Dear Superstar: Nikki Sixx
It’s 11 o’clock in the morning and, not for the first time, Nikki Sixx is feeling unwell. Pulling up to his North Hollywood studio in a gleaming black Bentley Continental, he emerges into the merciless June sunshine clutching cigarettes and a packet of sliced ham: breakfast.But, despite his present sniffles, the dope-sick mornings and hung-over afternoons of the once-most-depraved member of Mötley Crüe have long been a thing of the past: “There’s some kind of cold going around,” he says; it’s one of the perils of clean living. “It’ll do it every time. My friends that are always fucked up are never sick.”
Inside, he fetches a Diet Coke from the fridge and lights up a Marlboro Medium: “It’s my last vice. I’m going to quit — and then I’ll be a complete monk.” Now 48, Sixx is a busy man: He’s the father of five children and, since separating from his second wife (like the first, a former Playboy Playmate) last year, single again. His new book, The Heroin Diaries, adapted from the journals he kept at the peak of his addiction, between 1986 and 1987, forms a dark companion piece to the superhuman excesses catalogued in the classic 2001 Crüe memoir The Dirt and is accompanied by a soundtrack he recorded with his new band Sixx:A.M. He’s also taken up photography and has recently announced plans to write a novel.
Having experienced his own clinical death, an adrenaline-shot-induced revival and more than 25 years in Mötley Crüe, he isn’t about to let the prospect of Blender readers’ impertinent questions worry him: “Can you say anything bad about us?” he asks. “Really … honestly? That hasn’t already been said?”
Have you always kept a diary — and do you still keep one now?
rev_it_up, Concord, NH
The earliest diaries were ’78, ’79. I used to carry a book around and draw pictures of what the stage set would look like, ideas, band names, that kind of stuff. By the beginning of Mötley Crüe, I felt like I really had something to write down. Some of the ones from the Shout at the Devil era are really raw and barbaric — like, “Slept with four girls. Two were on their period. Can’t remember any of their names. Me and Vince got in a fistfight. Sold-out show. 100,000 people. Nikki.” And then the next one would be, “I miss my grandparents.” By the time I got to about ’85, my writing really started flowing. And that’s pretty much how I do it now — stream of consciousness.
Your mother dated Richard Pryor. What’s the thing you remember most clearly about him?
Skullz23, McPherson, KS
We used to live on Sunset Boulevard, in an apartment in the Sunset Tower. I had a very young sister, and my mom would take off and do her thing — and I would watch my sister for a couple of days at a time. I have one very clear memory of playing in the parking garage with my sister and a car pulling in and my mom and Richard getting out. They were blasted. And she said, “Oh, I love you so much,” and just went straight up to the apartment and left us in the garage. That’s the clearest memory.
As a teenager you were a drug dealer. What did you sell and were you any good at it?
rawk2live, Bullhead City, AZ
I sold a lot of pot, acid and chocolate mescaline: We would take the mescaline and mix it with Hershey’s chocolate powder; then we’d get vitamin capsules and empty them out and put the mescaline chocolate inside. Very big in Seattle in the late ’70s — they’d dump the capsules out and put it on their tongue and get a faster hit. I always dipped into my profits: I never really made money.
How did you pick the name Nikki Sixx — and is it true there used to be two of you?
Indecent_Mike, Clearwater, FL
I had a band called London and everything was about Britain, and I was Nikki London. And I was like, “I wanna change my name: I don’t want to be Nikki London of London.” I used to date this girl, Angie Saxon. I was going through her scrapbook and I saw a guy that she used to date named Niki Syxx in a band called Jon & the Nightriders. So I stole his name. I just liked it.
When Mötley Crüe started, you were no good at playing the bass. When did you learn to do it properly?
frethead, Midvale, UT
Well, it’s really funny. There’s this thing out there that I can’t play bass. Every time I jam with other musicians, they’re like, “Damn, dude! You’re a pretty good bass player!” And I’m like, yeah. I’ve toured the world 20 times, you know? Played in front of millions and millions of people. Duh! Am I interested in becoming Flea? Absolutely not. Can I sit down and do a bass solo for you? Oh, hell no. I don’t care too much.
