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

by Nikki Sixx

  So, on worn Chuck Taylors, I did an about-face and headed toward the prostitutes, who quickly stopped laughing as I approached. It seemed like they were scowling at me more with every step I took. I had a pocket full of rubles so I figured I would get them to pose for a few portraits, but it wasn’t me they were getting pissy about. It was my camera. In a deep, loud, Russian voice the brunette said something to the crack-whore-skinny blonde who then yelled it to the drinking cop who then barked something at me that didn’t sound anything like “Welcome to Red Square.”

  Being alone, I thought it better at this point to come back with an interpreter. On the way out of Red Square, I encountered a man outside a church asking for money. He had the hardest face I’ve ever seen, like an oil painting that had started to crack. I so wanted to shoot him, but he said “No.” Finally, I found this old woman hunched over, lurking in the shadows of a doorway. You could tell what she was thinking, but I just pulled out five hundred rubles and held up my camera…and said please…

  There was no light to be had and the lens I had wasn’t the fastest, so I aimed and took the shot, and she said thank you. But the picture was completely black. Shit, five hundred rubles for one underexposed image. (Now that’s inflation.) So I pointed to the darkness and then pointed to a streetlight a few feet away and said, “PLEASE” while sort of asking her with my hands to move toward the light. As she said yes, I adjusted my lens, pulled her into focus, and she smiled with her eyes. She said something that sounded sweet, grabbed my hand, made the sign of the cross over me, and said, softly, in English, “I bless you with God.”

  That was it. I was happy. My first picture in Russia may not be the biggest concept piece, but the biggest heart piece, like rays of light coming from the eyes of this woman, who has seen this country’s biggest changes; from bad to worse and now from worse to wonderful. Moscow is alive with architecture, fashion, metropolitan high-rises rubbing shoulders with historical cathedrals. This simple moment, this simple moment at 10:00 P.M., May 30, 2009, Nikki Sixx captured her reason, her life, hopefully a piece of her soul.

  RED SQUARE fig.rs62

  ST. PETERSBURG

  JUNE 4, 2009

  She leaned heavily onto my ear and said something in Russian. It didn’t sound nice and when I jumped, she responded with, “Nyet.” Now, the only things I know in Russian are yes and no and this wasn’t yes. Large and strong like a bull, her name might as well have been Olga. I guess I had fallen asleep on the massage table and she was telling me to roll over. Communication breakdown number one, but I figured it out and at the same time figured I probably shouldn’t tell her I’m running late to meet Andrei, my interpreter and photography tour guide for the day.

  After the brutal beating Olga administered to my body, I headed for a quick steam, only to find myself face-to-face with what looked like an old-time Russian criminal, and in the sauna no less. I’ve seen so many Russian criminal tattoos that one could only assume he was either one now or used to be. I, of course, find these situations very inspiring and immediately tried to talk to him. Again, “Nyet, nyet, nyet…” Communication breakdown number two…I soaked up the steam and headed to my room, grabbed my cameras, and went down to the lobby to meet Andrei.

  He was born and raised in St. Petersburg and knowledgeable in all things having to do with this city. I felt like I had probably struck a gold mine of information so I tested him and it seemed like he was gonna pass with flying colors.

  The pure size and girth of the buildings humble you. As we were driving through the city, Andrei would say that building was built in 1724 or 1873 and so on and so on…Amazed by the sheer beauty of the city, I still ended up asking where the broken-down and the mentally ill people were, or the false storefronts with junkies flipping tricks in the alley behind, or dealers giving kickbacks to the police.

  All I got were vacant stares. I asked Andrei if he understood and he went into a rant in Russian to my driver whose fingernails were way too long and whose smile was somewhat crooked. Finally I got my answer: No.

