wildwoman1313
04-13-2009, 10:29 AM
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SIXX:A.M.
Nikki Sixx, James Michael, D. J. Ashba
“Nikki was always seeing Mexicans and midgets running around his [bleep]ing house. His blow paranoia was totally out of control. I would get calls from West Tech saying he had set all his alarms off and was in the house refusing to answer the door. Or the police department would call me because Nikki’s neighbor had phoned them to report that Nikki was crawling around in his garden in the middle of the night with a shotgun. It would be bad enough if it happened once, but this s**t was going on at least twice a week.”
The Heroin Diaries
Doc McGhee, former Mötley Crüe co-manager
“Here’s a “There Goes the Neighborhood” memory! Readers, picture this--a packed family campground with kids, bikes, fishing poles, water skis, campfires, etc. Then, just when you think it’s safe…here comes the badass black super-stretch limo from hell! It’s not something you normally see at any campground you go to, but then again you never went camping with me and Nikki! I know you are thinking: God, these dudes are so spoiled and that the limo is there to take them home right?? NOT! The cocaine has been delivered by limousine! Imagine us crawling out of our dark tent into the daylight to pick up more blow--not a good look! That poor limo driver ended up making a few more round trips up there to keep our magic carpet ride afloat.”
The Heroin Diaries
Tommy Lee, Mötley Crüe drummer
The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star is adapted from such recollections as these and from entries too depraved to quote here. Nikki Sixx once rushed headlong into heroin addiction, emulating his heroes of the time, junkies all. Extreme was in his blood. He considered himself invincible, as only youth can. Arguably, he was right.
It was never Sixx’s intent to publish something so personal when he began writing at the peak of his drug addiction. The journal was an effort to relieve his profound sense of isolation as well as to leave a paper trail of his life in the not-so-off chance it should end prematurely. During this time, Sixx’s drug use had escalated to the point where he was blowing $5000 a day on heroin and cocaine, pun unintended, buying in bulk to spare himself the major inconvenience of having to track down his dealer everyday. Problem was, his foresight was no match for his psychosis. Without fail, he’d end up flushing huge amounts of drugs down the toilet while in the throes of acute paranoia and have to call his dealer for even more when he’d sober up and the whole process would begin again. As one of the biggest rock stars of the 1980s, Sixx was warned by his accountant that he (Sixx) would be completely broke in eleven months at the rate he was going, if not dead.
After two decades of clean living, Sixx unearthed his journals and decided to expose his still raw nerves concerning this time as a means of catharsis, and in the procees, to perhaps provide a foothold out of the bottomless well of addiction for those similarly afflicted. To date, The Heroin Diaries has sold more than 200,000 copies and remained on the New York Times best-seller list for an impressive twenty-seven weeks.
Nikki Sixx began conceptualizing a companion piece to his memoir almost from the start. He and James Michael, who co-wrote with Sixx and provided background vocals on several Mötley Crüe releases, including Lewd Crued & Tattooed, New Tattoo, and Red, White & Crue, began kicking around the idea of a concept album when Nikki first rediscovered the diaries buried in a chest of memorabilia. Michael, a virtual jack-of-all-trades, is an accomplished producer/writer/engineer/mixer/vocalist/musician in his own right and maintains a stable of talent that includes Alanis Morissette, Papa Roach, Meat Loaf and Mötley Crüe, among others. In 2000 he wrote and mixed his entire first album entitled Inhale and often played all of the instruments, with the exception of a few guest artists. Sixx recruited his friend as lead vocalist, co-writer, co-producer and multi-instrumentalist for the fledgling project, but it would take another few years, and hooking up with Beautiful Creatures’ guitarist and songwriter D. J. Ashba, for the soundtrack to jell.
Daren Jay (D.J.) Ashba is one of those people born with the “music gene”. He became obsessed with music at a very early age and learned to play the piano at age three. His first piano recital came at age five when he performed Beethoven’s classical masterpiece “Ode to Joy”. From there he took on drums, beating on a homemade kit of trash cans, pots, pans, buckets and whatever else pleased his ear. Then, at age eight, while working in the cornfields of Illinois to earn enough money to buy his first electric guitar, Ashba chose a white Harmony Flying V out of the Sears catalog. While riding the bus to work each day, he sat with a seasoned guitarist from a local band who would take his pocket knife and carve a fretboard on the seat in front of them, poke three holes in the carving and say, “That’s an A chord. Go home and practice that tonight.” And practice he would. Every day, all day. As a delicious bit of irony, Ashba’s dad took him to his first concert when he turned sixteen. That concert was Mötley Crüe's Girls, Girls, Girls tour. It was a pivotal night for the young Ashba who, at age nineteen, packed his things in his mini van and headed to California.
