Referring to the band’s “imperious years in the ’80s”, Nikki Sixx has admitted that Motley Crue would probably be considered sexist in our current age.
When asked during an interview with Classic Rock if he thinks the band would be considered sexist, the bassist replied: “In today’s environment, most probably. As was everybody. In the ’70s, when I grew up, it was just the messaging that came through, and you were emulating your heroes.”
“I remember the line from the first Aerosmith album. He goes, ‘Heading out to New York Slitty.’ [Sixx presumably means the ‘slitty licker’ reference in ‘Pandora’s Box.’]
“And I was like, ‘Wow. That’s fucking rad.’ It was dangerous, you know? When someone’s talking about guns and sex and drugs, you’re like, ‘This is fucking dangerous, man. This is not mom and dad’s music.’
“So it was a different time. You can’t rewrite history, man. You can’t rewrite the ’60s. You can’t rewrite the ’50s. We can try… but why?”
Sixx recently revealed that he started taking bass lessons again in an effort to be able to play the instrument using only his fingers.
“Before the pandemic, I got into this lesson thing,” Sixx shared during an appearance on My Mom’s Basement With Robbie Fox while promoting his new memoir, The First 21: How I Became Nikki Sixx.
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“I started taking guitar lessons online, I just pluck away on the guitar, and I can write an OK song on the guitar, but I don’t know a lot about the instrument other than I like to write from root notes.”
Sixx added, “So I started taking guitar lessons online, and then eventually in person. I started taking bass lessons online, eventually in person. Then I was pushing myself to play with my fingers. … On The Dirt soundtrack, all those songs I played with my fingers, which was the first time. And it took some adjustments with the audio because I’m an aggressive pick player.”
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Check out ‘Home Sweet Home’ by Motley Crue: