Take Me To The Top"
"Piece Of Your Action"
"Shout At The Devil"
"Looks That Kill"
"Too Young To Fall In Love "
"Home Sweet Home"
"Girls, Girls, Girls"
"Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S.)"
"Kickstart My Heart"
"Dr. Feelgood"
"Ride With The Devil"
"Crash And Burn"
"Like A Virgin"

"Crash And Burn":

"Ride With The Devil":

"Like A Virgin":

"The Dirt (Est. 1981)" (feat. Machine Gun Kelly) video:

Film trailer: