Robert Alan Deal (born May 4, 1951), known professionally as Mick Mars, is an American musician and the lead guitarist and co-founder of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. He is known for his aggressive, melodic solos and bluesy riffs. Career Mars was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, but his family moved to Huntington, Indiana, soon afterward. Before he was nine years old, his family relocated again, this time to Garden Grove, California. He dropped out of high school and began playing guitar in a series of unsuccessful blues-based rock bands throughout the 1970s, sometimes using the name Zorky Charlemagne, and occasionally taking on menial day jobs. One of the bands, Whitehorse, had a vocalist named Micki Marz who inspired the later name change. The name Mötley Crüe came about after Mars remembered someone referring to an old band he was in as a "motley looking crew." After nearly a decade of frustration with the California music scene, he reinvented himself, changing his name from Robert Deal to Mick Mars and dyeing his hair jet black, hoping for a fresh start. In April 1980 he put a want ad in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler, describing himself as "a loud, rude and aggressive guitar player". Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, who were putting together a new band which would soon become Mötley Crüe, contacted him, and hired him after hearing him play. Mars has been the guitarist for Mötley Crüe since. In 2015, he played with the band on what was reported at the time to be its final tour. Soon after it was announced he was working on a solo album with former Mötley Crüe member John Corabi. Mars has contributed songwriting to John LeCompt, a former member of Evanescence and the other band members of Machina, and to the Swedish band Crashdïet. Their second album, The Unattractive Revolution, was released on October 3, 2007, and featured two songs co-written by Mars. Mars played guitar on the title track of Hinder's 2008 album Take It to the Limit, and contributed a guitar solo to the song "Into the Light" by Papa Roach, on their 2009 album Metamorphosis. Mars also contributed a guitar solo to the song "The Question" on Rock Star: Supernova runner-up Dilana's U.S. debut album Inside Out. In 2010 he co-wrote a song with Escape the Fate for the band's self-titled album, which was instead withheld