The long-awaited Mötley Crüe biopic, The Dirt, based on the 2001 New York Times bestselling autobiography, debuted on March 22. The band immediately became the top searched topic on Google Trends with a 4300% spike in searches.

On April 19th, Sixx posted the following message on Twitter, presumably reacting to an interview with guitarist Jake E. Lee that went online the day before.  

Isn’t it funny how the has been’s,never was’s, washed up long ago small career people all started coming outta the woodwork around the movie? I guess it’s their only way to get attention in 2019. God bless them. They must be desperate.

— 🏴‍☠️ xxıS ıʞʞıN 🏴‍☠️ (@NikkiSixx) 19. April 2019

There is no proof that the interview in question is what prompted Sixx's reaction, but an excerpt from the piece appears below.

During a recent appearance on Tone-Talk, former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee revealed Sixx and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee wanted him to replace guitarist Mick Mars. The lengthy video interview can be seen below, a portion has been transcribed as follows:

Jake E. Lee: "I quit Ratt. I had nothing going on. I was going to Mötley's fucking gigs… Nikki and Tommy wanted me in the band. They actually wanted me to replace Mick — which you can understand that. I was fucking better looking and fucking better playing. They wanted me to replace Mick. Mick's in-law or whatever was funding the band, so that didn't happen. And there was talk of maybe two guitar players, which even then, I was, like, Mötley Crüe. Two guitar players. I don't know about that. So, anyway, it kind of started with that. 'Cause there was that thing going. Whether somebody denies it or not, that's what started the rift between me and Mick."

Subsequently, Mötley Crüe opened for Ozzy Osbourne. Jake comments on the pairing: "I'm not saying I had a big deal to do with it, but I remember Sharon (Osbourne) saying, 'This Mötley Crüe. What do you think about them opening?' "I said, 'Fucking Mötley Crüe. I think they're gonna be the next big deal.' So Mötley Crüe is opening for us now. At at one point, I'm out partying with… I think it was Tommy… It might have been Vince (Neil). Who knows? Whoever Mick's roommate was. We go back to the room, and Mick's in his pajamas and he's very upset with us. It was with Ratt too — I remember Robbin (Crosby) was there, Stephen (Pearcy) was there. Mick, being the old man, as everybody joked about, he made a complaint. I don't know. I'm not sure what I said. I think just called him 'the old man' and shut up. And he did look over at me and said, 'At least I'm not a slant-eyed Japanese bastard.' And I did not like that — did not like it. I hadn't heard it, actually, since I was in grade school — the whole 'slant-eyed fucking Japanese' thing. And it pissed me off. I walked over. I was gonna beat the fuck out of him. And it was Robbin Crosby, who's six-five, he came up to me, picked me and said, 'C'mon, Jake. None of that shit matters.' And he carried me out of the room."

"So there's a story. I like Mick, we made up after that. The fact that he called me that, I don't think he was so much racist as he was going to attack me 'cause I was younger, better looking and I was a better guitarist."

Streaming partners have been quick to support The Dirt soundtrack and Mötley Crüe's catalogue with the Global Marquee feature on Spotify, and Apple Music building a dedicated Mötley Super Room. The pay back was instant with a 570% stream increase on Spotify, a 900% stream increase on Apple Music, and Apple iTunes downloads growing 2027%. Amazon, with triple digit streaming growth is benefitting from sales of the book being back at #1 music book, and Mötley's Deezer streams are up 669%.

The Mötley Essentials playlist is now charting higher than Drake Essentials on Apple Music. The effect is being felt globally in 150 markets with top 10 iTunes charts around the world.

Early returns show the movie at 85% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes, on par with Bohemian Rhapsody's 87% and ahead of Black Panther's 79%. It is changing perceptions too, as women are enjoying The Dirt just as much, if not more than men, giving it a higher grade (7.4/10) than their male counterparts (7.1/10), according to an IMDB survey.

The cautionary tale aims to deglamorize the sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle led by the notorious rockers. It unflinchingly portrays domestic violence, drunk driving and drug addiction to a mass audience. The Guardian's Stephen Snart writes "Real-life manager and producer Allen Kovac has said in interviews that the mission of the movie is to deglamorize the rock'n'roll lifestyle. That does come through."