  Some days it’s just too hard digging in the trash for gold. Communication breakdown number three wasn’t going to get solved that day so I blurted out, “Stop.” And we did, on a dime. All the contents of my camera bag flew through the air and landed facedown in the van. I grabbed my camera, jumped out the door, and took five quick pictures of her. I don’t know her name, but again, she could have been named Olga, too. Robust and dirty, with a million miles of hardship on her face. I handed her a hundred rubles and she smiled, putting the bills into her sock and keeping the change in her little plastic bowl.

  Fifty yards up the path, across from a gothic Christian church, sat another lady whose story probably didn’t differ much, but the look in her eye was anything but pleasant. I felt as though I was face-to-face with the beast that inhabited Linda Blair in The Exorcist and at any moment I was about to be hurled on with some nasty green pea soup just for saying hello. Always one to do the wrong thing at the wrong time, I went ahead and asked, “May I please snap a picture?” Now, all I understood besides nyet (which was repeated at escalating volume) was the Russian version of “Get the fuck outta my face you pompous overdressed smug camera-carrying fucking American.” I told her I loved her, too, snapped a picture anyway, and gave her a hundred rubles, which didn’t stop her from cursing me as I ran into the church.

  HELSINKI LOVE LETTER

  JUNE 5, 2009

  Jet lag is a motherfucker and I often wonder how someone like our president or any diplomat who travels from continent to continent (sometimes on the drop of a dime) can keep their composure. I look like hell and feel even worse. No amount of coffee is gonna help this train wreck in the bathroom mirror today. The lines on my face are only matched by the strings tugging on my heart. I like to say there is no crying in rock n roll, but I feel on the verge of tears every time I get a text from my friends, my kids, or my girl. This isn’t getting easier as I get older. In fact, it’s now close to impossible to leave them at home.

  The hardest thing in my life has been love. When I love you, it hurts. It hurts deeply to not be with you, around you. Even if only in the same area, time zone, or city. I am a romantic, and it just plain hurts. Ah, to be a vampire…To live forever with the ones you love…I spent most of my life trying to kill myself and now I wanna live forever…God help me, I am insane.

  Adversity isn’t something I thought I’d be dealing with now because, to be honest, my life seemed somewhat blessed. The drugged-out, alcohol-guzzling, womanizing, lying, confused, and abused life was over. I have a wonderful family. I’m healthy, strong, emotionally balanced, and have the most amazing girlfriend ever…Well, that all came to a crashing halt right before I left for this tour.

  RUSSIAN HOMELESS fig.Ru51

  RUSSIA fig.ru486

  She had been hinting. I thought I had been listening. Then WHAM! Like a ton of bricks. And my heart is broken. I feel like I am dying inside, sitting here with wounds that I thought had scarred over, now bursting open. I feel like a man trying to plug up a hole in a dam and I’m running outta fingers and toes. Eckhart Tolle says in his book A New Earth that winning streaks come to an end someday and you will then have to find your life’s purpose. I thought I had found mine in the relationship department. I didn’t see us ever not being together…I am dealing with all this information whilst missing my family, missing my life as a whole, and missing her and what I thought “we” had.

  Yes, I think I have finally had my heart broken. In fact, for the first time ever.

  Isn’t it amazing that every time I say or think something like “my life is great,” I get my ass handed to me? Life is hard.

  Back in L.A. seventeen days ago I tried my best to put pen to paper:

  MAY 21, 2009

  Sitting here at Funny Farm, sad, confused, and unmotivated. All the feelings Katherine was not associated with. I never felt sad, never confused, and was always motivated by her. We have broken up and I cannot figure out what happ
ened. How did we go from madly in love, dying in each other’s arms, to this? Everything reminds me of her and it seems I sometimes forget to breathe. A gulp of air and I know I’m alive ’cause my heart hurts like a thousand swords have been jammed into it all at once. What does a man do with such pain? I know I can’t and won’t drink and drugs are even farther out than a glimmer of a possibility. I won’t act out, burst out, or smash the nearest thing in retaliation. I won’t, and for sure can’t blame. So what do I do?

