by Vince Neil
In any event, Leah Graham is the girl who had the nickname Lovey in The Dirt, which was given to her a few years later by the guys in Mötley Crüe. When I first met her she was hot; she looked like a young Rene Russo. But she was a real druggie. She was shooting up cocaine when nobody was doing that. She was the first person I’d ever heard of doing it. She showed me the first needle I’d ever seen—at least the first one I’d seen outside of a doctor’s office. Over time she became pretty haggard looking; that’s why the Mötley guys called her Lovey. It referred to Mrs. Howell on the TV show Gilligan’s Island, the old lady—her husband called her Lovey.
Leah’s dad owned an electrical company. She got me a job with him as an apprentice electrician. It was good-paying, union work. And I lived at their house with her in Covina. She was wealthy. The house was up on the mountain, overlooking the whole valley. During the day, especially in the summer, there was a lot of pollution and haze. But at night it was amazing.
I dyed my hair platinum blond; Leah liked to help me fluff it up by teasing it and using Aqua Net hairspray—it would be just towering, six to eight inches high, a huge tower of hair. Back in the early days with Rockandi, I was really into white. White satin pants, white leg warmers, white slippers by Capezio, a white T-shirt ripped up the sides, sewn together with lace. It was also Leah who bought me my first pair of leather pants. They set her back five hundred bucks. I ended up wearing them on the cover of Mötley’s first album; I had them long enough that wife number three still tells stories about trying them on. Say what you want about leather pants. They fuckin’ last.
Leah functioned (when she was functioning) almost like manager of Rockandi. She put ads in papers, got us gigs at Gazzari’s, the Starwood, and other places on the Strip. She actually did some really good stuff for us, you know? And of course I was living under her parents’ roof, eating their food, fucking their daughter. We spent a lot of time in her bathroom shooting up coke. She had, like, this bedroom suite with its own bathroom. We’d hang out there for hours and hours. She was a stone junkie. After a while she got me hooked, too. We’d be in the bathroom for what seemed like days. Or we’d go to these other people’s house. I can’t remember their names. It was a whole junkie sex scene.
I liked shooting coke. I mean the rush is great. The whole thing of doing it, you know, the ritual of it, was exciting—just the anticipation of it, waiting my turn, you know? And she was like a big hog, too. ’Cause she’d always be the one doling out the hits. And she’d always make her hits bigger than mine. And I’d be, like, “Waitaminute!” I’d be pissed off. I’d be like, “How come my hit isn’t as big as yours?” And she’d be like, “Because I’ve been doing it longer!”
Wait a minute. Thinking back, the shooting-up part didn’t come until a little later, when I joined Mötley Crüe. During the Rockandi era, Leah was shooting it, but I’d just be snorting it. I think I was taking a lot of speed then, too, because working as an electrician, you know, I would… well, everybody on the crew was taking speed to do the jobs. There is no way you could be shooting up cocaine and still going to work, as I would later find out. Speed was something you did on the job at that particular company at that particular time. Maybe a lot of other companies, too. I tell you, I really needed it. I don’t know how I would have survived those days without speed. Because I was basically working forty hours a week as a union electrician. And then I was going out at night and playing gigs with Rockandi. Or if I wasn’t playing, I’d be out seeing other bands, keeping up with the scene, partying. There was never any time for sleep. I’d go straight from a gig to the job (after changing first, of course). I didn’t think the guys on the crew needed to see me in my Capezios. TMI, as they like to say today.
The electrical work was hard. Sometimes I’d be digging ditches—the ditches to put in the underground pipes and stuff that you pull the wires through. Or sometimes I’d be wiring a house or whatever. It was a lot of hours. As the low man on the totem pole, the youngest, I did everything—all the lifting and the bullshit nobody else wanted to do. This was right at the time when drive-thru windows were just getting popular in fast-food restaurants. Leah’s dad had this contract to retrofit all of these older McDonald’s. Sometimes we would build McDonald’s from the ground up. Sometimes we would renovate an old one and put in a drive-thru. Like for one contract we did every McDonald’s in Palm Springs. It took us six weeks. During that job we actually lived down in Palm Springs. I remember we slept during the day and worked at night because of the heat. It was like six dollars an hour, something like that. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it seemed like a lot at the time.
