As he tells it, it was the fans who demanded their return through an internet petition; he was in the midst of a solo tour when word arrived that the other guys were interested in reforming.Musically the band is as relevant now as it was 20 years ago, he says “Otherwise all our shows wouldn’t be sold out I think what younger bands do now isn’t relevant at all There’s no showmanship, there’s no entertainment value. Whatever they wanna do, they do.”"Me and Tommy have been friends for 30 years, and in those 30 years we’ve fought,” Neil tells me later in his gleaming, maple-clad bus “But we’ve had some group therapy and we don’t hold grudges. The press keeps it going longer than the band do.” Dressed in jeans and a faded T-shirt, Neil looks less like a rock’n'roll demi-god than a middle-aged trucker, albeit one with the skin of a 25-year-old. Now, despite the fact that they travel on their own buses, have separate dressing rooms and conduct interviews individually, they maintain they get along better than ever “It’s different now,” Mars says. “The rest of them have figured out how to be mature and talk to each other more. Back when we started, I used to try and point them in the right direction, but it was like raising teenagers.

I’m wary of getting into any relationships now.”Of course, there were doubters who predicted that the band wouldn’t get beyond the rehearsal studio. Neil and Lee were sworn enemies after their split in 1999, and the rest of the band were barely on speaking terms. I love to look at ass, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some faces too.”The band are now committed to two years of touring: Kansas is the penultimate date in their American tour, after which they go to Europe, Australia, Japan, South America and then back to the US. All being well, the plan after that is to record some new material.Mars travels with a full-time assistant and has a customised hospital bed on his tour bus. Asked why he would put himself through such a gruelling workout each night, he replies: “What else can I do? Sit at home and do nothing? This is what I do for a living.” He notes that money is also an important factor since his ex-girlfriend launched a $10m lawsuit. “She’s suing me because she says I promised I’d take care of her for the rest of her life What can I do? It’s hard to trust people.

I don’t mind being stiff but I want to be straight,” he says blithely “You know what I see when I walk? Ass and legs. Stick-thin and hunched up in the corner of a huge sofa in his candle-lit dressing room, he cuts a sad figure. The hip operation helped ease the pain in his back, though his neck is still permanently bent forward. The only way he can look directly at me is to lean right back in his seat and put his feet on the table “I want to be straight.

Last year, he bought a wine estate in northern California, Vince Vineyards, through which he is soon to launch his own brand of cabernet sauvignon. Lee and Sixx have kept themselves occupied with musical ventures, Sixx with the now-defunct Brides of Destruction and Lee with Methods of Mayhem. Lee has just completed his first solo album Tommyland: The Ride, for an autumn release.As for the guitarist Mick Mars, the oldest in the band at 54, his time has been spent trying to find ways to live with his illness. No detail is spared as it recounts Neil’s 1984 conviction for vehicular manslaughter after a drink-driving accident in which his passenger, Razzle from the band Hanoi Rocks, was killed; bassist Nikki Sixx’s bender in Hong Kong that ended in a near-fatal drug overdose; or drummer Tommy Lee’s turbulent marriage to Pamela Anderson, during which a tape of them having sex was released on the internet, and which collapsed after three years with Lee serving six months’ jail for spousal abuse.When it came to compiling the book, Neil says, the band made a deal with each other.