MÖTLEY CRÜE's NIKKI SIXX: 'Being An Artist Is Somewhat Being Narcissistic'

Darryl Harrison of the New York Post recently conducted an interview with MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

New York Post: Looking back on your music career, what songs or albums would you say are telling keystones of your life, that document who you were then, to who you are now?

Nikki: I analyzed some lyrics off our first album, and it was sort of like I was trying to erase my past, by saying, "Frankie died the other night, Some say it was suicide." My birth name being Frank, I was kind of trying to erase myself and invent myself because my teenage years were so painful to me — some of it brought on myself and some brought on by decisions made by my parents. You go back and look at this stuff. I hear songs and I go, "That song meant so much when I was 20, but now it doesn't really mean anything to me," or vice versa.

New York Post: So give me three that would document the growth from then to now?

Nikki: One thing as far as growth: There's growth and then there's the inbred snotty, sarcastic humor that I have, and I look back and go, I never had a problem with God, or religion, but I definitely took the Lord's Prayer and regurgitated it in a very snarky, snotty way on the song "Wild Side". At the same time I was telling stories from the streets of L.A. that I had seen and experienced. So "Wild Side" was a mixture of humor and dark poetic honesty and story telling.I look back on it and it's pretty interesting to see where I was at and where I'm at now. In a lot of ways I'm the same guy.

New York Post: It seems like you're a part of a lot of different things — MÖTLEY CRÜE, SIXX: A.M. — you're Tarzan swinging from one thing to the next, and when I read your writing, I'm thinking, "Why does it seem like he's writing to himself, not necessarily for other people to read?"

Nikki: For me, writing is a way to vent and a way to work out stuff. I've always believed that journal writing and diary writing is important to being centered as a person. I still write a journal. I've got to work it out on paper, sometimes before I work it out in my mind. I work it out and I'm always solving problems.

New York Post: What I was getting to, you do it musically, you do it in literature and now you're engrossed in your photography. What are you in search of?

Nikki: That I don't know. I think it's fair that we're putting it down, we're writing it down, we're recording it, photographing it, and it's all somehow resonating with the person that's doing it and hopefully with other people, too. I don't do stuff for anybody else first. I do it for myself first. Being an artist is somewhat being narcissistic, just the way it is. You're usually talking about yourself in one way or another. There are songwriters that are storytellers; I'm not one. If I'm going through something dark, I write a dark song. If I'm going through something happy, I write a happy, joyful song. Same thing with my photography. A lot of the stuff in "This is Gonna Hurt" is darker because I was going through a little bit of a darker period, and I was exploring that of a way of finding relief. But now I'm in a different phase: I'm really happy, I have a great relationship, my family is great, all my businesses are doing great, I love being on the radio. Now, in my photography you're starting to see something a little lighter.

Read the entire interview from New York Post.