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Legendary bassist and glam metal pioneer, Nikki Sixx has been kicking
our asses since 1981 and hasn't stopped rocking yet. Sixx was the madman
bassist for Motley Crue who sported the double-black eye-lined make-up
along with teased out hair and spandex pants. He and his mates rocked
the world with their high-powered, ultra-energized metal mayhem and in
turn they raised the bar for all metal bands who followed.
Now, nearly 22 years later, Sixx is busy
as hell and rocking and rolling harder than ever. The father of five
still has the heart of a 19-year old that beats out with a thunderous
ambition. He still has hopes and dreams and a desire to rock your socks
off.
Currently, Sixx has an arsenal of brand new projects coming out starting
with his very own fashion line called N. SIXX by Dragonfly which was
totally inspired by the fine art of tattooing. The concept for clothing
based on tattoo designs began when Sixx met Edward Dada, owner of
Dragonfly Clothing. The two began talking about how it would be really
cool to create an entire clothing line soley based on tattoo art. "We're
not trying to reinvent the wheel here," says Sixx, "we're just putting
different rims on it. Look, everybody pretty much wears a lot of the
same thing, everyone likes jeans or pants and tee-shirts and jackets. I
mean, you can revamp it a little bit but your not gonna have these huge
differences, you know. The way our stuff is different is that it's based
on the tattoo lifestyle and it works across the board. It can go from
teenage girls all the way to bikers that can wear this stuff because
it's all about the imagery of tattoos."
The first line of Sixx's clothing were based on actual tattoos straight
from the rockers own body and later he decided that he wanted to explore
deeper into the rich history of tattoo art and add some old-school
styles to his line. "Well, when it first took off we did take actual
tattoos straight from my body," explains the fully tatted bassist. "A
lot of the pieces came right off my body and we still do that here and
there. But, the beautiful thing about tattooing is the
inspiration.Tattoos have such a long history and you can go as far back
as you want to go and you're gonna find tattooing and you can use those
as inspiration for different lines of clothes. There is Oriental, tribal
stuff and styles from the '50s, '60s, '70s and the '80s rock n roll
style and it's a lot of fun, man. So, depending on what we're creating
we have a lot to draw from. Like on a girls shirt we'd create something
like flowers or bight colors or something and for a guys shirt we may
take something a little more hardcore inspirational tattoo.
We're creating all new stuff, all brand new stuff. We have a huge room
full of graphic artists and we're actually hiring tattoo artists who are
graphic artists as well. They all help us create and give us legitimacy
to it. A lot of times I may go up to one of them and say, 'I want a
piece like this,' and I'd give them a picture I cut out of a magazine or
something from the 1950' with a panther crawling up the side of some
guys arm and say, 'I want it kinda like this, but put some tribal in
it.'" Says Sixx who has 90% of his body covered in tattoos, "I guess
there's really not a better person to represent a clothing line base on
tattoos."
Aside from the wonderful world of fashion, Sixx is still busy being a
rock star as well. He just re-released the entire Motley Crue back
catalog on Universal Records, penned a hit single for the multi-platinum
act Saliva (Rest In Pieces) and formed a new band of his own, "Brides Of
Destruction" whom are currently in the studio working on their debut
album. "Brides Of Destruction started basically when me and Traci Guns
[LA Guns] got together and said, 'we miss rock.' We missed bands that
just kicked fuckin' ass. And we just got together and had some fun to
see what we come up with. It just kinda grew form there. We got this
unknown singer named London LeGrand who I just think is gonna be really
big rock star. He just has the name, the voice and the whole vibe. He's
25-years old and open minded, just cool. Our drummer, Scott Coogan just
got off tour with Otep and there's drummers who are out there who blow
my mind and one was Tommy Lee [Motley Crue] and the other one Taylor
Hawkins[Foo Fighters] and Scott Coogan is in the ballpark, he's just an
amazing drummer. So we have this ability to crank out this nasty rock n
roll and we have amazing people in this band with great musicianship and
we're just having a lot of fun."
The super busy Sixx is also finishing up his new book entitled THE
HEROIN DIARIES which chronicles the wild, over the top, all excess, rock
'n roll lifestyle he lived within the heyday of Motley Crue's
popularity. Sixx explains, "what I wanted to do was add a kind of
cohesiveness to it. A lot of times when your under the ultimate pain
killer and have been though all of the situations I was in it impairs
your thoughts and memories and everything doesn't always make it from
the mind to the paper and for me that 's the creative beauty of it. It's
not just like memoirs with all these random scribbling, I'm kind of
piecing it together and weeding it out what was actually happening and
what it was about. We're finding a common thread through it all, which
is kinda interesting, and that's the reason why VH1 wanted to do a
special on it. Now, I don't want to give anything away..."
Although THE HEROIN DIARIES tells of tales of groupies, parties, fame
and fortune, there is a deeper message in the story that is far from
glamorous. "There are two different ways to look at it," explains Sixx.
"One is a Birdseye view of a story, 'The Year In A Life Of.' and then
there's also an up-close personal view of addiction. It actually lets
you in and go, "wow, this is what this drug can do to you? This is what
drugs can do?" Look, I'm not a sober cop, I'm not AA, I'm not a pro-go
get loaded guy. I'm just telling a story of what it was and what I was
at that time. It's valuable in the sense that it covers many different
aspects, it can be just outrageous like the William Burrows memoir-
JUNKY or it could be quite telling. It all depends on where you are at
in your own mind."
On top everything else, Paramount Pictures and MTV Pictures are set to
begin filming a movie based on the tell-all Motley Crue book "THE DIRT:
Confessions of the Worlds Most Notorious Rock Band." "It is very
exciting to see your life laid out in pages of a script and then having
a company like Paramount and MTV ready to make it all happen," gushes
Sixx who may be played by Jackass' own Johnny Knoxville. "You have to be
very careful with the casting. It scares me.When you're talking about a
Vince Neil or a Tommy Lee you got to really represent and that's hard,
man. Right now I'm just waiting for the script to be finished before I
really get into that stuff."
The plate is certainly quite full of the
44-year old rock veteran and he wouldn't have it any other way. "I just
try and juggle it all," he says with a laugh. "You know what, it's just
as much work to do something and have it be unsuccessful as it is for it
to be successful. But, right now there are so many great things
happening and if everything becomes successful I'm sure I'll be able to
balance them as well as anything. I have a lot fun doing what I do, I
have a lot of fun being creative, I have a lot of fun just living my
life."
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1998-2003 Sinbad Productions / BallBusterHardMusic.com
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