D. J. Ashba had collaborated with Nikki Sixx on several occasions as co-writer and co-producer for many platinum artists before Nikki turned up one day, manuscript pages in hand. Ashba read through the pages and was inspired by the message behind the sensationalism of Sixx’s addiction, having himself lost many a friend to drugs, but it was hearing Nikki play a couple songs he had worked up for the proposed soundtrack, in particular “Dead Man’s Ballet”, that blew Ashba away. It was then that Ashba glimpsed the bigger picture of just how far they could take things.
SIXX:A.M., a clever combination of the trio’s last names, was conceived as three writer/producer/musicians making a soundtrack as opposed to a band making an album. There were no plans to continue on as a group after the release of the record. With this no rules, no expectations approach, Sixx, Ashba and Michael were free of the constraints of creating music that would translate to the stage. They dabbled in orchestral movements and experimented with various musical genres, including rock, industrial and spoken word and cut the album without a drummer, opting instead for a computerized drum program. Ashba constantly picked Nikki’s brain about heroin and addiction throughout the writing process in an attempt to downplay the dark subject matter that they were each so naturally inclined toward, striving to keep that darkness positive because ultimately, Nikki’s is a story of recovery and redemption.
Released in August of 2007, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack has sold over 270,000 albums. It is a melodic odyssey into hardcore addiction, as theatrical and strangely compelling as the book itself, and is meant to be listened to track by track, in order, and in its entirety, to “read” the arc of its narrative. "Life is Beautiful", the first single off the album, was originally posted on Sixx’s MySpace page but when it picked up momentum and ended up an unexpected radio hit, debuting at #26 on the Billboard rock singles chart, no one was more surprised than Sixx, Ashba and Michael. “Pray for Me”, “Tomorrow”, and the ballad “Accidents Can Happen” would follow, and suddenly, what began as a labor of love between friends had taken on a life of its own.
http://www.earvolution.com/61cWh%252BFxbdl__SS500_.jpg
In the final installment, SIXX:A.M., the band, is birthed in the glare of Crue Fest.
SIXX:A.M.
Nikki Sixx, James Michael, D. J. Ashba
“Nikki was always seeing Mexicans and midgets running around his [bleep]ing house. His blow paranoia was totally out of control. I would get calls from West Tech saying he had set all his alarms off and was in the house refusing to answer the door. Or the police department would call me because Nikki’s neighbor had phoned them to report that Nikki was crawling around in his garden in the middle of the night with a shotgun. It would be bad enough if it happened once, but this s**t was going on at least twice a week.”
The Heroin Diaries
Doc McGhee, former Mötley Crüe co-manager
“Here’s a “There Goes the Neighborhood” memory! Readers, picture this--a packed family campground with kids, bikes, fishing poles, water skis, campfires, etc. Then, just when you think it’s safe…here comes the badass black super-stretch limo from hell! It’s not something you normally see at any campground you go to, but then again you never went camping with me and Nikki! I know you are thinking: God, these dudes are so spoiled and that the limo is there to take them home right?? NOT! The cocaine has been delivered by limousine! Imagine us crawling out of our dark tent into the daylight to pick up more blow--not a good look! That poor limo driver ended up making a few more round trips up there to keep our magic carpet ride afloat.”
The Heroin Diaries
Tommy Lee, Mötley Crüe drummer
The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star is adapted from such recollections as these and from entries too depraved to quote here. Nikki Sixx once rushed headlong into heroin addiction, emulating his heroes of the time, junkies all. Extreme was in his blood. He considered himself invincible, as only youth can. Arguably, he was right.
It was never Sixx’s intent to publish something so personal when he began writing at the peak of his drug addiction. The journal was an effort to relieve his profound sense of isolation as well as to leave a paper trail of his life in the not-so-off chance it should end prematurely. During this time, Sixx’s drug use had escalated to the point where he was blowing $5000 a day on heroin and cocaine, pun unintended, buying in bulk to spare himself the major inconvenience of having to track down his dealer everyday. Problem was, his foresight was no match for his psychosis. Without fail, he’d end up flushing huge amounts of drugs down the toilet while in the throes of acute paranoia and have to call his dealer for even more when he’d sober up and the whole process would begin again. As one of the biggest rock stars of the 1980s, Sixx was warned by his accountant that he (Sixx) would be completely broke in eleven months at the rate he was going, if not dead.