Queen's Roger Taylor, who appears in the book, was similarly awed at a preview screening, exclaiming: "Wow, that took me back! Brilliant."

The film's stars, Douglas Booth (Nikki Sixx), Game of Thrones' Iwan Rheon (Mick Mars), Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) (Tommy Lee), Daniel Webber (Vince Neil), David Costabile (Doc McGhee) and Pete Davidson (Tom Zutaut) have all been getting critical kudos. "They possess similar abilities to navigate between charm and repulsion, all working together to create such a chummy group that their power as an ensemble elevates the material. Just like their real-life counterparts," wrote The Guardian.

Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx says, "In the film we show painful examples of domestic violence, DUI, manslaughter, drug overdose and the loss of a child. We couldn't possibly have crammed everything from a 430-page book into an hour and 50-minute movie, but we felt we achieved our objective of showing the downside of sex drugs and rock and roll."

Nikki Sixx hopes to use the message of the film to draw attention to the USA's opioid crisis. Sixx, a recovering addict himself, has established a music program for kids at Covenant House in Los Angeles and is instrumental in drawing attention to the root causes of addiction. A personal mission, Sixx is collaborating with the U.S. Surgeon General to fight opioid addiction, and will bring his best-selling Heroin Diaries book to life with a musical of the same name, due to debut in 2019 with partners including Live Nation Ticketmaster, 11-7, Scott Borchetta, and Downtown Music.

Meanwhile, on the music side, The Dirt Soundtrack on Mötley Records and Eleven Seven Music immediately reached #1 on the iTunes All Genres Chart and currently stands at #4 US and #5 worldwide. The Greatest Hits album currently stands at #2 in the US on iTunes and at #11 worldwide. The soundtrack features four new songs including the first single, "The Dirt (Est. 1981) (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)" and their unlikely cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin." In addition, Spotify garnered an 8-fold increase in daily streams, from approximately 400,000 to 3,600,000, and still increasing.

"Our strategy was to use both the film and music algorithmic echo chamber to have a virtuous circle, each propelling the other to greater heights. The new song is 'The Dirt feat Machine Gun Kelly,' the film is titled 'The Dirt,' The Book is 'The Dirt.' And the audiences have voted on the music streaming platforms and on social media, critics are a thing of the past as Bohemian Rhapsody has shown," said Kovac, who served as a producer on the film.

Kovac gave kudos to Eleven Seven Music senior management and Mötley Crüe Managers at 10th Street Entertainment, "I want to tip my hat to Chris Nilsson and Konstanze Louden, and the rest of the 10th Street Management team, Eleven Seven Label Group COO Steve Kline, GM Rose Slanic, VP Mary Thayer, Europe MD Dan Waite, CFO Dan Lieblein, and their teams who are some of the most innovative and progressive marketers in entertainment today. The success of the music and this film comes from their efforts."

After almost two decades since the ground-breaking publication of The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band by HarperCollins in 2001, the film version has come to life, causing just as much controversy as the book did when it was all the talk of bands on the rock festival circuit, where copies were strategically placed. From the film's overall buzz, the book landed at #1 on several of Amazon's book charts.

BraveWords' review of The Dirt soundtrack can be found at this location. Read Aaron Small's review of the film here.

The Dirt Soundtrack tracklisting:

"The Dirt (Est. 1981)" (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)
"Red Hot"
"On With The Show"
"Live Wire"
"Merry-Go-Round"
"Take Me To The Top"
"Piece Of Your Action"
"Shout At The Devil"
"Looks That Kill"
"Too Young To Fall In Love "
"Home Sweet Home"
"Girls, Girls, Girls"
"Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S.)"
"Kickstart My Heart"
"Dr. Feelgood"
"Ride With The Devil"
"Crash And Burn"
"Like A Virgin"

"Crash And Burn":

"Ride With The Devil":

"Like A Virgin":

"The Dirt (Est. 1981)" (feat. Machine Gun Kelly) video:

Film trailer: