LIKE ACE FREHLEY, Mick Mars had the misfortune of working with bandmates whose antics, both onstage and off, effectively overshadowed him. What’s more, Mars was a few years older than his ’80s guitar-playing peers when he joined the band and something of a traditionalist compared to the rest of the Sunset Strip crew. After all, he had grown up listening to the likes of Clapton, Beck and Mike Bloomfield and playing in ’70s-era blues rock bar bands, rather than woodshedding two-handed tapping and other EVH techniques in his bedroom.
Which means that he came at ’80s hard rock and metal from his own distinct, and less-peacocking, angle. “My goal was always to play something that fit and something that was memorable, not just a barrage of notes,” Mars said. “And because I didn’t play all the scales or do this or that, people thought that I was this crap guitar player.”