For the past 20 years, Nikki Sixx has been the bassist in Motley Crue. His tall build with jet black hair and leather outfit is well recognized and idolized by many. He has redefined the term ‘rock star’ with his wild life style and outlaw style behavior, which often became controversial.
The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life of a Rock Star is a book where he shares with the world his personal diaries during the height of his career in 1987. He shares his personal writings about his struggles with heroin and cocaine addiction, while getting the people closest to him to also share their thoughts as well.
To coincide with the book, he composed music that works like a soundtrack to the book. He collaborated with vocalist/guitarist/producer James Michael and guitarist DJ Ashba to create songs for the record, called The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack.
While Sixx’s life has been documented throughout this record, Michael and Ashba both helped greatly with shaping the songs. Michael is a veteran songwriter, producer and musician, who previously collaborated with Sixx on various projects. His credits including Alanis Morrissette, the Scorpions, The Exies and Saliva, while Ashba has been a session guitarist and has written with such acts as Trapt, Drowning Pool and Aimee Allen.
Michael shared with Blistering.com about the making of the SIXX: AM record, and talking about the man he’s known then and now.
Blistering.com: Congratulations on finishing the SIXX:AM record.
James Michael: Thanks. We’re really excited and surprised at how well it’s been doing. When we finally sat down to do this, it came together real fast. We did the whole record in a couple of months. The writing of it, of course, took a few years, but the actual making of the record was a lot of fun and went real quick.
Blistering.com: When you originally read Nikki’s diaries, what were your initial reactions to it?
JM: You know, it was real interesting because Nikki and I have been friends for several years. I’ve seen him when he was not sober, and I’ve visited him in rehab. I’ve seen the whole process happen. But it’s still pretty shocking I’d have to say, even though we all know all of the legendary stories of the Motley days – just all of the absolute mayhem that went on. But for me, it was a different experience than what I think it would be for most readers. Because for me, it was sitting there reading these shocking and horrific things about a friend who I love dearly. It was a much more personal experience to sit there and read these things. It’s one thing when you hear about a rock star. You kind of assume that some of these things go on. So it’s not so shocking. But to be reminded…wait, this is my bro. This is my friend…if these kinds of things happened today; I would have never let it happen. It was definitely shocking, sad, exciting at times. I found myself page after page just having to remind myself that this is the same guy that I hang out with on a daily basis.
Blistering.com: How was the songwriting approached? Were they written based on the order of events?
JM:It’s interesting – in a lot of different ways. There were certainly songs on this record that the three of us got together and wrote after the diaries had been brought back out. We sat down and re-enacted certain things in the diaries. But there’s a good portion of the record that had been written over the past five or six years. In fact, I had written the song ‘Van Nuys’ and a couple of those like ‘Dead Man’s Ballet’ about four or five years ago. At that time, Nikki and I were talking about how great it would be when he does finally get the diaries done and do a soundtrack to it. So even back then, he came in and listened to a couple of those songs. ‘This is exactly how it has to sound.’ So then over the next few years, it was always in the back of our minds. So any time a song that one of us was writing, we thought it would be a cool Heroin Diaries song. We would finish it, and then it would sit there until we were ready to do the whole thing.Over the years, the songs were put together in a lot of different ways, from personal experiences of mine, which coincided with ones he’s [Nikki Sixx] had. So those songs grew with the concept of the record. Then there’s songs where we literally sat down, read through the diaries, found cool phrases and built songs around that.
Blistering.com: The book came first, is that correct?
JM: In theory, the book was written in 1986 to 1987, because that’s when the diary entries were originally made. Then from my understanding, it was a few years ago when Nikki was going through the storage and came across those diaries. That’s when the concept became clear. He went back and started reading those diary entries and thought “my god, this is intense!” It seemed like it would make a good read for people. It was real courageous thing for him to be willing to open up to the public.
Blistering.com: Do you remember how you originally met Nikki?
JM: I was signed to Beyond Records, Allan Kovac’s label [Nikki Sixx’s manager and head of 10th Street Entertainment) back in 1998 or 1999. He was also part of the Beyond world with Motley Records. So we were both label mates at the time. I was ready to release my solo record. He and I would pass each other in the halls at the label. We’d say hey to each other and one day he gave me a call and said ‘I just listened to your solo record. I think it’s great and we’re getting ready to write a Motley Crue record. I was wondering if you wanted to do some writing with me.’ That is how we first got together, and wrote two songs. Those two, plus six more songs ended up on the New Tattoo record [from Motley Crue].
Blistering.com: You’ve done some other songwriting for other artists as well, like Alanis Morrissette and Saliva?
JM: I produced a track for Alanis Morrissette. I wrote one of the singles for Saliva’s second to last record. Nikki and I co-wrote that. It’s called ‘Rest in Pieces.’ Nikki and I have done a lot of writing together for a lot of people, like Meat Loaf…all across the board. Of course, over the past two to three years, as Nikki was out doing the Motley thing again, I’ve been producing a lot of records and writing for a lot of artists. That’s my main gig, is writing and producing records for other artists.
Blistering.com: You produced the latest Scorpions album?
JM: I did. That was quite an experience.
