Advertisement
On the eve of the announcement of their big summer tour and the band's first new album in a decade, Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx took some time out to talk to us about the new record, band relations and the state of rock & roll.
•
Click here for a Q&A with Nikki Sixx
•
Click here for a report from the Mötley Crüe press
conference
Tell me about the new record.
It's called Saints of Los Angeles. Mick Mars and I
started writing about four months ago. I had done a record with
James Michael and DJ Ash for my side project, and we had such an
amazing chemistry together that me and Mick and James and DJ were
just on a songwriting mission from hell. It was amazing. We brought
in another friend called Marty Frederickson. Doing the whole
Heroin Diaries project really helped me to focus on a
specific issue. Like, instead of writing a love song, make it about
a moment. Make it about the kiss. So for this, what we really
wanted to do is take the concept of the autobiography, The
Dirt, and make it into songs. I was really trying lyrically to
do that, and to work so closely with Mick and really develop the
phenomenal songs working with James and Marty and DJ Ash. For the
first record we've done in ten years, it's really, really, really
good. I got to tell ya. I'm very excited.
Is the sound similar to any previous Mötley
Crüe records that you could compare it to?
You know, there's a sound with Mötley Crüe, and it
comes with Vince's voice, which is such an important part of the
show, and Mick's guitar. And the way Tommy and me play together is
an important part of it. When we're all together, it really is
Mötley Crüe, but we've done albums, like Generation
Swine, where we went left of center just to see what it felt
like. But this album feels a little truer our core. You hear
something like "Saints of Los Angeles" and you don't go, "Who's
this? It kind of sounds like Mötley Crüe." You go, "Fuck,
new Mötley Crüe!" It would be like AC/DC coming on the
radio with a new record, or Aerosmith. You either like the band or
you don't like the band. It's not the band trying to make you like
them. It's the band doing what they do. And that's our strong
point.
Where was it recorded?
We recorded it all out in Los Angeles in different studios.
Today, that whole thing about spending $2,000 an hour in some
recording studio is ridiculous. We don't do that anymore. We own
our own equipment. It's small, it's compact. You get in, you get
out. I'm not into sitting there and fidgeting at a console for days
about a guitar sound. I mean, you plug it in, it sounds fuckin'
good, and you go. Rock & roll is dirty, and it's bad, and it's
either clever or it's not clever.
Do you and Mick still write the same way you did twenty
years ago?
Absolutely. He has a bunch of riffs, I have a bunch of riffs. I
usually stop him half way through his riff, and go, "Change that
note, and change that note." And then I play, and I ask, "What
about this part?" and he goes, "What if you changed that part?" and
I go, "Good idea." And I just start singing something over it, and
there's some naughty little lyric with some sarcasm dripping off of
it. Like, "Don't go away mad, just go away" just came in one
minute. It will kick-start my heart. It just comes. It seems that
the times that we try so hard to craft stuff, it ends up sounding
processed.
Advertisement
Did you feel reenergized as a band after that last tour?
Yeah. But the truth is bands run in cycles, and you have highs,
and you have lows. And I think that was the beginning of a high. I
think that we will be running on full tilt here for a while,
because it feels so good. It's nice to have that catalogue of
music, and it's nice to have the legacy. I think rock and roll is
gonna be back in a big fucking way here. You have so many options
out there, from video games to the Internet. You're on your iPhone,
and you're watching YouTube videos. What's going to make someone go
out and go to a show? It takes a lot to get me to leave my house to
go see something. But if you have to give 100 percent, like with
Alice Cooper and Bowie and Slade — those fucking bands gave
150 percent. It was about fashion, it was about music, it was about
pushing the envelope. You got to give people a lot to make them
really want to come out and see you and buy your records and say,
"I fucking dig this band because they give me something."
Do you feel any pressure because it's the first record
with the original lineup in ten years?
You know what? I never even thought about that until this
interview. But you don't even think about it because we've been
making music and going on tour and writing songs and doing shows. I
guess it would seem like it would create pressure, but it doesn't
really.
Just to dispel all the rumors: Tommy Lee is back in the
band?
Yeah, Tommy's in the band. It's the original band and we got rid
of the external problems. Now the band is a band, and we don't have
outside problems.
Are you guys getting along well?
Yeah, we always get along when we don't have all those fucking
people from the outside trying to push and pull and do the things
they do.
What's the tone of the record? Are you laughing at your
past or is it more a cautionary tale?
It's a very light record in the sense that it's not heavy
subject matter, but that comes from demented souls, you know? We
think that the stuff we did is dark, so it'll come across like that
on the record.
I think Mötley Crüe is entering a period where
they are now a classic band. Do you agree?
I'm seeing it. I think we're still like a band that goes out and
tears it up and I don't really pay attention. That's my fucking
problem. Someone goes to me the other day, "I don?t think you've
realized what you've done" and I go, "What do you mean?" and he
says "Well, you just walk around the streets like you're just some
guy" and I say, "Well I am some guy!" and he goes "No dude, you
don't understand. You guys are becoming those guys that you grew up
with!" And I'm like, "Oh! Well that's kind of cool." So yeah, it's
kind of cool.