After two decades of clean living, Sixx unearthed his journals and decided to expose his still raw nerves concerning this time as a means of catharsis, and in the procees, to perhaps provide a foothold out of the bottomless well of addiction for those similarly afflicted. To date, The Heroin Diaries has sold more than 200,000 copies and remained on the New York Times best-seller list for an impressive twenty-seven weeks.
Nikki Sixx began conceptualizing a companion piece to his memoir almost from the start. He and James Michael, who co-wrote with Sixx and provided background vocals on several Mötley Crüe releases, including Lewd Crued & Tattooed, New Tattoo, and Red, White & Crue, began kicking around the idea of a concept album when Nikki first rediscovered the diaries buried in a chest of memorabilia. Michael, a virtual jack-of-all-trades, is an accomplished producer/writer/engineer/mixer/vocalist/musician in his own right and maintains a stable of talent that includes Alanis Morissette, Papa Roach, Meat Loaf and Mötley Crüe, among others. In 2000 he wrote and mixed his entire first album entitled Inhale and often played all of the instruments, with the exception of a few guest artists. Sixx recruited his friend as lead vocalist, co-writer, co-producer and multi-instrumentalist for the fledgling project, but it would take another few years, and hooking up with Beautiful Creatures’ guitarist and songwriter D. J. Ashba, for the soundtrack to jell.
Daren Jay (D.J.) Ashba is one of those people born with the “music gene”. He became obsessed with music at a very early age and learned to play the piano at age three. His first piano recital came at age five when he performed Beethoven’s classical masterpiece “Ode to Joy”. From there he took on drums, beating on a homemade kit of trash cans, pots, pans, buckets and whatever else pleased his ear. Then, at age eight, while working in the cornfields of Illinois to earn enough money to buy his first electric guitar, Ashba chose a white Harmony Flying V out of the Sears catalog. While riding the bus to work each day, he sat with a seasoned guitarist from a local band who would take his pocket knife and carve a fretboard on the seat in front of them, poke three holes in the carving and say, “That’s an A chord. Go home and practice that tonight.” And practice he would. Every day, all day. As a delicious bit of irony, Ashba’s dad took him to his first concert when he turned sixteen. That concert was Mötley Crüe's Girls, Girls, Girls tour. It was a pivotal night for the young Ashba who, at age nineteen, packed his things in his mini van and headed to California.
D. J. Ashba had collaborated with Nikki Sixx on several occasions as co-writer and co-producer for many platinum artists before Nikki turned up one day, manuscript pages in hand. Ashba read through the pages and was inspired by the message behind the sensationalism of Sixx’s addiction, having himself lost many a friend to drugs, but it was hearing Nikki play a couple songs he had worked up for the proposed soundtrack, in particular “Dead Man’s Ballet”, that blew Ashba away. It was then that Ashba glimpsed the bigger picture of just how far they could take things.
SIXX:A.M., a clever combination of the trio’s last names, was conceived as three writer/producer/musicians making a soundtrack as opposed to a band making an album. There were no plans to continue on as a group after the release of the record. With this no rules, no expectations approach, Sixx, Ashba and Michael were free of the constraints of creating music that would translate to the stage. They dabbled in orchestral movements and experimented with various musical genres, including rock, industrial and spoken word and cut the album without a drummer, opting instead for a computerized drum program. Ashba constantly picked Nikki’s brain about heroin and addiction throughout the writing process in an attempt to downplay the dark subject matter that they were each so naturally inclined toward, striving to keep that darkness positive because ultimately, Nikki’s is a story of recovery and redemption.
Released in August of 2007, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack has sold over 270,000 albums. It is a melodic odyssey into hardcore addiction, as theatrical and strangely compelling as the book itself, and is meant to be listened to track by track, in order, and in its entirety, to “read” the arc of its narrative. "Life is Beautiful", the first single off the album, was originally posted on Sixx’s MySpace page but when it picked up momentum and ended up an unexpected radio hit, debuting at #26 on the Billboard rock singles chart, no one was more surprised than Sixx, Ashba and Michael. “Pray for Me”, “Tomorrow”, and the ballad “Accidents Can Happen” would follow, and suddenly, what began as a labor of love between friends had taken on a life of its own.
http://www.earvolution.com/61cWh%252BFxbdl__SS500_.jpg
In the final installment, SIXX:A.M., the band, is birthed in the glare of Crue Fest.