Lustin', Thrustin' and BigBustin' with MötleyCrüe's Nikki Sixx

Mon 7th Mar, 2005 in Features

With their grand slam, wham bam tour underway, Mötley Crüe are recreating the magic of their first glory. By all reports, their second glory has all the potent testosterone and passion of the first, but also a polish that comes from a new perspective. I spoke to Nikki Sixx about life in the new Crüe…

But first we all want to know: Is Australia on the schedule?

“Oh, its on the radar, we’ve only been there once.  After we came there, we pretty much broke up, like within a year. Definitely coming to Australia, I should know when but I don’t. We have to be home by the 11th or 12th so it would have to be around November or December. Our US tour, this summer we’re going out with Sum 41 supporting us and Silvertide and The Exxies and that will be fun and after that we do Japan, Australia and we might do a Hawaii show but I don’t know.”

As a Crüe fan, I am a bit anxious about whether they can hold it together long enough to make it down under. “That’s the thing, we just don’t know. We just don’t know. We’re trying to make it last, we’ve made it five gigs already.”

Mötley Crüe have had a rollercoaster career that has spanned 24 years. Does that number surprise them, does Nikki still feel 24? “We don’t think of ourselves as anything other than a regular rock band. We don’t really think of ourselves in the 24-year, rock n’ roll hall of fame. You know what I mean?”

Maybe its time that he did:

“My manager called me yesterday and said ‘listen you’re the kind of guy that when you’re sitting there on stage and its sold out and everyone is going crazy and the industry is talking about it, congratulating you that you will be trying to figure out what’s next and he goes, maybe this time, you can just smell the roses.”

“I’m trying. I’m like a complete workaholic and I like, you know, it’s kind of like asking a warrior not to want to go to war. Its like asking a person who that’s what they do, I want to be at war all the time, I want to help, try be part of something that just builds and gets bigger and bigger and in the past, you know, that’s proved to me, that I haven’t been living in the moment, so I’m trying to live in the moment”.

Mötley Crüe formed in 1981 driven by Nikki Sixx. He decided to start a band with drummer Tommy Lee. They advertised for a bass player and what they got was Mick Mars and the final piece of the puzzle was vocalist Vince Neil, whom Tommy had seen in various bands during his high school years. Mötley Crüe have released 13 albums since then and sold over 40 million copies!  Their first album was Too Fast For Love, recorded fast and capturing the raw power of these four misfits. Next was Shout At The Devil in 1983, a firm fan favourite. Theatre of Pain in 1985 was their breakout album and put them firmly on the rock-rebel A-list. It was a darker album as it was written at and recorded during a black period in the band’s history. Vince had been drunk behind the wheel of a car that killed his friend Razzle from the band Hanoi Rocks. Apart from that, Nikki has said on numerous occasions that Theatre of Pain was “not a great album, the only decent song on it is Home Sweet Home”.

Girls Girls Girls was released in 1987 and the boys were solidly residing at the top of the sleaze rock mountain. The decadence and drug use had reached epic proportions and along with that, the discord and fractures that would eventually claim the group were beginning to takeover. This was pure fun rock and roll and so was 1989’s Dr Feelgood, which made sure that Mötley Crüe had a seemingly endless supply of money for their many indulgences, although by this stage there seemed to be only three vices on the radar: drugs, drink and divorce, all costing a pretty penny.

In a seemingly appropriate move, the boys named their next album Decade of Decadence in 1991. Relations became so bad that Vince Neil left the band in 1992 amidst a controversy that remains unclear to this day: did he quit or was he fired?  Vince was replaced by singer John Corabi (who also formed part of Nikki’s other band Brides of Destruction for a short time) and with Corabi at the helm the Crüe released the self titled Mötley Crüe in 1994. Although they toured with Corabi, the schedule was cut drastically short due to negative crowd reception.  This was not a formula that worked and by 1997 Vince was back and Generation Swine was released. This reinvigorated interest in the band and they released a mixture of live recordings, greatest hits and rarity albums.  