As history records, it was just about this time, in the first months of 1981, that Nikki Sixx—born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna, Jr.—went to the Starwood to catch a band called Suite 19. He needed a new guitar player for his new band… which didn’t yet exist. For the moment, he was a band of one, a guy with an idea, a few songs, and a need for at least three other people to make his vision complete.
Nikki was three years older than me. I knew of him, but I didn’t really know him, if you know what I mean. We were both on the scene. Like me and Tommy, he was also from Cali, born in San Jose, CA, to a single mother with a rep for being a little wild. She toured as a backup singer with various artists, including Frank Sinatra. Raised primarily by his grandparents, Nikki became a teenage juvenile delinquent, breaking into neighbors’ houses, shoplifting, expelled from school for selling drugs. Like me, Nikki was out living on his own by the age of seventeen. He moved to LA and worked various jobs—a counterman at a liquor store, selling vacuums over the phone—while he auditioned with bands in the hope of becoming a rock star.
After he got turned down by Randy Rhoads, his version of Quiet Riot, and then by Sister, with Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P., Nikki joined the LA-based glam rockers London, whose major claim to fame was that their singer, Nigel Benjamin, had sung with a late version of Mott the Hoople. Careers have started on less. Nikki is a talented guy, he would have made it somehow or another.
I don’t think Nikki has changed much over the years. He still likes to portray himself as the Messiah. Everything is his. Everything is his idea. I’ll look at him and think, Fuck! He just loves playing that persona. And my sentiment is: I don’t really care one way or the other. If he wants to be that, fine. I do my job, and I fucking have fun. That’s how I live my life. But in Nikki’s world, he has to be known as the “thinker,” or the “creator”; he needs to be seen as Mr. All-Important. Nikki Sixx, tortured soul. And like Tommy, he’s another one of those guys who just love the whole fame thing. He wouldn’t have been with the tattoo artist Kat Von D if she wasn’t famous. And Donna D’Errico before her; she was a huge star at the time he married her. He just really likes to see his face in the paper. He likes the press buzz. He likes being that guy from the band with the famous girlfriends.
I mean, you should read the e-mails he sends about Mötley. He goes: “I’ve crunched the numbers, and we should do this….” And I’m like, What? Is he my fucking accountant now? I mean, what the fuck? He makes these decisions for Mötley Crüe that I think are just stupid. I call him up and I’ll be like, “You’re the worst businessman in the fucking world. You’re a fucking idiot!” And he’ll be like, “How can you say that?” And I’ll be like, “Because you are a fucking idiot.” Just because something looks good on paper with your name on it doesn’t mean it’s going to work.”
I guess what it comes down to is I’m not the same as these guys. Probably I never was. I never aspired to all this. I mean, in my perfect world, I’d be on a beach somewhere drinking a Corona and renting out Jet Skis to the tourists. That’s my dream job, by the way. I would be the guy that rents you your Jet Skis at a resort, like say the Caribbean or Hawaii. All I’d have to worry about is to ensure those Jet Skis are running that day. What a great job. That’s my retirement plan.
Of course, things get blown out of proportion. I mean me and Nikki; we love each othe
r like fuckin’ brothers. He was the best man at my wedding. Come to think of it, I think he’s been to all my weddings. We’ve been together for so long. It’s always been like that with us. Maybe I don’t know what I think of Nikki. I love him and I hate him, just like Tommy. (And they feel the same, I’m sure. It is a pattern in my life, as I’m sure you’ll hear from the others in this book.)
Getting back to ’81—Nikki went to the Starwood to check out Suite 19’s guitarist, a guy named Greg Leon. But what really caught Nikki’s eye was the drummer, Tommy Lee.
