This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx (23 page)

Two days ago, in some town I can’t remember, we wrote a song called “Smile.” The hotel was somewhat eerie in a
Shining
(the movie) type of way. All I remember besides the chorus to the song is that the hotel smelled like dead people and James and I got lost in the woods and thought for some reason that was funny, too. We both decided that our iPhone cameras were better than our Nikons and even further into lunacy came the comparison to my Hasselblad.

Clearly, it’s time for me to go home. Insanity is contagious and now James has it bad too.

Friendship is like music, and sometimes it’s like songwriting in Syracuse, New York. Nothing really gets accomplished except laughter. I smile at this ’cause, to be honest, we probably wrote more music talking than we even know. Music comes out in a lot of ways…Like our pictures taken with shitty cell-phone cameras when we were lost in the woods, or even the grueling drudgery of my high-concept photo shoots at Funny Farm. It’s all about the feeling. In other words…inspiration. It doesn’t matter where you get it. It could be on the six o’clock news or from the morning paper but you usually have to process things in your mind like film before it develops…It will come out if you give it time…Like life, right? If you live through all the pain, it will develop into inspiration and come out in all kinds of ways. Sometimes I see it in a smile. Other times I feel it in a song or when I have to hold back the tears when I watch a film…it all comes from somewhere deep inside somebody else. They are giving it to us to feel with them. These are life’s gifts…

Like songwriting in Syracuse.

Smile

Sixx:A.M.

As the light washes over the morning rise

You’re still asleep and that’s alright

I can be still, because you look so sweet

And beautiful next to me

And all my life I’ve been waiting for someone like you

To make me smile

You make me feel alive

And you’re giving me everything I’ve ever wanted in life

You make me smile

And I forget to breathe

What’s an angel like you ever do with a devil like me

You make me smile

Still in bed

Sun is beating down

In a hotel room on the edge of town

Wake up baby

There’s three hundred miles to drive

And the truckstop preacher

He says “God is on our side”

And all my life I’ve been waiting for someone like you

To make me smile

You make me feel alive

And you’re giving me everything I’ve ever wanted in life

You make me smile

And I forget to breathe

What’s an angel like you ever do with a devil like me

You make me smile

OFF THE ROAD AGAIN: HARD TO DESCRIBE, HARDER TO SWALLOW

It’s hard to describe the end of a tour. But as I sit here in my home in Los Angeles, I will try. It has been described by some as a sort of “post-tour depression” disorder, not unlike what soldiers experience after coming home from war. I can honestly say I’ve had it.

It’s the feeling a fish probably has when it’s out of water. There isn’t enough sleep to rest your soul (if you even have one left after all the soul sucking on the road) or enough holy water to wash off the grime, slime, and disease that has somehow become your second skin. Like a lot of things, the end can be brutal. Like running a mile around the football field when you were a kid. (It took four laps.) The last quarter mile was hell. You wanna quit every step. You fight, not quitting as your legs grow heavier and heavier and your breath grows shallow and your sides split open from cramps. Everybody is watching—the coach, the high school girlfriends, and all your friends (and a few foes)—so you persevere and cross that finish line. Amazingly, you’re still alive with not a drop of blood in sight. Shit, you did it. You made it and you didn’t think you could or would.

This isn’t unlike the end of a tour (or relationship). When you finally throw your hands to the sky and fall to your knees and look up at God (or is that a 747?), you know you’ve pushed yourself to the limit and you’ve won another personal battle. OK, OK, let’s get to the point here…

The point is, I wanted to die the last month on tour with Mötley Crüe. I am gonna keep saying it so you understand that I am being honest and telling you what nobody wants to admit. Like I said, this is hard to describe and probably hard for some of you to swallow but it has to be said—sometimes rock stars are fucking phonies. Liars. We have bad days, asshole days, and sometimes we whine like little bitches, and nobody wants to admit it to their fans. Begrudgingly, some days we put on the clown suit and go out there and make the kids laugh, but we’re not gods. We’re not always happy to be here, there, or anywhere. Some days we’re just going through the motions…

And we get tired. Fucking tired…Sorry to spill the beans…Sorry to burst your bubble, but the truth needs to be told…Better to hear it from me than someone else. Honesty is the best policy and all that malarkey.

This is the stuff we talk about backstage, behind the circus tent so to speak, and it feels good to me to be honest, even to you the reader (or the fan). So let’s continue to beat this dead horse so we can work out the kinks.