By this time, interest was focussed more intensely on the private lives of the band. Tommy Lee married and was divorced from TV heavyweight (although tiny in real life) Heather Locklyer. We all know about (and have probably seen) the Tommy and Pammy [Anderson] honeymoon video that exposed Tommy’s third drumstick. This unflinching look at his private parts, oops I mean, private life overshadowed his musical exploits but to his credit, the shadow from his ‘drumstick’ could probably shade a crowd of thirty! Vince was enduring the unimaginable pain of losing a child and Nikki married Pam’s Baywatch cast mate Donna D’Errico.

In the Crüe hiatus, Nikki started a rocking side project called the Brides of Destruction that toured Australia in August of last year in the smaller club venues with fellow crusty rocker, Tracii Gunns. How does it feel to be back in the big arenas again?

“Brides was a way for me to get out there, to play music and not to worry about any kind of legend or any kind of, you know, anybody looking at it to be anything more than it was, a small club band. I really enjoyed that because I got to see what was going on out there in the world. I had a good time with that.”

With all that has occurred and with The Dirt exposing every wicked nook of their rock crannies, what did it feel like to stand in front of the world and be accepted wart and all?

“For us, we are constantly looking at ourselves and looking at each other and smirking. Have you ever seen a picture of a rock band and their laughing? And you go ‘Why do I feel like they are laughing at me?’  For us it will be like something happens on stage and we’ll just look at each other and smirk because it is like we’ve seen it all.”  

The new album Red, White and Crüe (read the review & recent FasterLouder Album of the Week here) features a cover of The Rolling Stones tune Street Fighting Man, that is very much a protest song.

“Its during the times of this wonderful US president we have, George Bush, That’s sarcasm by the way, and it was during the debates with Kerry and I was pretty much glued to the TV as was Bob Rock and we were just baffled by how stupid this human being is George Bush, I mean, in a debate on national television, he was just a complete buffoon and we, Bob, we like to jam cover songs, sometime to warm your chops up, sometimes to cut ‘em, who knows and Bob put in protest songs. It’s similar, it right now with the Iraqi s and the it seems like Vietnam all over again and it seems like that time and society is pulling together and we’re sort of ousting the president he seems like a buffoon, why are we being run in circles by this guy who’s self-serving and moronic at best. I don’t even know if that’s a word moronic, but it is now, so he put in protest songs and he put in Street Fighting Man and we just started playing it and we were jamming it and going off and he goes ‘alright we’re done’ and we’re like “done what?’ and he says “We’re done, we tracked it” we didn’t even know he’s rolling tape right? And it’s done. We came in and listened to it and went ‘wow that’s cool!” So we kept.

Street Fighting Man is a political song and different from what you would expect from a renowned party band. “Its also different from the song Primal Scream and its different from the song Wild Side and Dr Feelgood and they are all different types of songs and that’s the thing about Mötley and I think if you know Mötley you know that we’re not very one-dimensional.”

Nikki has always written most of the songs for Mötley Crüe and Brides and he talks about the process.

“It depends on your headspace mostly. Where you’re at, if you’re happy you’re going to write upbeat stuff and if your down you’re gonna write dark stuff sometimes you can tap into an energy. I know with us being out on the road and playing live everyday, we’re gonna start doing some writing out here and I think its mostly gonna be that kind of stuff.”

“Lyrics just kind of come and go and as you get older, lyrics kinda become more important.  You sort of drive into them and try to make them a little more clever and perhaps in the past we didn’t quite care so much. “

Japan is on the tour schedule and it is a crazy pitstop, scenes of some of the bands wildest antics and home of some of their most fanatical fans in the world! “Well Japan, they are so into characters and I’ll give it to the band, there are definitely four different characters. They can draw us and they know everything about us, I love it but it is a little bit boy band-ish, you know what I mean like (in a mock falsetto) ‘Tommy’s favourite colour is red ooohhhh! It’s like Oooookaaaayyyy”.

They may be four boys in a band but I don’t think they will be doing a cover of Bye Bye Bye anytime soon: “I don’t think we’ll be doing any Back Street Boy’s covers, though that would probably be pretty funny.”

After the breakout success of their autobiography The Dirt, progress has been made on the movie version.

“Definitely has [progressed]. Paramount and MTV Films now have the script and they’ve read it and we’re now talking to directors and producers.  “I know he offered and I think we probably need to get director and producer in place before we decide.” Ashton Kutcher as Tommy Lee: “Yeah, that kind of fits, the dude thing”.

