Life’s taken his health and band away from Mick Mars, but his guitar talent and musical spirit remain as exciting, powerful and unique as ever. Mars’ debut solo album, “The Other Side of Mars,” out now, sounds like a cornered beast clawing its way out. And in many ways, it is.

Last year, Mars had a much publicized, less than amicable split with Mötley Crüe. For the previous 40-plus years his singable solos, massive tone and fanged riffage were crucial to that band’s 100-million-albums-selling, arena-filling, glam-metal sound. It’s impossible to imagine classic Crüe cuts like “Live Wire,” “Shout at the Devil,” “Home Sweet Home,” “Dr. Feelgood” and “Primal Scream” without Mars’ tastefully nasty licks.

The blues, via ‘60s rock interpreters like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, has always been the root of Mars’ guitar. But those expecting a rootsy affair from his solo debut will have their ears bashed in by “The Other Side of Mars” tracks like the brutal “Loyal to the Lie,” sidewinding “Right Side of Wrong” and anthemic stomp “Killing Breed.”

One of the coolest things about the perfectly titled “The Other Side of Mars” is it isn’t just some shred-fest. “It’s supposed to sound like a band,” Mars tells me with a sweet, easy smile. “It’s not supposed to sound like, ‘Look at me, I’m a guitar player.’”

The album was recorded and produced by Michael Wagener, who was behind the console for Mötley Crüe’s raw, brilliant 1981 debut LP, “Too Fast For Love.” Indiana native Mars and the German-born Wagener’s connection goes back even farther, though.

They initially met in Los Angeles through mutual friend Don Dokken, the singer who’d go on to fame fronting his namesake band Dokken. Back then, Wagener recorded some original tunes by Vendetta, a touring covers band Mars was playing with at the time.

“And when Mötley was first getting together,” Mars recalls, “we had this atrocious guy that was working in a studio that was all we could afford. And didn’t record anything very well. So I brought Michael in, and he fixed it up. Many, many, many people like that mix from Michael on the first album [which Mötley Crüe initially self-released on the band’s Leathür Records imprint] better than [the one by] Roy Thomas Baker [the producer, known for his work with bands like Queen and The Cars, brought in to remix “Too Fast For Love” for the LP’s ‘82 major label re-release].”

After “Too Fast,” Wagener went on to become one of hard-rock and metal’s most in-demand studio pros. His many later production and mixing credits include artists like Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Skid Row and White Lion. Now, like Mars, Nashville based, Wagener came out of retirement to helm “The Other Side of Mars.”

They cut the album in Mars’ basement studio. It’s a vintage guitar and amp filled space the guitarist calls The Dungeon because the gothic-looking door to it resembles the entrance to a dungeon.

“The Other Side of Mars” is a longtime coming. Mars has talked about doing a solo album for decades. Busy with Mötley Crüe’s latter day resurgence, he finally began recording sessions for it in 2019. Tracking for the album’s actually been done since 2020.

Mars held back on releasing his solo debut until he completed Mötley Crüe’s 2022 stadium tour with Def Leppard. “The Other Side of Mars” was then mixed and mastered by Chris Collier, who also plays bass on it.

The album’s drums are by Ray Luzier, a hard-hitter known for his work with artists from Korn to David Lee Roth. On “The Other Side of Mars,” Luzier lays down big pockets, occult propulsion and orca-heavy thump. Musically, Luzier and Mars are dialed in like blood brothers. It’s a connection not dissimilar to wallop Mars and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee gave Mötley’s best rockers, both in studio and on stage.

Mars says, “That’s where the real rhythm starts, drums, right? I play around a lot with the drummers. I always have.”

On vocals for 10 of the Mars album’s 12 tracks is one Jacob Bunton. The 6-foot-5 Bunton grew up in Tarrant, Alabama, near Birmingham, idolizing Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses. With his jet-black Sunset Strip haircut and rail-thin frame, he truly looks like a son of Mötley and GN’R.

