NIKKI SIXX To Lead Post-Screening Conversation With 'If These Walls Could Rock' Filmmakers At JACKSON HOLE FILM FESTIVAL

According to The Hollywood Reporter, MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx will lead an introduction and post-screening conversation with "If These Walls Could Rock" filmmakers Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams at this year's Jackson Hole Film Festival, which will take place December 11-14 in Jackson, Wyoming.

The documentary is based on the 2013 book of the same name by Williams and Mark Rosenthal and recounts the storied history of the famed Sunset Marquis hotel, featuring interviews with such music legends as Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, Slash, Cyndi Lauper, Sheryl Crow and Billy Gibbons of ZZ TOP.

"Most people have no idea of the history," Measom told The Hollywood Reporter. "Even the musicians who stay there, I don't even think they know the vast history of this hotel. And they won't know until this film is out."

The idea for the "If These Walls Could Rock" documentary was conceived after Williams and Measom met each other while working on the Paramount+ hair-metal docuseries "I Wanna Rock: The '80s Metal Dream".

"I had no idea that place existed, really," Measom admitted. "But when I read Craig's book, I was amazed [at] this place, which, as we mention in the film, is hiding in plain sight… So naturally I dove right in."

Sixx and his wife Courtney moved to Jackson Hole more than five years ago, leaving Los Angeles, where he had lived for more than four decades, which he said was starting to feel overpopulated. In a 2021 interview with the "Lipps Service With Scott Lipps" podcast, Nikki said about his decision: "Moving up to Wyoming was something really great for me and my wife and also for how we wanted to raise our daughter. I had, a few years before we had been talking about getting pregnant, had been talking to some other parents, and they were telling me about their 12-, 13-year-old kids and that they were buying bulletproof backpacks. At the time, there was all this crazy stuff — there was earthquakes and fires and school shootings and fentanyl overdoses, and it was just getting so intense we kind of started a conversation about kind of a getaway place. And we looked all over the place for that idea. And then the pandemic came. We figured we would do something after [CRÜE's] 'The Stadium Tour', which was supposed to be two years ago. So while we were in lockdown in COVID, we kind of started just looking and seeing what was out there. And we looked at Idaho and Montana and been to Nashville on the set of [the CRÜE biopic] 'The Dirt'. Two guys in my band live in Nashville and I spent a little bit of time in Nashville on the set.

"So anyway, long story made short, Nashville was too far, one place there was nothing to do," Nikki explained. "And Courtney came up with this idea of Wyoming, and we started looking around, and then we ended in Jackson Hole. It was one of the greatest things we've done. We have a change of season, we're outside, we're fishing, we're hiking, we're skiing — just experiencing a different life than being in the city. And I can always go the city when I need it."

Sixx previously spoke about his move to Wyoming in an October 2020 interview with the 95.5 KLOS radio station. At the time, he said that his new home state is filled with "no-B.S. type of people." He explained: "Everybody is extremely outdoors-driven — fishing, hunting, hiking, going on the river, going up the lake. Everyone's extremely healthy. And there's no entertainment business here, so you're not dealing with any of that kind of stuff — you're just dealing with blue-collar people. I relate to it 'cause I came from Idaho in the '70s, which it's 40 minutes to Idaho from where we live. And it's a lot of the same environment. I go back, I go on the road, I still see these beautiful cities, but as far as being a musician and a painter and a person who writes books, I felt it was maybe time, and a better place to raise my daughter."

Sixx's comments echoed those he made a month earlier when he told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about what it has been like to live away from Los Angeles for the first time in decades: "It's great for the creativity. I feel like all kinds of ideas are just floating around the air. Kind of like Keith Richards said — he said he's never written a song; he just plays guitar all the time, and then the song just shows up. And that's kind of what it's like for me up here in Wyoming. I'm just writing, and stuff's turning into a book and stuff's turning into songs. And you don't know where it's going, and that's really exciting."

He continued: "I feel like being back in Los Angeles, everything is about business: When is the deadline? When do the rehearsals start? When does the tour start? When? When? When? And I'm, like, that's great — I understand — but I kind of need to step back and just let some creative juices flow. I don't know. Maybe I don't have any more songs in me; maybe I do. [There's] only one way to find out, and that's to be in a place that's not so chaotic."