So what advise does Nikki have for aspiring musos starting out in the business:

“First of all, you have to be aware that it is fast food music now, and it comes and goes, I think you need to find a… I think record companies are trying to, unless they can completely reinvent themselves are going to go completely by the wayside. People have said that the internet is not that important but I think there is a distribution forum there and another way for people to get music. I think you need to have a great education on this business so you can stay focussed on the music not making it about business but if you want to have your art, if you want to have your music you need to understand the evil you are dancing with.”

Nikki is also a literary success who will have a second biography out later this year. How does it feel to a guy who rarely saw a day out at school from start to finish, get to have two books published?

“Weird, right? I’m sure it will piss someone off, somebody who has like actually has a degree in writing. But our stuff has been life stuff, life stories, its true-life stuff and we share that with people. My book, The Heroine Diaries will be out towards the end of the year that’s a fly on the wall view of drug addiction. Its not a sweet read.”

Nikki has said that if Keith Richards had put this book in his hand he would never have put a needle in his arm. I complimented Nikki on having the balls to put something so personal out into such a public forum.

“Thank you very much. Giving something back is important. I have a huge passion for kids, runaway kids, kids from dysfunctional families, kids that are strung out on drugs and for me to able to tie this in, and to feel passionate about, passionate like when I first started making music.”

There has been a lot of concern about Mick Mars’ health and I’m happy to report that he is doing well. “He’s doing so good, its unbelievable, he’s actually putting some weight on and his attitude is so amazing. He’s all about winning and he is so driven, its amazing.”

“He almost, well he did made my eyes well up on stage the other night, we were jamming and we were playing next to each other, doing something and he looked at me and he looked at me and kinda gave me this smile and I about lost it and you know everything we’ve been through with him, the hospital and the whole thing and we just about lost it and it was amazing. He’s just a great guy. And he’s getting stronger and stronger.”

“And you know that he’s single and he’s all about you know…” Oh, so it was probably Mick’s idea to have the tittie cam…  ”Oh yeah it was Mick Mars idea!” Maybe it can be a DVD, the Breast Of Rock.

So what lies ahead for Nikki once the circus leaves town…

“Probably spend some time at home, making up for this time that I’m away from home. Obviously doing a lot of songwriting and stuff. But you know I’ve been gone for a while so I need to go and do something with my family. Go on like an adventure of going to like every Wal-Mart in the state. Seeing all the white-trash bucktooth people. Those are my people! The bottom line I like the people in there, its sort like I’m living in a Charles Bukowski movie. You know this one time, John Corabi, who I did a record with, I wanted to work on a song and he had a notepad and a pen and I said I was going to run down the street and grab a coffee and I’ll come back and I cam back and he was sitting in the same place, about 15 minutes and the paper was blank and I said “what are you doing?’  And he said ‘I don’t have anything’ and I said ‘yes you do. All you have to do is start your pen and the rest will happen, it all about your life.’ And he says ‘the difference with you and me is, I look at a clock and see a clock, you look at that same clock and see it melting down the wall, and like going into the air vent and dripping down and going into the person’s apartment below you and into their ear and taking over their brain or something. And I’m like ‘Wow, you make me sound dark” and goes ‘Dude you are”.  So when I’m in Wal-Mart I see it kind of different to everyone else. It’s scary in there. I just like the way they look… a lot of wide butts.”

“Have you read William Burroughs book Junkie yet… fuck you’ve got to read it, you’ll love it. What about Queer? You’ve gotta read it, it will change your life. Order it. There is another book, I can’t remember the writer, its called Nigger and it is about a black comedian in the ‘50’s who came from that same underbelly and how everything was segregated right and you know the comedians could only have a black comedians in certain clubs, not white comedians and it is unbelievable the lifestyle that goes on underneath all that stuff. It’s very much like our tour, it like the carnie all the weird freaks.”

The Mötley Crüe Carnival Of Sin tour is currently rocking the US and I can’t wait until the circus hits our town. Until then, it seems that I have some reading to do!

Read the recent review and Album of the Week here, sign the petition and help convince the band to include Australia in their worldwide itinerary, you’ll be in the running to win the following awesome prizepack:
» Signed copy of Red White and Crüe
» Signed blockmount poster 
» Limited Edition rare Mötley Crüe dolls   
» Copy of The Dirt autobiography   
» A vintage Mötley t-shirt