After cutting his teeth as frontman almost famous bands Mars Electric and Lynam, Bunton went on to work with “Appetite For Destruction” era GN’R drummer Steven Adler, write songs that have been recorded by artists ranging from Mariah Carey to Steven Tyler to Smokey Robinson, and compose music for films starring Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson, and the TV hit “Sons of Anarchy.”

On Mars’ album, Bunton’s vocals shapeshift from corrosive-adhesive howl, as on lead single “Loyal to the Lie,” to slither, see “Right Side of Wrong” and “Broken on the Inside.”

Inspired by singers like David Bowie and Alice In Chains’ Layne Staley, Bunton cut his lead vocals for “The Other Side of Mars” in just a couple of takes each track. He’s been used to trying on different vocal styles since his early days playing four-hour sets at Southeastern college fraternity and sorority parties, covering acts ranging from Metallica to Charlie Daniels to Beastie Boys.

Bunton’s chameleonic skills on the mic and tunesmith’ savvy made him the perfect cowriter and vocal foil for “The Other Side of Mars.” “He gets it,” Mars says with a light chuckle. “I don’t think Jacob is trying to be like, ‘Here I am. I’m a superstar.’ It’s not like that. He does what he does, he does it well and he doesn’t overdo it. He sings [for] the song.”

During the mixing stage, Collier added distortion to some of Bunton’s vocals, adding to the darkness of rockers like “Loyal to the Lie.”

Two songs from the album feature lead vocals from Nashville based singer Brion Gamboa, who sings in a slightly throatier style: “Killing Breed” and “Undone.” The former of those features a warm, elastic Mars guitar solo that calls to mind the playing of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Meanwhile, the latter track’s a modern metallic mini-epic, with Mars peeling off lyrical lead lines like a six-string orchestra.

“The Other Side of Mars” collaborators also include keyboardist/songwriter Paul Taylor, whose resume includes the likes Winger, Alice Cooper and Steve Perry. With Mötley Crüe hits like “All I Need,” “Time For Change” and all-time power-ballad “Home Sweet Home,” Mars is no stranger to wrapping his guitar around keyboards.

For his solo LP, Mars says Taylor’s keys, “made it easy to come back and play parts very melodic with the stuff he did. I’m always going to have some knock your face into the dirt kind of songs.”

But it was also vital for Mars, “to switch up things and make the record go into different atmospheres. Where not every song sounding the same, pounding you in the face, and then here comes the chorus and the guy singing the chorus. I’m 72-years-old. I’d feel weird just [only] doing something like that.”

Cinematic ballad “Memories” is another standout track. Mars initially wrote the music on guitar. After Taylor added a James Bond-theme-style piano and Bunton added strings (more on that in a sec), Mars heard it and said, “Perfect. Don’t touch it, leave it right there.”

Of his sonic vision for “Memories,” Mars says, “I see like [late great Queen singer] Freddie Mercury coming out on stage and pulling in the audience with just his voice and piano. That’s what I wanted to capture – and I feel we did. Paul and Jacob did great on it.”

It’s a typically musically unselfish move by Mars. You probably didn’t have violin and cello on your bingo card for a Mick Mars solo album. But in addition to his vocal, songwriting and other talents, Bunton is a gifted violinist.

Checking in via phone, Bunton says, “Violin is my favorite instrument to play. With ‘Memories,” it’s kind of this melancholy yet hopeful love song. I was like I’m going to put pretty much a whole orchestra on this, because this song is special.”

Up next for Bunton, who splits his time between the Birmingham-area and Los Angeles: more soundtrack work, as well as recording with Billy Idol and Carlos Santana.

As a collaborator, Bunton says Mars is, “great at making everybody feel really comfortable because he’s just cool. He’s super polite. And what a lot of people don’t realize about him is he’s funny, man. He’s just really, really funny.”