  It feels like death. I know this feeling and it hurts like hell. Yes, sometimes I cry at the drop of a hat because I hurt. It hurts so bad that I turn numb from moment to moment. I hate this but, I hate to say it, I am right where I am supposed to be. Nothing can prepare us for loss, death, and heartbreak. There is no amount of anything that can make it better. We don’t own time so we can’t fast forward it or ask it to come back later when the timing is right…So we ache at our core. We cry and sometime even scream out in horror of it all.

  She is the best thing to ever happen to me and I will forever love her. I hope to never see her in the arms of another but if I do, so be it…Then I will hurt again. Our lives may be magical to you, but it’s not all peaches and cream. Time is our enemy. It fights us, it wakes us up, tugs at us, rips at us, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second until finally, like now, it rips out your fucking heart. I sit here with my heart slowly pumping on the floor of the studio. I am alone except for the haunting of her once smiling, cheerful presence. She helped me build this dream house. She gave her heart to me and now she wants it back and I think I am going to die. I can smell her on the sofa, in the air…And I can still hear her in the other room painting. But, you see, the problem is that she is gone and I don’t think she is coming back. Even if she were to call and say, “I was just kidding” I know she is right. It’s just not the right time. Our lives are just too crazy and Time, that fucking bastard, has beat us again.

  I love you Katherine…I hope to have this all again one day with you…Until then, I will dive into my addictions of art and my kids and, if I’m lucky, maybe one day I will hear you painting in the other room…

  I miss you…I love you…

  Nikki

  COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

  JUNE 10, 2009

  Got in from Norway to dumping rain. Beautiful in its dampness, I still chose to sit in my room. Wrote some, read some, slept some, chatted on the phone some, texted some. And then some more…and then even more…the road. Today seems forty-eight hours long.

  1 A.M.

  Show was intense and I’m wiped out.

  Good night.

  LONDON

  JUNE 13, 2009

  She gasped. I jumped, literally pissing on my own leg. “Oh my God, Mum, it’s Nikki Sixx,” she said. Like I said, I was literally caught with my pants down, peeing in the graveyard at Highgate Park. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but it would’ve been worse to be lugging all those cameras around a graveyard on a hot English afternoon with piss running down the inside of my favorite pants.

  So, quickly, I buttoned up and turned, somewhat red-faced, and said I was sorry (hoping I hadn’t just urinated on her family plot) and scuffled off. I could hear the girl trying to explain to her mother what a Nikki Sixx was, but I wasn’t gonna stick around and get an earful from Mum. After all, I had a whole cemetery to myself and forty-five minutes ’til closing. (Imagine being in a cemetery at closing time. Weird.)

  The Highgate Cemetery is one I had wanted to visit for years but, between my past addiction and living in Los Angeles, well, let’s just say timing is everything and the time had finally arrived…Even if it feels like it came on a slow boat outta hell.

  One of my favorite pictures is this wonderful shot I took there of an angel statue. I was drawn to her hands. It felt so hopeful, for a tombstone, just by the fact that the hands formed a heart shape. The light cut through the trees just right, just for a moment, and I got it. Two seconds before or a few after, it would’ve been a completely different photo. That’s the thing with photography—you can capture magic moments and, like this one, it seems like it was meant to be. Love is forever. Even in death we can be assured of that, if we have lived a full life.

  All in all, another cemetery, another city, and another reminder of mortality with a double twist of humor.

  Backtracking to the Download festival the night before—eighty thousand strong and the band was firing on all cylinders. We have never really been that big in Europe and rightfully so. We were too tired at the end of eight, nine, thirteen months of touring America to understand that Europe was not gonna wait around for us. Every year, same situation until one day we said let’s go play Europe and they said, “OK, but you guys aren’t really that big there.” Imagine the faces on us. And then it sunk in. We owe Europe and we were now putting in the time that we should’ve done twenty years ago, and twenty years later we’re finally about to be worth our weight in gold.