A few days later, when Nikki called Tommy to set up a meet, Tommy totally freaked. As Nikki’s voice came booming through the phone, his image was simultaneously staring down from the poster on the wall of Tommy’s room. They arranged to meet at a Denny’s in North Hollywood; from there they went to Nikki’s apartment, where he played Tommy some demo tunes. I guess it was like love at first sight with those guys. Within a few days, Tommy had moved his drums into Nikki’s living room/recording studio; the pair started jamming with Leon on guitar. To this combo was added a singer, an overweight guy named O’Dean—his first name has been lost to the ages. Although he was a passable singer, Nikki disliked his vocal pitch. O’Dean had this quirky habit of wearing white gloves everywhere. It was really weird. When he refused to take them off during a recording session—so that he could clap properly on the record—he was let go.
Nikki has always been a stickler. He wasn’t particularly happy with Leon, either. He was a passable guitarist, yes, but he was kind of a boring guy. Nikki let him go, too. He went on to play in Dokken, then DuBrow, which became Quiet Riot. He eventually formed the Greg Leon Invasion; he would end up selling the name “Invasion” to a post-KISS Vinnie Vincent. While looking for a new guitarist, Tommy spotted a classified ad in the Recycler newspaper, placed by a dude named Mick Mars, a journeyman axe player who was growing tired of playing covers with his band Spiders and Cowboys.
Born Robert Alan Deal, on May 4, 1951, in Terre Haute, Indiana, he was the eldest of the group by seven years—clearly a man of a different generation. After his family relocated from Indiana to California, Deal dropped out of high school and began playing guitar in a series of unsuccessful blues-based rock bands, taking on menial day jobs to make ends meet. After nearly a decade of frustration within the California music scene, Deal had recently changed his name to Mick Mars and dyed his hair jet-black, hoping for a fresh start. “Loud, rude and aggressive guitarist available,” he wrote in the ad. He sounded perfect to Nikki. He called and invited Deal over.
When Nikki opened his apartment door, the story famously goes, the gnomish guy standing there reminded him of Cousin It from The Addams Family. Neither of them remembered having met a few months earlier, in a liquor store on the Strip, after Mick’s set at the Stone Pony. Tommy and Nikki went ahead and showed Mick the opening riff to a song called “Stick to Your Guns” that Nikki had written.
Mick was hired on the spot. He has always been a kick-ass guitar player, second to none, the real virtuoso in the band. To celebrate, they bought a gallon of schnapps.
Now all they needed was a singer.
Robert Stokes Rockandi Drummer
Me and James Alverson just started talking. He was new in school. He had longer hair, I had long hair, and I just asked him if he played. And he said, “Yeah, I play guitar. How about you?” And I said, “Drums.” And he said, “I’m looking to get a band going.”
He had a bass player from his old high school, but we had to look for a singer, so we just kinda talked for a little while and just kinda let it go. One day we were hanging out in the parking lot at Charter Oak Park. I had this van and I was parked over there; this was my senior year. It was a huge green park, with baseball fields, some trees, some picnic tables, a playground, the whole bit. People would go over there after second period, on break, and then again at lunchtime. You’d sneak over, ditch classes, and smoke cigarettes and hang out.
I was there one day, parked in the van, talking to James. We see Vince cruising through in his blue Datsun 240Z. It had a surfboard rack, you know, and surfboards. He was a younger kid. I didn’t actually know him—he was just a guy in the hallway I would kind of nod to. We weren’t friends, but we knew each other existed. I guess it was a long-hair thing or something; not many of the kids in school looked like that. Anyway, that day he drove by and we just kinda looked at him like, well, “Let’s hit him up. He’s got that David Lee Roth look to him.”
So we just started talking to him and he said, “Let’s try it.” He said, “I can’t sing, but I can probably get my dad to buy me a PA.” He was all gung ho, you know. And he was right. His dad did end up buying him a PA.
We did a couple little jams in his garage; we tried to kind of feel each other out. At first James wasn’t really happy with Vince at all. It went on for a couple of practices and finally I talked to James; I go, “Let’s give him a shot. Maybe his parents will pay for a vocal coach.” We practiced in Vince’s garage for a couple weeks. And then we ended up switching to Tami’s sister’s house—we started rehearsing in the living room over there.