Laughs don’t come as easy for Mars as they do for many people. For decades, fought through a debilitating spinal disease like a rock-and-roll warrior. But following Mötley’s successful coheadlining stadium tour with fellow ‘80s hit-makers Def Leppard, Mars, now 72, wanted to retire from touring. Virtuoso John 5, a friend of Mars’ who idolizes his playing, was brought in on guitar.

But as someone who helped build Mötley Crüe into a colossus, Mars wanted to retain his stake and ownership in the band. The band felt otherwise. Mars sued his former bandmates.

In the press, both sides made accusations of the other relying on backing tapes for the ‘22 stadium tour. As someone who saw that tour, to my ears the only thing that sounded canned in the P.A. mix were the backing vocals.

At one point during our interview, I tell Mars he always delivered on guitar in the handful of Mötley Crüe shows I’ve seen. He then bows to me in gratitude and says without irony, “Thank you, for that affirmation.” It’s ridiculous, under any circumstances, for a player of Mars’ greatness and resilience to need to do that.

Yes, there are two sides to every story. But among his legendarily notorious former bandmates, Mick Mars is by far the most sympathetic character. And I write that as a lifelong Mötley Crüe fan who also loves what Lee, frontman Vince Neil and bassist/primary lyricist Nikki Sixx each brought to make the band’s signature sound together with Mars.

During our video interview, Mars’ humble nature only makes him more likable. Checking in from his Nashville home, Mars, his famously spectral skin tone intact, wears a black cap, T-shirt and a jacket with a “MARS” patch on its left lapel.

Since his legal dispute with Mötley has been thoroughly covered in the press, I don’t ask him to rehash, and he doesn’t bring it up. For a guy with his legacy somewhat under attack, he seems remarkably at peace. When his former bandmates do eventually come up, in discussing some their most enduring music together, he speaks their names without bitterness.

That said, when Mars explains the meaning behind his song “Killing Breed,” it’s easy to fill in the blanks: “Somebody’s squeezing the life out of you. The people that suck the blood out, you know, the vampires. People that want every piece of you and will not let it go, kind of deal. Sucking you dry.”

As nice as he is in conversation, Mick Mars still does his best talking on the guitar. For “The Other Side of Mars,” his main instruments include Isabella, the well-worn Stratocaster he used on many Mötley Crüe tours. He named Isabella in honor of a Jimi Hendrix song of the same name.

“It doesn’t sound like any guitar that I own,” Mars says. “I own almost 200 guitars and up against other guitars and other things that I played, for some reason, nothing sounds like it.

Amplifier-wise, Mars recorded his album with an array of Marshalls. He also used a Fractal digital system for some guitar effects.

Mars says, “I’ve always pretty much been about tone and melody, always. I come from the blues, you know? And Jeff Beck, people who have their own sound. Alvin Lee [guitarist for the band Ten Years After, known for their blazing 1969 Woodstock performance of “I’m Going Home”]. Alvin Lee was the right kind of shredding.”

Like Hendrix, Mars plays loud because he wants listeners to feel his playing as well as hear it. Bunton says during “The Other Side of Mars” sessions, the guitar volume would be so loud it would literally knock the studio’s power out.

“Mick’s rig is absolutely crazy,” Bunton says. “He goes through like five different amps running together, mixed a certain way, creatively. Some of the amps, you wouldn’t think it would sound good on its own, the way that he had the knobs. But once he blends it with the other amps, it’s just insane. He’s just got his own thing that he does. And then of course, it’s in his hands too. His tone’s instantly recognizable. As soon as you hear it, you know it’s Mick.”

Amid our discussion of the new album, Mars and I also touch on some of his most famous Mötley Crüe guitar solos.

Asked what he recalls about cutting his song-within-a-song lead on “Home Sweet Home,” off the band’s 1985 “Theatre of Pain” LP, Mars says, “That solo came pretty easy. It was Tommy and I, and Tommy started doing you know that piano part [in the studio] and I just started playing on it and doing junk. He and I started that song, and of course Nikki wrote the lyrics for it. Some songs come easy.”

