Are the days of hard rockers wearing lots of hairspray and makeup totally gone? Well, if you looked on Billboard’s Top 200 charts a month ago or even Pollstar’s Top 50 tickets sales, you might not think that those days were history! As it turns out, “The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band” Motley Crue, who recently re-united for the sake of Crue fans around the world to tour one last time, were number one for weeks on Pollstar’s Top 50 ticket sales, and their most recent greatest hits package to date, Red White, And Crue debuted at No. 6 on Billboard’s Top 200. To get numbers like that in a day and age of your Ashlee “I Have No Talent” Simpsons and your Ryan Cabreras, it goes to show that rock is not dead and is still very well alive and trying to kick!
I remember hearing “Too Fast For Love” for the first time at my cousin’s house when I was like nine back in 1982. From then on, it was all downhill for me! It wasn’t until 1983, when I first saw the “Looks That Kill” video on MTV that I saw Motley Crue in full gear and in full action. I was floored! I was 10 years old and I knew where I wanted to go in my life! Just watching Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee alone got me so pumped up! That was it! I wanted to be Nikki Sixx! I grew my hair long, I picked up the guitar, I learned to play bass on the guitar, which is exactly what Nikki did, and I pretty much tried to live my life like I was the fifth member of Motley Crue! What a loser I was!
Little did I know that while I was home watching Motley Crue Uncensored until I warped that damn videotape, my heroes were living lives of debauchery from doing more drugs than a methadone clinic has ever seen to sticking telephones into women’s privates and then proceeding to order a pizza with it to snorting ants and licking pee with Ozzy Osbourne. These guys were true heroes to me and many other Crueheads, and it’s a miracle they’re still alive to tell their tale! Well, one almost didn’t make it! And that one was the guy that was my true hero, Nikki Sixx! Nikki almost died of a heroin overdose right after the very short “Girls, Girls Girls” tour back in 1987. He was brought back to life with a couple of shots of adrenaline to the heart, hence the song, “Kickstart My Heart.”
Since that close call with death, Nikki has cleaned himself up, has become a father (a few times), married a Playboy Playmate (Donna D’Errico), has become a New York Times bestselling author with The Dirt, and has been through many variations of Motley Crue, starting with Vince Neil leaving (depending on whose story you get) in 1992 and Tommy Lee leaving in 1999. Nikki, who’s been the heart and soul of Motley since 1981, released a CD with his new band, Brides Of Destruction in 2004, which also featured former L.A. Guns axe slinger, Tracii Guns. It wasn’t until the middle of 2004 when the rumor mill started hitting the internet that the original four bad boys of rock-n-roll were getting back together. Believe me, nobody thought this was possible especially because Tommy Lee and Vince Neil haven’t gotten along since Vince sucker punched Tommy at an airport back in 1999.
Then it happened! December 2004, Motley Crue announced their reunion and a full-blown farewell tour! What was their reason? According to Motley, the fans kept asking for it! Between you and me, I’m sure there’s something green involved also! Either way, this boy is very happy that it happened! Motley Crue bring their Rock and Roll Circus to a sold out Madison Square Garden in NYC this week, but I got to talk to my idol and god, Nikki Sixx while Motley Crue were in Cleveland, OH a couple of weeks ago. Here’s how it went.
Hey Nikki, what’s goin’ on, man?
Hey, man! I’m looking for an ashtray, but I guess I’ll just use the floor!
Yeah, that’s fine! I do that all the time!
(laughs) It’s the Ritz Carlton, what the fuck do they care?
They got enough money! What’s another rug? Don’t worry about it!
Exactly!
Nikki, I have to get this off my chest real quick before we start! I’m a huge fan of Motley Crue! If there was such a thing as the school of hard rock, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, and Mick Mars were all of my professors!
(laughs) Your professors! Nice! And Bad!
No way! That’s good! My parents won’t agree, but Nikki, on behalf of every Cruehead out there across America and the World! Thank you for doing this reunion tour!
We’re having a good time…So far!
(laughs) So far, right? How are Vince and Tommy getting along…So far?
Everything seems wonderful!
Yeah? Because there are rumors floating around that they’re traveling on separate tour buses?
We’re all on separate buses! That’s because we’ve been fuckin’ doing this for 24 years! Listen, it’s so funny, because somebody goes, ‘You guys are on separate buses!’ and I go, (pause) ‘Ya!’ So they go, ‘You must be fightin’, right?’ And I go, ‘Uh, no!’ And they go, ‘Then why y’all on separate buses?’ and I go, ‘Hey, dude? Um, I am not fuckin’ 18 years old, and am not fuckin’ gonna bunk with fuckin’ eight people on my bus!’ Every guy has their bus because they’ve earned it! And they’ve earned to have a full bed. Me and Tommy have full recording studios. You know, we travel in a convoy. We all travel together. We all hang out on each other’s buses, but there’s no way if you travel by bus that you get four really nice living conditions. You know, it’s that we made those decisions based on the fact that we, you know, have a quality of life that we enjoy! That we’ve earned! And, you know, I have a killer home, wife, kids…Okay, let me go fuckin’ go in a bunk and like lay in this little coffin and lay there and go, ‘Okay, this is not fair!’ (laughs) So, you know, we’re enjoying ourselves because we’ve set it up to enjoy ourselves because we have the experience! And the time that we’re together, it is wonderful!
