Nikki Sixx - The First 21: How I Became Nikki Sixx

S pring in Los Angeles, seventy-something degrees, and my agent, Dennis Arfa, had taken me out to the ball game. The Dodgers were up in the seventh. Dennis was working on his second hot dog with not a care in the world. So naturally, in the snarkiest voice I could muster, I asked him, Why didnt we ever play Dodger Stadium?

Ive been working with Dennis for many a year, and he knows the places weve played as well as we do: Budokan, Wembley, Red Rocks, Madison Square Garden. Mtley Cres opened for the Rolling Stones. Weve packed every outdoor shed weve been booked into and headlined outdoor festivals around the world. In Los Angeles, weve filled the Hollywood Bowl and sold out the Staples Center. But Dodger Stadium? The only time Id set foot on the field was to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

I guess the reason would have to be your bright idea to break up the band.

Both of us burst out laughing.

If you guys ever change your minds, Dennis said, just call me.

A few hours later, I woke my wife up.

If we ever get back together, were going to play Dodger Stadium.

Courtneys used to me waking her up after midnight. Most of the time, shell indulge me. This time she said, But, baby, the band signed a contract.

This was true. A few years earlier, Mtley Cre signed a secession of touring contractand Courtney knows that I am a man of my word. But Im also a man whos ruled by his passions.

Ill think of something, I said.

At the time, I was working on The Dirt a movie based on the book about Mtley. The book had been a major best seller, and so far the movie was turning out better than any of us would have guessed. Tommy was being portrayed by Machine Gun Kelly. An English actor named Douglas Booth was playing me. So Booth was doing his best Nikki Sixx while the real Nikki Sixx was taking meetings with Live Nation, Apple, Spotify, radio stations, and social media platforms to promote the film. Id show scenes and snippets from the movie, share some of my own memories, and play the new song Id written.

Actually, I had several new songswell-formed ideas that all seemed exciting. I had been woodshedding with John 5, a guitarist whos played with everyone from k.d. lang to Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, and with Sahaj Ticotin, a musician whod set a record for holding a note longer than any other male singer. We had made a bunch of demos, and I played them all for Bob Rock, whod helped make Mtley Cres biggest album, Dr. Feelgood , in 1989. Hard to believe thirty years had gone by. But when Bob heard the tracks, he said, These sound like classic Mtley Cre songs. The song I had written for the credit sequence reminded Bob of Kickstart My Hearthigh praise from the man whod produced the original.

We have the songs, I told Courtney.

The songsthe musicis where it all starts. Without the music, thered be no club tours. No theater tours. No arenas. No private jets getting us to the arenas. Thered be no money, no platinum records to hang on the studio walls. For Mtley, there would have been none of the love and the hate or the death and destruction that come with the lifestyle. Between the four of us, weve got 160 years worth of memories to draw on. If this were a VHI special, wed all say in unison, Some of the best weve had! Some of the worst! And not many that we would take back!

Wed all be telling the truth. As a kid, I drew bands in my notebooks. Four complementary characters with superhero-like powers on drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. Those guys always looked cool and always had the best songs, played them well, and the lyrics had something to say. In my mind, I was building a new kind of monster.

Those bands were Mtley in embryo form. All I had to do was move out to Los Angeles, learn to play bass, and find three other musicians who saw the world the way I did. In the end, thats what happened. Of course, it took a ton of hard work, and not just the work youd imagine. On top of writing, rehearsing, working on our look and stage show, and playingand playing, and playingthere were the constant demands, obligations the industry made: junkets. Interviews with journalists who drank our booze, did our drugs, and then turned around and slagged us in their magazines. It took years of band therapy to keep us together and remind us of all the reasons we had to keep going.

But I had my own family to look after too. At the time, Courtney was pregnant. Our daughter, Ruby, was due in July. Touring isnt the easiest thing to do when youve got small kids at home. Over the years, I missed more holidays than I could count. I missed birthdays. There were PTA meetings I wanted to go to, but you cant hop a flight from Japan when the rest of the bands on their way to Australia.