We started jamming more. We went though a couple of bass players. The first real bass player we had was this guy named Greg Meeder. He lived in upper Glendora, which was our big rival high school, Glendora High School versus Charter Oak High School—but of course we were the long-haired kids, so of course it didn’t bother us. We started getting into cover tunes—Cheap Trick, Led Zeppelin, some old Pat Travers, stuff like that. Over time, we built a repertoire of songs, a couple sets.
One word I could use to describe Vince would be “shy.” Real, real shy. A lot of times he’d have his back toward the audience when he was singing. He was very self-conscious about his voice. Tami helped a lot on clothes. Buying him clothes, making him clothes. I guess she could sew. I remember a backyard party this one night. We had just learned “Immigrant Song” by Zeppelin. We’re in the middle of playing the song, and you know that famous part that goes, “Ah ah ahhhhh Ahhh!”—you know, that real high part? Well, it’s just kind of funny ’cause I remember Vince back then, obviously microphones weren’t cordless. They had cords. And I remember we were playing that song and we got to that part and he… he could hit that note, but he couldn’t hold it. So right at that point, he would kinda jiggle on the microphone like something was wrong with the microphone. That always stuck in my mind for some reason.
Of course, over time, he gained confidence. You go from small backyard parties, like ten or twenty people, to huge backyard parties, to playing clubs. You start gaining that little bit of an ego character boost, if you will. We got really popular. And Vince just worked at it. He started getting the showmanship, picking the mic stand up, not just holding the mic but picking up the whole mic stand—that became one of his little trademarks. Over time, he became an incredible showman.
We probably did backyard parties for about two years; then we started venturing out into Hollywood. That went pretty well. We were doing, like, New Year’s Eve night at Gazzari’s, selling out the place. It was tough getting people down there at first, but after a while we started getting quite a big following. At first we were totally a cover band. Then we started throwing in a few originals. Probably one or two maybe, that was about it. We did a couple recordings, but our originals weren’t killer; we were a cover band at that point—later we would evolve. But at that point, well, everybody knows you can’t make albums doing other people’s songs.
At this point, James was still living at home. I was still living at home. Joe Marks was in the band; he was still living at home. Vince was living with his girlfriend Leah, up on the hill.
One night we played the Starwood. It was a Sunday night showcase-type thing. I guess Nikki and Tommy were looking to start this new band, this new project, this idea that they had come up with. And of course Tommy knew Vince. I guess he talked to Leah during the set and Leah approached Vince, and then they all came backstage and asked Vince, you know, “Wou
ld you like to come and check out what we’re doing?”
Vince was pretty committed to us. He thought we’d be really hurt. He wasn’t really sure what to do. Then he came back and he said, “Hey, they’re willing to pay me two hundred fifty bucks a week just to be in a band.” And here he’s struggling with Rockandi—we’re passing out flyers to try to get people to come down and stuff like that, but at that point in time we weren’t exactly on fire. We just told him, “Hey, this business is about making money; if you can make money at it, go for it.” He didn’t really want to do it at first, but after it had been a couple weeks, maybe a month, I think he decided to go check them out.
He was a loyal kind of guy. He was a good friend. He really was. He didn’t want to leave. He really dug what we were doing. There’s no doubt that Nikki and all them were older than us and more experienced. Vince had a shot and he took it. I’m proud of him.
At some point Tommy told them about me. I happened to be playing with Rockandi at the Starwood; the three of them came together to see the show. Eddie Nash owned the place. I used to get my quaaludes from him. He was an amazing guy, a Palestinian emigrant who had started in LA with a hot-dog stand. He now owned several famous clubs, including a strip club in the heart of Hollywood. He would later become infamous as one of the defendants in the Wonderland Avenue murders, also known as the Four on the Floor Murders, involving the porn star John Holmes. There have been a couple of cool movies and documentaries covering the subject.