by Nikki Sixx
NOVEMBER 17TH, 1987 KNOXVILLE COLISEUM, KNOXVILLE, TN
Hotel, 1:40 p.m.
Some nights when I lay my head down all I hear is ringing, and it’s getting worse every year. I never really mention this, I guess it’s just become normal to me, but lately I hear it when I wake up too if it’s quiet. I guess as long as it goes away when I’m done touring it’s OK.
NOVEMBER 18TH, 1987 JOFFERSON CIVIC CENTER, BIRMINGHAM, AL
Hotel, Knoxville, 3:15 a.m.
Show was good, sold out as usual. Drugs yes, alcohol yes, groupies yes, depression yes. Some girl asked me for an autograph and I asked her why. She said ’cause she admires me. I said maybe she should see a shrink then! She started crying and I started laughing.
Fuck this. I don’t wanna be a star.
I don’t understand anything anymore. Bob Timmons keeps calling asking me to consider rehab. I ask him if there’s one that won’t preach God to me like the last one. He just sighs and has that nervous laugh. Nobody understands me…nobody.
I’m lonely…I don’t know how to live and I can’t seem to die.
Backstage, 6:15 p.m.
Just flew in to the gig. No hotel until we get to Atlanta. I feel like my skin is rotting off me. I smell like shit and my shit has more and more traces of blood in it. I can’t explain how I feel other than I feel like I’m about to burst into tears at any moment. I walk around in circles in my room night after night…I can’t seem to find a path. What the fuck is happening to me? I can’t wait to get this show over so I can hide. You know, I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m calling Bob and asking him for a number of a psychiatrist. I’m crying out for help on the inside and pretending I’m OK on the outside. But I know it’s not a good façade at all.
TOMMY LEE: Nikki was never that stumble-around-fall-down guy who gets told to get his act together. He would just go to his room and get high alone. We all sort of did it. After months of being on tour with the same three guys, when it was travel-eat-sleep-fuck together, we just wanted to go to our rooms after the shows sometimes and not see each other. I’d sit in my room and do a couple of grams of fucking cocaine by myself. The guys would phone my room and say, “What are you doing?” and I’d say, “Nothing–’bye!” Then a couple of hours later I’d be calling them: “Hey, dude, you got any blow?” We were just all apart, playing these games in our own little worlds.
NOVEMBER 19TH, 1987 DAY OFF
Ritz Carlton Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia, 8 p.m.
Did a lot of nothing today. Played guitar a little, read, nobody to call really except the office…Doc is MIA again. I guess he’s on vacation somewhere. It kills me to think of him laying on a beach somewhere with a drink in his fat little hand watching the sun go down and being able to enjoy some of this fucking money we make for him while Doug and the band are just slaves to the grind.
Spoke to Slash at his hotel, told him to meet me here around 9 or so and we’d go out…maybe hit a strip club. I asked him to invite the guys but only Duff and Steven ever show up. I’m really trying to get outta this funk. I talked to Bob Timmons and asked him if there is a drug for depression. He told me yes, but getting sober would cure a lot of this feeling. I have to admit as I sit here with a whisky in my hand and a plate of half-eaten eggs…it’s scary but intriguing. I know when I’m losing my mind on drugs I would do anything to stop, but when the drugs wear off and the head clears I feel the need to try and control it one more time. But now something else is eroding me and I don’t know what it is.
Bob said he could find me a psychiatrist in LA who deals with addiction, but I said this is deeper than that. My wounds are bursting at the seams and the original pain is filled with pus. Is it childhood issues or am I just losing my sanity?
NOVEMBER 20TH, 1987 THE OMNI ATLANTRIGA
Ritz Carlton Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia, 5 a.m.
I’m drunk and in a great mood. Slash and me sat at the hotel bar and got smashed. He threw up spaghetti all over the bar, and then ordered another drink. I always wanted a little brother, I think I just found him…goodnight.
TOM ZUTAUT: From one glass of whisky to the next fix of junk, Nikki and Slash were both on the same train at the same time, skipping from one party to the next, looking for the most fun to be had by all in their wildest rock ’n’ roll fantasies. Slash was also very social, fun to be with, kind and considerate, and appreciative that Nikki gave Guns the shot on the Crüe tour. He was also always the last one to leave the bar, so it wasn’t hard for Nikki to find him when he wanted to have fun or get high.
