MÖTLEY CRÜE's Nikki Sixx is currently in Austin, TX today (September 18th, 2008) speaking at the Jacobs Media Summit 13. Nikki will share his music industry knowledge w/ various people from the radio industry. For more on this event, go here.

In other news, RockBand.com spoke to Nikki Sixx recently. The chat reads as follows:

Q: We put Saints Of Los Angeles out as a downloadable track before the album was released. Have you been able to play the song yet?

A: "Absolutely not. I can’t play it. It’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen, dude—It’s a complete waste of time to challenge Nikki Sixx on a Mötley Crüe song. You will just kick my ass. My own son laughed at me one day—'Are you ready? Let’s go.' We went head to head and I lost in about eight seconds. I just gave up, I admitted defeat. It’s interesting though—If you play guitar or bass, your brain’s been challenged to go one way and the game wants you to do something different. It’s different if you’re a drummer, because that’s more like actually playing drums."

Q: Hang in, you’ll get better. So, the new album is being called Mötley Crüe’s big comeback. Does the band see it that way?

A: "You know what’s funny? Every Mötley Crüe record and tour is the big comeback. We’re off tour right now and I imagine that we’re already getting written off again."

Q: Yeah, the tour’s been over a week already.

A: "It’s been over a week, and I’m sure I’ll be hearing that we’ve broken up. But we do what we do as a band—We continue to make music and tour, and probably will forever."

Q: I heard that you nearly called the new album The Dirt. Was it meant to be a musical version of the notorious tell-all book about the Crüe?

A: "We try not to think too much. The biggest thought process behind this record was that Mick said, 'I want loud guitars.' Vince said, 'Great songs.' And I said, 'Snotty lyrics.' Okay, that’s it, guys. But to be honest with you, we did say, 'Let’s do something we haven’t done—Let’s tell a story from beginning to end.' And who better to tell the story of Mötley Crüe than us?"

Q: A lot of the classic Crüe songs were recorded before you were cleaned-up. Does it feel much different to be playing them now?

A: "To be honest we don’t think much about Mötley Crüe, we just do it. Other people can think this or that about us—What if they were nicer, what if they were more metal, what if they were less metal? And I don’t know of any other way of doing it than just doing it. At this point I’ve been clean for so long that I don’t know any other way. So it’s not about the band being clean or not clean; that’s more of a “Heroin Diaries” vision. With Motley we do what we do and it comes out being good or bad, I don’t know which. Probably some of both."

Q: You did the Heroin Diaries album with your other band, Sixx AM. I think a lot of Crüe fans were surprised that the sound was so different from Mötley Crüe. Is that evidence of your darker side?

A: "There’s definitely a darker side to me, bro. But you know, I always wondered why people in bands go solo, and then make music that sounds just like the band they’re in. Why bother—I mean, you’re already in the friggin’ band! Sixx AM was working on that particular project, which was the soundtrack to a book, and so it just wrote itself. It’s about good times and bad times and recovery, all at the same time. There are a lot of facets to it, just like there is with Mötley Crüe."

Q: It’s no secret that you went through a lot of misadventures, but you survived. Is that down to personal strength or luck?

A: "It’s definitely not down to personal strength. It was luck, and I’ll tell you that for sure."