By Aaron Small

On April 12th, MÖTLEY CRÜE/SIXX: A.M. bassist NIKKI SIXX will issue his second book, This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography And Life Through The Distorted Lens Of Nikki Sixx. This 224 page hardcover serves as both a prequel and sequel to The Heroin Diaries. “That’s very accurate. You’re the first person that nailed it; that’s awesome,” exclaims Sixx.

Did the success of Nikki’s first book, The Heroin Diaries – a New York Times Bestseller in 2007 – inspire him to write a second? “Not so much. It feels nice that people got the book and got something out of it, that’s the best part. For me, it’s like every time someone has the book, they really went on a journey; they feel disgusted or they feel inspired. I feel like every time one of those books leaves the book shelf, something powerful’s going to happen. In that sense, I knew there was a lot of people watching for the opportunity to do something fantastic, but it wasn’t because of that book. This book (This Is Gonna Hurt) would have probably happened whether The Heroin Diaries did or not.”

In October 2010, Nikki’s ex-girlfriend Kat Von D published her book, The Tattoo Chronicles, in which she talks extensively about their relationship together. Sixx also devotes significant page space in This Is Gonna Hurt to the time the pair spent dating and their subsequent breakup. “I think her book was good. Her book was really about a time in her life where she was doing this tattooing and dealing a lot with death and how she needed to process that. My book is different in the sense that it’s different subject matter, but there’s a section in the middle where I talk about romance because romance is so inspirational, I believe for everybody. That was really my point – look what this romance is doing for me as a creative person. Squeeze every drop out of it, even if you end up breaking it. Go for it. So even though we split up, I didn’t feel it would have been proper to delete it; it would have been easy ‘cause it’s one section in the middle of the book, but then I wouldn’t have been honest.”

September 2010 saw Mötley Crüe vocalist Vince Neil release his biography, Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell And Back With One Of Rock’s Most Notorious Frontmen. As a fan, it was disheartening to read some of the things Neil said. For example, “those guys (meaning Nikki, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars) are not my friends. And they haven’t been for a long time.” Nikki’s reaction to such a shocking statement is calm and collected. “I think he hurt a lot of fans’ feelings. Vince didn’t write the book (it was authored by Mike Sager). Listen man, everyone’s entitled to their feelings. What can I do? What can I say? I think of Vince as a friend. I think he’s a very unique lead singer, very unique frontman. I’m proud to be in a band with him.”

In Feburary 2011, Vince was sentenced to 15 days in jail, followed by 15 days of house arrest for DUI and speeding in Las Vegas, NV in June 2010; he ended up serving ten days behind bars and 20 days of house arrest. “I reached out to him and we talked,” reveals Nikki. “I think he handled himself as well as you can handle yourself in a situation like that. It’s not easy for anybody.” There seems to be a bit of a societal backlash against Vince because it was DUI, given what happened in 1984 when he was charged with felony DUI after an accident in Redondo Beach, CA that killed Neil’s passenger, HANOI ROCKS drummer Razzle Dingley, and severely injured two others. Did the rest of Mötley ever consider an intervention, or can Vince take care of this problem himself? “When you get to be at our age (Nikki is 52 and Vince is 50), everyone has families, you do your very best to help, as everyone has done with me in the past. Then there comes a time when people need to make a decision on what they want. I feel that what happened with Vince was something that was inevitable if you’re drinking and driving. Maybe this is what he needed to learn? But I can’t speak for him.”

Refocusing on Nikki’s books, both The Heroin Diaries and This Is Gonna Hurt are very visual, but in different ways. The Heroin Diaries contains numerous illustrations and several photographs – but not ones taken by Sixx. That book was also co-authored by Ian Gittins. However, This Is Gonna Hurt, is entirely Nikki’s photos and words; it’s 100% Sixx. As such, the pictures are as important as the text. “Yeah, absolutely. For me, the photos came first and then I was able to sort of dissect them. A lot of it obviously is pre-meditated assault on the senses. When I’m shooting certain stuff, I have already in mind what it is that I’m trying to say. Sometimes I wasn’t necessarily sure and it took the writing process to find that out, digging the tomb so to speak.”