Axl was different. He was very serious about working hard to move G N’ R to the next level and was not happy about the excessive partying his band was falling into. What Nikki didn’t know at the time was that Geffen was about to give up on Appetite for Destruction at around the 200,000 mark and tell Guns to make their next record. Instead, the Mötley tour kept the G N’ R night train on full-speed overdrive and tipped the scales in favor of Geffen continuing to promote Appetite. It ended up selling more than 20 million.
4:20 p.m.
Got a sold-out show here tonight then another show back here in a few days. Fucking weird routing. Writing some music, poetry, reading…nothing much on TV. My life is all about the rock ’n’ roll grind of hotel-gig-hotel-gig-hotel-gig…the repetition just wears you down. Then add a few hangovers, a pill or 10, a bindle or two…and oh God, don’t forget the girls who can barely count to 10 and the hangers-on who say they’re your friends…
It seems like a never-ending cycle, so I get a lot of pleasure out of fucking with room service people. I’ll answer the door naked or have my knife out, only wearing cowboy boots, and ask them which city we’re in (still having my makeup on from last night’s gig)…it’s fun to watch people trying to act like nothing is wrong. Sometimes I get a call from Rich or Fred and they say, Siiiixxxxxxxx, you’re scaring the people in the hotel again! OK, off to the gig…
Backstage, 7:45 p.m.
Just got off the massage table here in the dressing room. We were having a few drinks and Doc just came in and said Axl got arrested for jumping into the audience. Slash is up there singing a Stones song and it’s not going well. Guess I’d better get ready…I think the crowd is probably getting unruly.
11 p.m.
Slash wants to go out ’cause he’s pissed off at Axl, so I’m taking him to a killer strip club. I guess they need to wait for their singer to get bailed out tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll offer Slash any junk ’cause I know he used to have a problem…one of us slipping back is bad enough.
DOC McGHEE: Axl Rose was onstage in Atlanta when he saw one of the security guards, who turned out to bean off-duty cop, pushing their fans around. Axl jumped off the stage and started fighting the guard, so security grabbed him and took him backstage. So Slash sang a few songs, and Guns’ drum technician sang “Honky Tonk Woman”–four times, not terribly well. I told security, “Look, let Axl finish the show then shoot him for all I care,” but they called the police. I said to Axl, be nice to the cops and they’ll let you go. Then a cop walked in and asked him for his full name, and Axl said, “Fuck you!” That was it–he was arrested and in the cells for the night.
NOVEMBER 21ST, 1987 UTC ARENA, CHATTANOOGA, TN
Hotel, Atlanta, noon
We’re leaving for Chattanooga in a few hours. I’m so hungover and I don’t remember much. I woke up with some black girl at 6 a.m., don’t have a clue where or who the fuck she is. I kicked her out. I think I broke into Doc’s room and sawed his bed in half last night but I’ll have to wait and see–maybe I just dreamt it.
I need coffee. There’s a line on my bedside table but I think I could puke if I did it. I think I remember something about zombie dust.
Backstage, Chattanooga, 6:40 p.m.
Fuck I feel like dog shit. I can’t wait to fly back to Atlanta and go to bed. I puked in the bathroom on the plane twice. I guess I did saw Doc’s bed in half…my memory is clearing. I also tried to throw Fred’s bed out of
his window (that’s why I have my black eye) and Mick tried to jump out of the window…he was fucking outta his mind. Doc told me we all had our dicks out on the bar and poured Jack on them and lit them on fire too. What the fuck, I have no pubes left. Gotta do a show. I can hear Guns up there playing, so I guess everything is back to normal.
DOC McGHEE: Nikki and Tommy cut my bed in half with a knife so that when I got in it, it collapsed. Two days later they got a pellet gun, put a load of records at the end of the hallway and lay shooting at them. By the time security came, the hallway was littered with pellets and shattered vinyl.
