I asked our tour manager, 'Where's the fucking midget?' " says Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. "He goes, 'I don't know if it'll fit in the budget.' I told him, 'I don't give a fuck! Go find a homeless midget!' " Sixx, 46, the Crue's chief songwriter, is at home in Los Angeles preparing for the band's first outing in six years. The Crue will tour behind Red, White and Crue, a greatest-hits album out in February. Shows are selling out in cities around the world; tens of thousands of fans have signed petitions urging the band to add more dates in smaller towns. "I think rock shows are dated and passe if there's not something theatrical about them," says Sixx, adding this message for the kids: "Where's the new Steven Tyler, Johnny Rotten and the Ramones? Stop boring us. Let's blow some shit up! Let's be politically incorrect. Let's fucking whip our dicks out onstage. It's time! All the sickos are coming out for this tour -- if you go, you're gonna get laid."

When you were four, your mother was a backup singer for Frank Sinatra. Do you remember meeting him?

I'm positive my mother would have introduced me -- everybody uses their kid to hang out with celebrities, right? But that's not a memory I can piece together. I was more interested in finding my Hot Wheels that rolled under Row 27.

You've said you listened to radio obsessively as a kid. Do you still?

Right now I'm addicted to XM and Sirius. It's like radio on steroids. You can tune in to the hard shit, young scream-metal bands, or deep vinyl tracks from the Sixties or some obscure Marvin Gaye track or a trippy acoustic version of a Led Zeppelin song.

You mention in Motley Crue's bio The Dirt that curly-haired guys can't rock. What about Robert Plant?

You know, I'm not the biggest fan. Why aren't Queen and AC/DC thought of on the level of Zeppelin? Zeppelin were derived from the blues and really didn't go much farther. AC/DC carved out an original, never-heard-before sound. And Queen -- goddamn, man, fucking Queen II will knock your dick in the dirt every time.

What are your favorite bass lines?

You can always go to Paul McCartney and say, "Wow, great bass line." You could say that to Flea. They've created remarkable, hooky stuff. I do as well at times, like in "Primal Scream." But a lot of times the bass is secondary to the song. I love the playing on the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks.

Do you and your wife have a song?

You're gonna get me in trouble -- we don't really have a song. Well, I guess our song is between the sheets.

You mean the moaning? Or the Isley Brothers tune?

The music that's coming from between the sheets.

So you do it with the music off.

It goes in phases. There was a while when we were in a Roots phase, y'know, and Maxwell and stuff like that. My wife can tear it up. She's the wildest one in the house, and we get into the hard stuff sometimes. Nothing like a little Hatebreed when you're getting it on!

If you were to go to hell, what song would be playing over and over?

Anything by Ashlee Simpson.

What's the craziest thing you've seen, looking into an audience?

Dead animal parts. That's the sure sign that things are going awry. It's usually in Europe, and you look out and there's some guy waving a fucking cow leg.

Do you have scars that remind you of specific moments with the Crue?

No, but I'm pretty fucking scarred up from bashing myself onstage. My hands are fucked up. But nothing like Tommy [Lee]. He's a war zone. He puts so much into his drumming that his body is thrashed.

Given his recent hip-replacement surgery, will Mick Mars be able to make it through the tour?

Our show is over two hours long. First, it's a big portion of the first two records, then an intermission. Mick called me last night and said, "I don't know about this fucking intermission shit! Once we get rockin', I don't wanna stop!" He wants to work up a twenty-minute guitar solo. There are no worries there. Mick Mars is ready to fucking crush!

There's a great photo in The Dirt of a fat line of coke you formed into the shape of Texas. Did you make any other cool coke designs?

We used to have a dealer who followed us anywhere, with four or five ounces. We'd make these power rails: six feet long and two inches wide. People would be like, "You're out of your fucking mind!" We'd see how much we could do.

Oh, my God! You've done your height in coke?

Yeah!

How much makeup will you be bringing on tour?

You gotta wear makeup. You gotta look like a wreck. That's the purpose. Anyone who thinks makeup is to look pretty is a fag.

Did you keep all your old Crue outfits?

They're in a storage unit. When you open the wardrobe case, that funk will knock you to your knees. What we were sweating out of our system should have deteriorated the clothes. Maybe it preserved them, but that shit has not been washed in twenty years.

Exactly what does it smell like?

Have you ever smelled a dead animal?