Interview with Nikki Sixx
The band's legend, in all its "Behind the Music" glory, has been endlessly chronicled in nearly every medium.
But one can't help reading the band's 2001 autobiography, "The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band," without thinking, hey, this would make a great movie.
Bass player Nikki Sixx couldn't say when the long-rumored film might end up on the big screen, but, as he explained during a recent conference call with reporters, he knows who won't be playing him.
"Angelina Jolie keeps calling me asking me to take Brad Pitt's phone calls, because he wants to be me in the movie, and I just don't know what to say," Sixx joked. "He isn't good enough looking.
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Animated as ever, Sixx talked at length about Motley Crue's legacy, its "Saints of Los Angeles" album and tour and its recent role as elder statesman working to shepherd young bands following in Motley's footsteps.
Tour support includes Hinder, Theory of a Deadman and The Last Vegas, a band featuring two members of former Grand Rapids glam-rock outfit the Nastys. But the Crue -- Sixx, guitarist Mick Mars, singer Vince Neil and drummer Tommy Lee -- owns the night. Sixx likens it to a circus, which may have been a more apt comparison when the band last visited Birmingham on its 2005 Carnival of Sins tour. But Motley Crue being Motley Crue, the more extreme the metaphor, the more appropriate.
"You roll into town. You've got the tight-rope walker, you've got the ringleader, you've got the fire-breather. Whatever recklessness happens backstage happens, and we sort of leave a trail of ... something bad.
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This time, the band is touring behind new music. "Saints," Sixx said, was loosely conceived as a soundtrack to whatever movie "Dirt" turns into.
"(The songs) are really just about us. It's kind of a narcissistic album, to be honest. Aren't all albums, in a weird way? Very rarely do we get a song and it's not somehow related to the artist," he said.
The band's famed debauchery has waned a bit over the years. (Once being declared dead from a heroin overdose, in Sixx's case, will do that to you.) But Sixx says there's still plenty of spark left, as the band has achieved rare longevity in a business preoccupied with quick success rather than the cultivation of careers.
"I miss being attached to bands. I see it with my kids. They've been trained. My youngest told me the other day that Hannah Montana is done. This is a kid that was obsessed like all kids with a TV show, with the whole thing. Had every T-shirt, had everything, and now it's over.
"I'm still listening to Aerosmith, dude, that I found when I was in my teens. I've never said, 'Well, I'm over them, I'm into this new thing.' That's just what record companies have been partially responsibl