Having a serious conversation with Tommy Lee presents one of the biggest challenges a person can experience. His abject JOY in everything he does is infectious and you can’t help but come away with a grin and a more positive outlook.

The longtime Motley Crue drummer has just recorded a new solo record, Andro, that is about to challenge virtually everything you thought you knew about him and his musical proclivities. True, he hinted at some of the complexity behind the chaos, when he formed Methods of Mayhem , but holed up in his own basement studio for the better part of the last two years, Lee has finally emerged with a new set of tracks that seem to truly represent the music that’s he was meant to make – and that definitively reveals the depth and range of his musical fascinations.

“It was me sitting around writing like a maniac,” he recalls. “I would just go down to the studio and tweak out – it would be like, ‘Whoa, he’s been down there for fucking days.’ But I would just be banging on the keyboard, and a sound would inspire me, or suddenly there would be this beat…and it all just followed.”