Fucking rock star poseur motherfuckers always say the same shit to the fans…
Had a great time…Can’t wait to come back here again…
I mean come on, Madonna gets on the rag some days, Bono throws up when he gets the flu, and Paul McCartney gets the shits and still has to sing “Yesterday.” Truth be told, the only sign that high-profile people are in trouble is usually suicide or overdose.

Right about now my editor is screaming “Don’t put that in the book. It will make you look bad.”

Note to self, fire editor.

Second note to self, continue to ruffle feathers and stir shit.

Third note to self, try and explain yourself, Sixx…

I’ve experienced everything from rolling over and picking up the phone to call room service only to realize that I was home in my own bed, to rolling over and pissing on the floor ’cause I was too tired to get out of bed. (Not a wise move, especially when you’re not in a hotel.) I’ve had to reconnect with society in ways that will seem alien to you. Simple, everyday things like getting into your car and forgetting how to put it in gear. Going to the grocery store and standing in the cereal aisle, dumbfounded, baffled, zombielike. You have to reboot the brain at that point, or better yet, reboot your life, if you have one left. There is that old saying “He sold his soul for rock n roll” for a reason.

Years ago, I left to tour for
Shout at the Devil
and came back eighteen months later only to find my cereal bowl still sitting in the same place on the table where I left it when the tour bus pulled up to get me. Surreal doesn’t describe that feeling. Like being lost in space, only to return a different man and everybody else is exactly the same. Problem is, you can’t remember their names or who they are…To be honest, sometimes you can’t remember your own name or who
you
are either…

This is day two for me being home from Crüe Fest 2. I can honestly say I don’t feel any of that. I am so happy to be home, and there isn’t one drop of Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe to be seen, felt, or tasted. I walked off that plane ready to take on normality. I am over it. I am DONE. Overcooked to the point of burnout.

P.S. I love what I do until what I do does me. Playing live, making albums, photography, writing books, and working with other artists is bliss.

Gimme a week of sleep and I’ll be ready to take on the world again but right now, I need a coffin and an IV drip…

Love you…sorta…

AFTER SHOW, HOUSTON
fig.bh593

(Sixx:A.M.)

You were right,

We never really gave a damn

Spent our lives running through the wasteland

An early sign we should have had a battle plan

But we were young

Close your eyes

And try to count to seven

If we die, I’ll meet you up in heaven

Cuz you’re beautiful

We were so independent

So high on ill intentions

We would explode in fury

We were too scared to worry anyway

But now you’re the only thing that’s worth dying for

You give me a reason I can’t ignore

And make me want to live forever

You’re everything I’ve been waiting for

All of these years and a thousand more

You make me want to live forever

When I woke up and wonderland had gone to hell

It choked me, but maybe it was just as well
Cuz you and I, we burned up every brain cell and bridge we had

We were so independent

So high on ill intentions

We would explode in fury

We were too scared to worry anyway

But now you’re the only thing that’s worth dying for

You give me a reason I can’t ignore

And make me want to live forever

You’re everything I’ve been waiting for

All of these years and a thousand more

You make me want to live forever

Dancing with a razor blade

Sleeping with a hand grenade

I will gladly take the blame

SELF-PORTRAIT, WET PLATE
fig.sp47

THE END, UNLESS IT’S THE BEGINNING

I
am writing this by hand because my computer has no battery life left. I think it’s a good way to start the last chapter, running outta juice, so to speak.

I don’t know about you, but I am pretty exhausted by all this honesty. I have to tell you, this book has uncorked me in places I didn’t know were stuck. I have had realizations about my childhood and decisions I’ve made based on those hard years, about how they formed my outlook and perception of my life, and how I plan to move forward with the help of this newly peeled onion.

I know this will touch some of you. Some of you will relate, some may even curse because you agree with me or, better yet, will sling these pages across the room thinking, “How
dare
he say that.”

I think the biggest realization is how fear has driven me to achieve great things but also, like any double-edged sword, has cut me, sometimes to the bone. During the writing of this book I came to this realization: ego is the enemy, and fear is one of the masks of ego, as is anger. I am not a psychologist or a therapist, but I have been to both over the years, and read many books, too. I think the journey to a better life begins when you find your true self and name the issue at hand. Mine would be my abandonment by my mother and father. For me, the process of recovery happens through outside help and with a spiritual connection to a power greater than myself.