Nikki Sixx
Mötley Crüe’s death-defying bassist on drugs, groupies and why his daughter is wiser than he is
Who are your heroes?
Keith Richards. He’s always kept the standards higher than anybody else. I also love so many Beat Generation writers. Look at the William S. Burroughs story; it’s not always pretty, but art wasn’t supposed to come from pretty places.
Like you, Richards and Burroughs both overcame heroin addictions. Is that another reason you look up to them?
When I was first introduced to heroin, it was like, “Oh, these writers, songwriters and painters do that.” I was young and naive. I didn’t realize the demon it was.
What did you learn from that period of your life?
I learned that drugs are like Band-Aids and that BandAids don’t work. You’ve got to clean out the wound. I had to struggle with that through the fame and success. I could have made better decisions. I feel bad for the people in my family that I scared. And I regret that when the band finally got what we wanted, we were self-destructing.
You were pronounced dead of an overdose in 1987. What did dying teach you?
That it hurts to come back. My heart stopped. My body stopped. It’s like you turned the computer off and they restart the computer. It felt like I’d been fucking hit by a truck. Every single thing hurt. My hair hurt. That reboot is a bitch.
Do you look at the Mötley Crüe bio The Dirt as a cautionary tale?
I think it’s a story of survival. It’s the story of a gang of unlikely characters that climbed a mountain together only to self-implode and have to figure it out. We really are a four-headed monster, and sometimes we just fucking bite each other.
You filled the book with jaw-dropping groupie stories. Has your attitude toward women evolved since then?
I stand behind the #MeToo movement 100 percent. I think we’re in a very great time for equality, and we’ve got room to grow. Even though we were fucking animals and the shit that we did — and the shit the girls did to us — was fucking crazy, there was never a moment ever that anybody in the band took as an opportunity to wield power. I’m not saying we were angels, but it was all consensual.
You’ve described your daughter as a feminist. What has she taught you?
One of the greatest moments happened when we were talking about a friend of mine who’s gay. I said something like, “You know my friend Justin? He’s gay and his boyfriend is going to come over for Thanksgiving.” She said, “If he was straight, would you say, ‘My friend Justin, who’s straight . . . ?’ ” Then she broke down gender identification for me with a hand-drawn map. I was really grateful for that.
What are the most important rules you live by?
There’s a line in our song “Primal Scream”: “If you want to live life on your own terms/You gotta be willing to crash and burn.” I think about that with every decision I make.
Can you think of a time when you made a decision and then crashed and burned?
When Vince [Neil] quit after Dr. Feelgood, I wish our managers and lawyers had the strength to say, “Guys, time out. You’re one of the biggest bands in the world. Nobody is fired and nobody is quitting.” Maybe we needed to make that record that we did without Vince [1994’s Mötley Crüe] but not call it Mötley Crüe. We were burned the fuck out.
What’s the worst part of success?
Just being gone for so many years. I’ve missed so many birthdays and holidays. I remember having Thanksgiving dinner in a Hilton fucking bar. I guess that reared its head in our song “Home Sweet Home.”
Yeah, but when you put that song out, you had to go on tour to promote it.
Good point. I fucked up. KORY GROW