A six-part docu-series for This Is Gonna Hurt has been filmed. Sixx: A.M. vocalist James Michael says it will leave people “speechless.” According to Nikki, “it’ll be only online, probably just through Twitter up to YouTube. I’ll keep it very organic. I think that people who are interested in the project are going to really love this. You get to meet the people that I photographed. You get to meet the people that inspired the songs. You get to meet the people, who I think are pretty fucking special people, they’re amazing. And you get to meet some people who I photographed that had their lives changed by the photography, by the perception of meeting me and realizing I wasn’t what they thought and what I’m doing isn’t what they thought. Being able to tell that perspective, that side of it – I went into this thinking this, and I came out, it changed the way I see things. That’s the whole idea behind the book for me, to give people a flash where they just kind of question everything.”

On May 3rd, Sixx: A.M. will release a companion album to Nikki’s book, also titled This Is Gonna Hurt. In fact, it will mark the first side project outside of Mötley that Sixx has released more than one album with. In 2000, 58 issued Diet For A New America. In 2004, BRIDES OF DESTRUCTION released Here Come The Brides, and although that was followed a year later with Runaway Brides, Nikki had left the band by that point. “Yeah that’s true. You know I never thought about that before, my attention span is so short. I do things when they feel good. It’s a cliché but it’s honest; it feels really good. We (in Sixx: A.M.) really love making music together, so we made more music. The fact that this web started happening between the messages and the feelings, within the band and in the book it’s like kindred spirits.”

The first single from The Heroin Diaries was ‘Life Is Beautiful’ and the first single from This Is Gonna Hurt is ‘Lies Of The Beautiful People’. “We used that beautiful word twice. The third album, first single will be called ‘Fuck You Cause I’m Fucking Beautiful’,” jokes Nikki. Although the word beautiful is repeated, it has different connotations in each of the songs. “Yeah, have you seen People Magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People? I don’t know; it unnerved me. It was really a peak creative time for me. I was in the studio, immersed in the writing and the photography and the lights; I did everything myself, it was very intense. I popped my head out for a second at a gas station and I see this thing (People Magazine) and it was like everything froze for me. It was like, really? How could that moment have happened? Life’s so interesting. I’ve seen that magazine a million times and never really even opened it, but that time it really stopped me in my tracks. It must have been because of what I was going through, seeing some of these people that I was photographing tell me their stories. I’m thinking, God, I wish I was half as strong as you.”

When Sixx: A.M. recorded The Heroin Diaries, guitarist DJ Ashba was not a member of GUNS N’ ROSES. After that touring cycle wrapped up, DJ joined Axl Rose and they travelled the globe together. Did that present any difficulty in the writing or recording of This Is Gonna Hurt? “There was a little bit of scheduling problems; James lives in Nashville now, to add just another thing in there. We sort of did it when we could do it. A lot of the songs we wrote together out on Crüe Fest. James came out on the road (with Mötley) and hung out with me sometimes and we wrote some songs; we wrote ‘Smile’ out on the road. Then DJ would come back and we would get together and have writing sessions. We’d cut guitars for 13 songs in three or four days and he’d be out, then we’d edit those together, I’d do the bass tracks. It was really done like that. The thing is… we are producer songwriters; we’re not a band. So we don’t really rehearse in that sense.”

The Heroin Diaries was recorded with programmed drums as opposed to a living, breathing drummer. The same scenario was utilized for This Is Gonna Hurt, reason being? “Because it works. It’s all about the songs. We don’t sit in a room and play. We build this music up around concepts and standards and to elevate ourselves to some of the music that inspired us. It’s just a different process. Nothing against drummers, fuck, I’ve got one of the greatest ones there is with Tommy (Lee). I’m very happy about that! We did do some shows with Sixx: A.M. (as part of Crüe Fest 1) and we obviously needed a drummer there. That was weird for me ‘cause I just kind of stood in the back and wore sunglasses. I didn’t do anything because I felt it would have been disrespectful to Mötley to go out there and do this big show.”

In closing, Nikki describes This Is Gonna Hurt in the following manner, “it comes out swinging; then it gets really mellow. Kind of like a record from the ‘70s – I feel like you should have to flip it over.”