  MUNICH & STUTTGART

  JUNE 15, 2009

  I have known our German promoter, Ossy Hoppe, for almost a quarter century. He was the first promoter to do Mötley Crüe and he has seen it all. What I didn’t know is that Ossy grew up in the Russian circus. In our conversations in that tiny backstage dressing room, I learned about that life and, of course, I asked about where to find the old, tired, and broken down. I asked where they live, and could I shoot them? He said I was in the wrong city. They mostly lived in Hamburg. We agreed that my next trip to Germany would entail a Diane-Arbus-type adventure.

  The show was good, but the language barrier had us wondering if they liked us or loved us. We were convinced it wasn’t love because every time we spoke to them, they would stare back with blank faces. Of course, we needed to be reminded we have not been here in twenty years and maybe if we came more often they might know us a bit better. I accepted that lie as I collected my clothes and headed back to the hotel, only thinking of tomorrow’s adventure. I mean, isn’t this what I had been asking for?

  Stuttgart, Germany, was somewhat better, but I am convinced they hated us, too. Tommy wanted to know the same thing, but when Mick stepped to center stage they roared. Vince said they just hate us three, and we all just laughed.

  BERLIN

  JUNE 16, 2009

  I walked from the gig over to a cemetery a few minutes ago. Crumbling bullet holes hold rusted shells that are still buried in the sides of angel statues. Expired mortar casings kissing ever so softly up to mom and dad’s tombstones. Life wasn’t so grand in 1945 in Berlin when America invaded and conquered the Nazis. It was a country in turmoil and internationally hated. A country riddled with bombs, flamethrowers, and hand grenades. Overrun with tanks and leveled by U.S. bombers. Blown to pieces, then crumbled to its knees. For the grandparents of the kids waiting to see Mötley Crüe play tonight, life was so different. I can’t even imagine what life must have been like here.

  We are playing in a cement building that has all the markings of the same destruction bestowed upon the cemetery only half a mile away. I sit here in my dressing room and it’s hauntingly quiet. Cement does that to a room, makes it like a bunker. It’s as though I am in a cement casket right now, and I’m feeling claustrophobia sink in. I snapped a picture on my way out of here a while ago. A sign reading Stage with an arrow on the cement floor outside my dressing room. I am tired, tired of the road. Germany is one of my favorite places, and I’m having a hard time even enjoying it this time. It’s beautiful outside, the weather is perfect, the people kind, and as always the food and drink are exceptional here. But I am worn out…If I could crawl inside one of those tombs I swear I’d sleep for a year…

  At moments like this, I wake up and realize how ungrateful I probably sound. A kid from nowhere getting to go everywhere. A kid who had nothing, who now really has everything. Life is like this very moment if you’re alive enough to take it in.

  I realize I complain a lot about being tired. I know it sounds selfish and I know I repeat myself (a
lot). Some days I’m like an automatic weapon rambling outta control. Like some kind of Rambo(aholic) with two AK-47s on full automatic. When I am in tune with my inner asshole, it feels like I am watching them destroy everything in their path and can’t manage to take my finger off the trigger. It’s some kind of an addiction to the drama in my own head. It must be a fucking nightmare to those around me, and to be honest, I make myself puke sometimes too.

  OK, enough self-loathing for one day.

  BERLIN fig.b83

  I saw Lemmy in London and he just called and said he was in Berlin mixing some music. Nothing gets me outta my own way like Lemmy. I threw him and a few others on the guest list and I’m excited to see my friend. He has also become good friends with Katherine and that makes me happy. He is a “tell it like it is” kind of guy, and people like me and Katherine need that. In fact, so does Lemmy. We spoke deep into the night in London, telling torrid tales of truth and debauchery only to sometimes end the story being interrupted by the other saying “That ain’t right” or “That’s bullshit” or better, “I don’t really agree, bro.” (Not that I really remember Lemmy ever saying the word bro.)

  Friends tell each other what nobody else is willing to tell you.

  Now I have said my piece, may God bless these little Crüeheads in Berlin ’cause we’re about to rock their fucking faces off. It’s time to get ready…