One time in Switzerland they bought what they thought was a pellet gun but it fired flares. They got it back to Vince’s room, Vince fired it, and this flare shot out and bounced off the wall. They all ran to my room to tell me, but of course when we got back to Vince’s room, the door had closed behind them. So I went down to reception to get a spare key and there was this guy with the whole hotel’s room keys on a huge chain on his neck who said, “Sure, I’ll come and let you in.” I said, “Nah, just give me the key”–I was almost wrestling him to try to get it off him. In the elevator to the room I was telling him what a great hotel it was, and as soon as he opened the room door, smoke poured all down the hallway, the sprinklers came on and the bed was on fire. So we got kicked out of that hotel.
* * *
Spent a million dollars on amphetamines Crashed a lot of cars Fucked all the stupid stars in Hollywood Because I could
* * *
NOVEMBER 22ND, 1987 THE OMNI, ATLANTA, GA
Hotel, 1:10 p.m.
Fuck, I went straight to bed last night. I slept 12 hours straight. Wow…I felt like shit yesterday. I have no idea how I got so fucked up, but I did. Doc still can’t figure out how I got in his room and cut his bed in half. We do it to Rich Fisher all the time–go in his room and steal his pills. I think I might go down and take a steam in the gym and get a massage. I feel fucking great today. So is this what sobriety would feel like? Hmm…
11 p.m.
Wow, just offstage. A while ago I was standing in the hospitality room and this black chick came up to me with her son, mom and dad, and introduced me to everybody: “This is Nikki, blah blah blah.” I had no idea who the hell she was but I went along with it. I asked if anybody wanted a drink and went to my dressing room to get some beers for them. I pulled Fred aside and asked him who the chick with the kid was. He said that was the girl from the strip club I was with the other night.
What the fuck? OK, so I guess I was fucked up, but why did she bring her kid and mom and dad? What the hell did I say? All of a sudden I came down with a really bad stomach ache and had to excuse myself. I was polite but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. So I’m sitting in my dressing room hiding until they leave…what the fuck?
CHICKS = TROUBLE.
Off to the Mötley jet…going to Orlando…
NOVEMBER 23RD, 1987 DAY OFF
On the jet, 2:45 a.m.
Tommy and Vince are fucking smashed and bickering. Mick is looking sick of it all and I’m just staring out the window into this darkness. If we don’t get off the road, we’re gonna break up…trust me on this one.
Stouffers Hotel, Room 1267, Orlando, Florida, 11 p.m.
Just back from the bar. I tried to talk to Tommy about how I’m feeling and I just don’t think he understands. He’s happy all the time…makes me feel even crazier. Maybe I’ll try Mick…
11:15 p.m.
Went to Mick’s room to talk to him but Emi was there so I left.
3 a.m.
I just took a handful of pills. If I’m lucky maybe I won’t wake up…goodnight.
NIKKI: A few years later I was put on an antidepressant and my life turned around in three days. It was an experimental drug at the time, now known as Prozac. I had been off tour for months and had only left my house a few times. I was finally off drugs but the depression was getting worse. In 1987 I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what.
MICK MARS: Did I know how depressed Nikki was then? Not really. Not at all. I didn’t really pay attention except when he was bullying me and Emi. I just did my gig, did what I was supposed to do and I was normally drunk anyway. I didn’t really care. The band was self-destructing so I just thought, Fuck it.
* * *
I'm feeling rotten today I guess I forgot I am shot I'm not OK So long to pain, So long to games So long say goodbye Someone tell me why, I'm feeling cold inside Do I wanna, do I wanna die? Someone tell me why, It's building up inside Do I wanna die and Kiss it all goodbye?
I'm a sinking ship On a sea of bliss, I’m not OK I'm blind to this Is this just a test To help me see?
* * *
NOVEMBER 24TH, 1987 LAKELAND CIVIC CENTER LAKELAND, FL
Backstage, 6:45 p.m.
We took a chopper to the gig here. Izzy just came into the dressing room (miracle) and introduced us to his girlfriend. Oh my God–can I say Bruce Dickinson all over again? It’s this chick Suzette that I fucked in a reh room in Hollywood when she was 17. Then I used to buy drugs from her later. She would come over and I’d tie her up and treat her like a farm animal. She’s cute as long as she doesn’t talk. I used to gag her so I wouldn’t have to hear her coke babble. Life is weird and getting weirder all the time.
When she came in with Izzy I acted like I never met her. Then when Izzy left, Tommy said, Sixx, dude, that’s the chick from the Whisky A Go-Go bathroom floor, remember that? Oh fuck, I forgot about that, too.
