ROCK'S BAD BOYS ARE BACK; MOTLEY CRUE WILL PERFORM SATURDAY WITH CHEAP TRICK AT THE SIU ARENA

In the '80s, Motley Crue was tattooed and pierced long before it was cool. They played raunchy music, wrecked motorcycles and cars, wooed flashy blondes, screamed politically incorrect lyrics, had videos banned by MTV and took dangerous drugs with the best and worst bad boys of rock 'n' roll.

And now, with vocalist Vince Neil back in tow after a five-year absence, the boys are ready to cut loose again on a tour called "Motley Crue vs. the Earth."

Motley Crue performs Saturday at the SIU Arena along with special guest Cheap Trick. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

The band famous for the debauched platinum records "Girls, Girls, Girls," "Shout at the Devil" and "Dr. Feelgood" hasn't changed much musically. Their new album, "Generation Swine," delivers head-pounding rants against anyone who has sold part of themselves out in order to succeed -- including themselves.

"We've been pigs just like everybody else," bassist Nikki Sixx has said. "We're just rubbing our faces in the mud."

But Motley Crue may be a different band in one important way. All the members are trying to stay away from drugs. "They're not right for us," guitarist Mick Mars said in an interview from his hotel in San Antonio, Tex.

"No matter how much you preach to them, people will do what they do. But people are intelligent enough to figure it out after awhile.

"They definitely are not for us."

The rebellious musicians that proudly proclaim themselves "white trash" -- Neil met his first wife at a female mud-wrestling event where she was one of the main attractions -- at this point in their lives have a achieved a kind of social acceptance. Drummer Tommy Lee is married to former "Baywatch" bombshell Pamela Anderson Lee, and Sixx wed her co-star, Donna D'Errico.

In June Motley Crue had coffee with the hosts on the squeaky clean TV show "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee."

They also have a soft drink named after them, Motley Brue.

Motley Crue is in the high-tech vanguard with a fiber optic video and audio network which allows fans to download part of a recent concert. The system allowed for a "cyber jam," in which a Detroit fan who won a contest played with the band in real time while they were performing in Chicago. He appeared behind them on a video screen.

But only a month into the tour in support of their new album, "Generation Swine," the band already is in trouble. In Greensboro, N.C., Nikki Sixx began berating a security guard from the stage. Sixx used a racial epithet and, as some heard the harangue, exhorted the crowd to gang up on the guard.

Mars defended his fellow band member's choice of language. And Mars said Sixx was not inciting the crowd, only telling the crowd to stand up for themselves against someone the band claims was punching their fans. A lawsuit is expected.

That's where "Motley Crue vs. the Earth" comes from. "Every other time we turn around we're being sued -- again," Mars said.