Blistering.com: Was that a surreal experience to work with someone like them?
JM:For as young as I am, I’ve been lucky to work with a lot of these classic artists. I’ve worked with Blondie, Sammy Hagar, Meat Loaf and Scorpions…a lot of these bands that I grew up on. It’s always a thrill. It always is. You learn so much about a band you thought you already knew a lot about, in the process of making records with them. I never get over the thrill of being with iconic rock stars and being in a personal setting with them. It’s like becoming a friend.
Blistering.com: It must be surreal telling someone like Nikki that a part sucks.
JM:We have our fights.
Blistering.com: The songs on the Heroin Diaries have a real deep feel within each song. Which songs hit you harder than the others?
JM: I would say for all three of us different songs. For me, it’s the ones that I had the biggest hands in writing, like ‘Van Nuys,’ ‘Courtesy Call,’ ‘Dead Man’s Ballet,’ ‘Permission’…those were all songs I had written for another solo record that I was going to do. They certainly come from a place in my emotion that also means a lot to me. It’ll always have a place in my heart but I think what had been the most exciting for me is the collaboration between Nikki, DJ and myself, because there’s something so satisfying and rewarding about getting in a room with those two guys and writing songs, like ‘Life Is Beautiful.’ No one of us could have done that song by ourselves. It was absolutely a great collaboration and an exciting thing to do. I think a song like ‘Life Is Beautiful’ is an exciting one for me, because it’s different from the other songs. ‘Girl With Golden Eyes’ I love because I love marrying the music and the melody lines to Nikki’s narration, reading from his journal, in the song. That’s something I haven’t heard anyone do before. So it excites me because we’re breaking new ground with stuff like that. Blistering.com: You released ‘Life Is Beautiful’ as the first single. It’s almost like an inspirational tune.JM: We wanted all of the songs to be positive. I think that was one of the real challenges about this record, especially one called The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack. One would certainly imagine that it could be a miserable, complaining type of record. We wanted to give people a reason to listen to it again. It was very important to us to make each song have an element of hopefulness, inspiration or achievement. That was a big challenge for us. We constantly, during the process of writing the songs, would have to keep ourselves in check, and say ‘hey, are we starting to complain a bit too much in this song? Let’s at least give this a positive enough twist and feel like they’re growing while listening to this.’ They can apply it to their life in a positive way.
Blistering.com: If these songs are these strong, what were the songs like that did not make the record?
JM: That’s a great question. We did write almost a double album’s worth of material. Because we are always writing together anyways, we have a lot of songs to pull from. We visualized this like a movie. When we started writing for it, we actually had a movie in mind. So the songs were a lot more theatrical or pertain to one specific scene in this movie that was bubbling around in our heads. There was a dwindling down process where we’re heart broken because we had a great song but it wasn’t going to make sense in the context of the 13 songs of the actual record. There are a lot of great songs that we may at some point release as bonus tracks.
Blistering.com: You and Nikki had been writing songs together for some time. How did you meet D.J. Ashba?
JM: I think Nikki and D.J. met at Randy Castillo’s funeral, which is ironic they would meet and go onto make a record like this. Nikki and D.J. have done some studio work together on some projects. I actually met D.J. in the studio working on a project. I’ve always say that D.J. was the missing link in this whole record. It’s something Nikki and I were talking about doing for five or six years. After Nikki and D.J. partnered up, everything started happening.
Blistering.com: Are there plans on making more music under the SIXX: AM banner?
JM: There are no immediate plans but we’ve all agreed that it would be ridiculous for us to not to continue to make music together, whether it is under the SIXX: AM moniker or not. We have way too much fun doing it. We definitely have chemistry together that we’re going to pursue. What’s been interesting is trying to manage people’s expectations. We never had this kind of expectation. To sit here with the number five single right now is way beyond our expectation. It’s certainly exciting to watch it happen. We’re getting a lot of requests to tour. But it is a matter of managing people’s expectations. We accidentally came into this band. We never had the intension of being a band. I’m working non-stop producing records. D.J. and Nikki have the Motley thing going. It’s something that we are excited about and thinking about doing. If the need arose, we’d jump at the chance.
Blistering.com: What are you working on these days?
JM: Right now I’m producing a band on Warner Brothers called American Bang. I am extremely excited about this record. It’s a Southern rock band from Nashville. I’ve been developing them for about eight months and we’re now in the process of making the record and probably done in about another month.
Blistering.com: D.J.’s writing his own stuff?
JM: Yeah. He’s doing studio work. He’s a busy man.
Blistering.com: And Nikki’s off playing where in Carmen San Diego is he now…?
JM: Exactly! Nikki’s off busting his ass promoting this book and signings. That’s one thing you learn about Nikki very fast. He’s always doing ten things and doing them very well. He’s the hardest worker in the business.
Blistering.com: Tell us something about Nikki that no one would ever know about him.
JM: That’s a tough one. I would have to answer generally, with his reputation, and his past, which is a public one, and all of the decadence and the insanity, he truly is the most generous, kindest, coolest, and most laid back, trust-worthy person I know. I think that a lot of people would never assume that. Maybe that shatters the illusion of what a rock star is, but he’s just an incredibly down to earth guy.
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