On the other hand, it took Mars a while to come up with liquid-mercury licks for “Primal Scream,” one of several then-new songs included on Mötley’s 1991 best-of compilation album, “Decade of Decadence.”

On that song and also the band’s hit ‘85 cover of Brownsville Station’s song “Smokin’ in the Boys Room,” Mars alternates between fretting notes with his fingers and playing with a slide. The idea behind that technique, Mars says, is “Mixing two guitars in one. That kind of deal, you know? I just mess around with stuff and try to be me.”

When “Too Fast For Love” released in the early ‘80s, not many hard rock/metal songs had bluesy slide guitar in them. But that what Mars did on his playing on “Piece of Your Action” from Mötley’s debut album. “That where [the influence of Led Zeppelin’s] Jimmy Page came in,” Mars says. “Because he would do that. And I knew how to play slide from learning from Duane [Allman, of Southern rock band the Allman Brothers] Duane was my hero. And when I was a youngster and had red hair people would say I looked like him [Allman].”

Mars played perhaps his most supersonic Mötley Crüe solo on the title track to 1989′s “Dr. Feelgood,” the band’s biggest selling and lone number-one album. Mars says while the “Feelgood” guitar solo overall “wasn’t difficult to do, because I play simple,” that “the timing of it” took a bit more time. “The last part, where the hammer-ons [fretboard tapping] came on, [were inspired by guitar-instrumental star] Joe Satriani. The way he hits the note first, and then taps it, so it’s backwards [to how many guitarists do finger-tapping].”

Any discussion of finger-tapping in rock guitar can’t go without mention of Eddie Van Halen, who elevated that technique, which pioneered in simpler form by earlier guitarists like Genesis’ Steve Hackett and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

Mars says of Van Halen, “I knew Ed since he was like 19-years-old, this little kid and watched him grow until he got to all the places we played together [in different bands], like [Norwalk, California venue] Golden West Ballroom and [Sunset Strip proving grounds] Gazzarri’s and The Whisky [a Go Go]. Back then, we were both doing tapping. He was doing more. But when he went and did the [1978 debut Van Halen] album, that’s when I stopped tapping. That’s Ed’s thing. I don’t want to sound like somebody that I’m not. A lot of tappers came out after Ed, and I went the other way.”

Given Mars’ potent, tasteful playing, I’m curious if he ever received overtures to play lead guitar in other famous bands or, like his friend Earl Slick did with David Bowie, solo artists. Especially since there are rumors certain other members of Mötley Crüe were sniffing around for a replacement for Mars decades ago.

Mars says, no, he personally never received offers to join another big artist on guitar. “I don’t think I would fit,” he says.

After I reply that other artists missed out and he just did fine on his own, Mars says humbly, “Well, I didn’t do it on my own. I had a lot of help.”

Mars says he’s already recorded the beginning of four songs for his next album. He also has a collabo with singer John Corabi, who replaced Neil for Mötley Crüe’s 1994 self-titled album, in the can for possible future use.

“The Other Side of Mars” album cover features a close of up the M-A-R-S tattoos that have long adorned the guitarist left knuckles. The visual concept was Mars’ idea. “I didn’t want my face to me on the cover,” he says.

On that front cover, Mars’ visage is blurred to the point of being unrecognizable if his name wasn’t also printed there. But the music contained inside leaves no doubt who made it.

MORE ON MUSIC:

From MTV star to Def Leppard fill-in to Ace Frehley’s producer

How Prince, Michael Jackson fit into this ‘80s rock band’s story

Henry Rollins talks tour, loving early Madonna, why Pamela Anderson rules

Kenny Wayne Shepherd talks ‘90s hits, writing in Muscle Shoals, Van Halen friendship

Jason Isbell talks guitars, Leonardo DiCaprio, almost opening for Van Halen

The Grammys kind of suck at rock: 10 legendary bands who’ve never won