Friday night and they need a fight: Details about the inner workings of legendary heavy metal band Mötley Crüe are coming to light due to the band’s ongoing legal dispute with co-founder and lead guitarist Mick Mars.

Mars took his “Girls, Girls, Girls” bandmates to court last week and alleged that he’s being thrown out of the group for stepping back from touring because of ongoing health issues.

The 71-year-old backing vocalist filed a legal request in Los Angeles Superior Court on April 6 to compel Mötley Crüe’s corresponding businesses to obtain, inspect and make copies of documents relating to the band’s business records. In doing so, he made a lot of accusations about the iconic rockers.

At the core of the dispute is whether Mars, who is a 25% shareholder in Mötley Crüe’s businesses, can remain a shareholder, or even a member of the band alongside singer Vince Neil, bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee. The two parties aren’t seeing eyetoeye on Mars’ future involvement with the act following his October announcement that he could no longer tour with the group. (His last concert with the “Kickstart My Heart” and “Shout at the Devil” musicians was Sept. 9, 2022, and the band has continued touring with guitarist John 5.)

“How did Mars’ brothers of 41 years respond to Mars’s tragic announcement?” his attorneys Edwin F. McPherson and Pierre B. Pine wrote in the petition obtained by The Times. “They noticed an emergency shareholders’ meeting for the band’s main corporate entity in order to throw Mars out of the band, to fire him as a director of the corporation, to fire him as an officer of the corporation, and to take away his shares of the corporation.

“When he did not go away quietly, they purported to fire him from six additional band corporations and LLCs,” the attorneys said.

The guitarist last week requested a writ of mandate that would legally require the band and its corresponding businesses to make available business records he requested. In it, he alleged that the other members of Mötley Crüe tried to remove him as a significant stakeholder in the group’s corporation and business holdings during a November shareholders meeting.

Mars was “suspicious from the manner in which the band was treating him” and requested that it provide corporate and business documents for him to inspect. When he didn’t receive them, he asked the court last week to compel those records, citing his statutory right as a shareholder in California to do so, and after allegedly already exhausting all means at his disposal to get them.

Mars’ attorneys said he was presented in late October with a “horrifically unfair and one-sided” separation and release agreement that would decrease his touring profits from 25% to 5% — then to nothing for future tours. The same applied to merchandise using the name of the band or related logos. However, the agreement would allow the band to continue to use Mars’ name and likeness indefinitely.

His attorneys alleged that he was told that if he didn’t accept the severance package offered, he would be removed as an officer and director of the band’s corporate entities, and they would force him to sell his shares of Mötley Crüe Inc. to them “based on book value with no value assigned to the Mötley Crüe name.” Basically, not very much.

Then at the Nov. 4, 2022, shareholders meeting, they barred some of Mars’ representatives and voted to oust him as a director and officer of Mötley Crüe Inc. and the band’s Red, White & Crüe Inc., and to purchase his shares at book value.

“In addition, instead of requiring Mars to divest his interests simply in MCI and RWC, as the original draft agreement had required, the new agreement still required Mars to divest his complete interest in MCI and RWC, but now also required him to divest his interest in five additional corporations and LLCs, some of which Mars did not even recognize,” the documents said.

Although the decision was postponed for a few weeks, his attorneys eventually received a Demand for Arbitration that the other band members had filed against Mars, essentially “suing him to establish that Mars is no longer an officer, director, or shareholder of MCI.”

“They clearly commenced an arbitration, rather than a public lawsuit, so that the public would not be aware of the deplorable manner in which they treated their ‘brother’ of 41 years,” his attorneys said.

Mars also accused Sixx of gaslighting him and calling his guitar playing “sub par.” Sixx allegedly plotted “to force him out of the band and take his shares” and repeatedly told Mars that he was playing the wrong chords and that fans were complaining about his performance during the tour.

Mars fired back in the documents. He alleged that Sixx “did not play a single note on bass during the entire U.S. tour,” that “100% of Sixx’s bass parts were nothing but recordings” and that significant portions of Neil’s vocals and Lee’s drumming were prerecorded.

“The fact is that Mars is rarely mocked or criticized online. He is a quiet member of the group, who shows up to play, and puts his heart and soul into each performance. Conversely, other band members are often criticized online, particularly Neil, who is routinely torn to shreds for, among other things, not remembering the songs,” Mars’ attorneys said.

The writ of mandate also detailed several of the band’s controversies, delineating Mars’ bandmates’ past transgressions, including drug and alcohol addictions. He also referred to Neil’s run-ins with the law, physical attacks and bankruptcy that culminated in Neil being fired from the band. Information also was mentioned about how Lee was placed on probation and convicted of spousal abuse involving ex-wife Pamela Anderson and how Sixx was jailed in Japan after throwing a bottle at Mars and injuring a bullet train passenger.

The band has not yet filed a response to Mars’ petition. But in a statement to Variety, the band’s litigation attorney Sasha Frid argued that Mars effectively resigned from the band by announcing his touring retirement.

“Retiring from touring is resigning from the band,” said Frid. “The band’s primary function is to tour and perform concerts. And … if a shareholder resigns, he cannot receive any compensation from touring — which is what Mick is trying to get. It’s clear-cut that Mick is not entitled to any more money.”

Frid described Mars’ legal action as “unfortunate and completely off-base.” He said Mars voted on and signed an agreement in 2008 in which he and every other band member agreed that “in no event shall any resigning shareholder be entitled to receive any monies attributable to live performances (i.e., tours).”

“After the last tour, Mick publicly resigned from Mötley Crüe,” Frid said. “Despite the fact that the band did not owe Mick anything — and with Mick owing the band millions in advances that he did not pay back — the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band. Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and chose to file this ugly public lawsuit.”

Sixx also responded on Twitter on April 6, sharing a link to Variety’s story and writing: “Sad day for us and we don’t deserve this considering how many years we’ve been propping him up-We still wish him the best and hope he find’s lawyers and managers who aren’t damaging him. We love you Mick”