We chopper back to the hotel after the gig–we have another show here tomorrow. Guns is at the same hotel as well as our road crew. Tim needs to lighten up. I have him dressed as a priest onstage and he looks like a broke-dick dog over it. Maybe I need to get him drunk. He loves me, I know, he’s always looking worried, like he’s my Jewish auntie or something. Tim, I’m not gonna die…I’m not that fucking lucky.
P.S. Finished reading Animal Farm and I’m starting in on Queer by Burroughs again.
NIKKI: Suzette made me think of Bruce Dickinson because Dickinson used to hate me because I fucked his wife. I would just like to point out in my defense that a) I had no idea she was his wife, and b) it wasn’t my fault that she climbed in my hotel wind o win England, asked me to fuck her, then afterwards said, “Thank you” and climbed out again.
ROSS HALFIN: Bruce Dickinson actually wrote the song “Tattooed Millionaire” about Sixx. He hated Nikki because he was fucking Dickinson’s wife at the time. Then again, so were Vince and Tommy, come to think of it…
NOVEMBER 25TH, 1987 LAKELAND CIVIC CENTER LAKELAND, FL
Hotel, 4:20 p.m.
I just woke up. I was up till noon doing blow. We hired a big conference room and just fuckin’ went crazy…Slash, Tommy, Steven, Duff, some crew guys, a bunch of whores and cases and cases of booze. We have a dealer here who just gives the shit to us. He gave us each an 8-ball and we did our best to do it all. It was insane…we piled it all up on the table. I’d never seen so much coke. Me and Tommy were trying to figure out how to cook it up so we could freebase it but we didn’t have all the needed supplies. We tried our damnedest and ended up smoking it wet outta a glass ashtray. My fingers are fucking blistered. I got about two grams sitting here on the table next to me. I should just flush the shit but the guy will just bring more so I might as well do a line and go to the chopper…fuck, I need a drink…my hands are shaking.
P.S. Suzette came to my room before the party and wanted to fuck me. Tommy was in here with me doing a bump and I told her to leave. She got all crazy and I threw her out the door and she slammed into the wall and started crying.
CHICKS = TROUBLE.
NOVEMBER 26TH, 1987 JACKSON VILLE COLISEUM JACKSON VILLE, FL
Backstage, 7:30 p.m.
Here at the gig. The show last night was loose and tired. The fans didn’t know. Guns is getting better, the crowd is digging them more and more, I have a good feeling for them. If the label will support them they have a shot. They’re not like the
other bands who came after us…they’re more like us.
On to more exciting news…I don’t feel so depressed (probably ’cause the drugs are keeping me from feeling) but I have been having bad side aches like my liver is going south. I don’t understand why I get traces of blood when I shit. I wanna get a doctor out to one of these gigs and ask, but I know what he’s gonna say.
I can’t figure Vince out lately. He seems to be slipping away. When I talk to him it’s like he doesn’t hear me–is it me? He only cares about the pussy but then I only care about the drugs…we’re not so different. I miss him, but his eyes are always darting around when we’re talking, or he says he has to go.
I miss music, new music, and I miss my friends that I started this journey with, but most of all I miss my sanity. I can’t wait to get off this fucking tour. I’m so tired of touring. I wanna kill management for not listening to us. Something bad is gonna happen, I just know. We can’t be this close to each other and be slipping away from each other at the same time and expect this to last.
P.S. Supposed to go out for Thanksgiving Dinner…I’d rather order room service.
* * *
YOUR EGO IS NOT YOUR AMIGO.
* * *
NOVEMBER 27TH, 1987 DAY OFF
Sheraton Hotel, Fort Myers, Room 538, 2:10 p.m.
Played a show in Jacksonville last night, got in about 3 a.m. I met a friend of my old dealer Jason’s last night with a gram of Mexican tar but no rigs. I had to order aluminum foil from room service when we got in. Man, my mouth was watering. I smoked a bit and hit the sack…woke up today feeling sick. I know it’s not that. Had Slash, Steven and Duff fly on our jet last night. Izzy wouldn’t come ’cause I threw his girlfriend against a wall. Hey, Izzy, I fucked her first so fuck off.