‘Traveling freak show’

Rock music’s biggest freak show is taking it on the road.

And the big question for Motley Crue is whether the band known for its excesses – sex, drugs, fighting – can keep it together.

“This tour could last a week. It could last a year. I just don’t know,” drummer Tommy Lee says.

“But it definitely brings a smile to my face. You know, the danger part of it, the ‘whether these guys are going to make it a month’ question.”

The spotlight is shining as much on the band’s antics as its music on the “Red, White & Crue Tour 2005 … Better Live Than Dead,” which opened Thursday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The tour follows the release of “Red, White & Crue,” a greatest-hits album that includes three new songs.

Motley Crue has reportedly auditioned midgets, contortionists and strange animals as part of the stage production, a 2 1/2 -hour show with no opening act.

“It’s a traveling freak show. We’ve always been called that and we said, ‘Why don’t we take that and take it to the next level?’ ” says bassist Nikki Sixx.

For those who haven’t seen the infamous episode of VH1’s “Behind The Music” that chronicled the Crue’s sordid tale of success, here’s a quick recap:

The band was founded in 1981 when Sixx met Lee. The two answered an ad placed by guitarist Mick Mars (described by Sixx as Cousin Itt from “The Addams Family”). Then they were joined by singer Vince Neil.

They quickly lit up the Los Angeles club scene and recorded an album, which was released on an independent label. A short time later they were signed by Elektra and released 1983’s “Shout at the Devil” and 1985’s “Theater of Pain.”

But it was 1987’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” and 1989’s “Dr. Feelgood,” which debuted at No. 1, that put the band at the top.

Along the way, its members were using drugs and drinking and having lots of sex. Neil got into a drunken driving accident that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle. Sixx overdosed on heroin, “dying” before returning to life. Lee married Pamela Anderson and made an infamous sex tape. Mars drank and did drugs.

By the 1990s, the band was falling apart. Neil left (or was fired, depending on who tells the story) in 1992 before returning for 1997’s “Generation Swine.” Then Lee left in the late 1990s.

Band members regrouped a few months ago after Sixx wrote some songs and asked Neil if he would sing them. But they say they noticed a resurgence in interest in Motley Crue several years ago.

Neil says he was at a mall once when he saw three teenagers wearing old Motley Crue concert shirts: “I was like ‘How do they know us? Where did they get these T-shirts?’ “

Says Sixx: “There’s this thing that happens if you stick around long enough. One day, you’re a huge band. The next day, you’re off the map. … Then one day, all of the sudden, it happens. Some 15-year-old kid goes, ‘I heard this song.’ The next thing you know, you’re doing a reunion tour.”

So what is it about Motley Crue that two decades later seems to grab such fan loyalty?

Part of it is the music and part of it is that most of the band members have continued to be in the spotlight, says Jim Richards, regional vice president of programming for Clear Channel.

“They are celebrities individually, above and beyond their collective band status,” he says.

Neil and Lee have made forays into reality television, Neil on the WB’s “The Surreal Life” and Lee with a new NBC reality show set to air this summer. Sixx, Neil and Lee have continued with solo projects.

But beyond that, Richards says, there may be a morbid curiosity.

“A curiosity of watching a train wreck. Can they keep it together for a year?” he says. “What sports book in Vegas is accepting bets on this?”