The Dirt (76 page)

I like to drink every now and then, and I like to get in trouble. I couldn’t be the lead singer of Mötley Crüe if I didn’t. I’ve been through lawsuits, divorce, addiction, suicide attempts, and more death than I even want to think about. It is time to have fun again.

That’s why when we hired my old buddy Randy Castillo to take Tommy’s place on drums and locked ourselves in the studio to record
New Tattoo
, it was so easy. There was no brain damage, no waiting two weeks to get a guitar tone or snare to sound just right. We went back to basics and finally accepted the fact that we are Mötley Crüe. We’re not a rap band, we’re not a pop band. We are nothing but a band that sings about the joys of booze and sex and cars. We are a band that thrives on being unsettled. We thrive on fighting and teaming up three against one. We thrive on me getting fired, Tommy quitting, Nikki overdosing, and Mick being a nutty old man. Everything that should have killed us has only made us more dangerous, powerful, and determined.

If I had been on MTV when they asked the band about chicks, fire, and hair spray, I wouldn’t have gotten defensive like Nikki. I would have said, "You know what, we are about fucking fire, we are about chicks, and we are about hair spray. And that’s a whole lot better than being about boredom."

I
was walking up the steps to drop my kids off for their first day of school when I looked up and saw Nikki standing in silhouette at the top of the stairwell. It looked like a dream that I often had about him. It had been a year since I last saw or talked to Nikki.

I met him at the top of the stairs and said hi. He nodded back at me.

“Do your kids go here too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. “They’re right there. In that classroom.”

“What a trip. Our kids are in the same class, bro.”

We were both dressed in slacks and button-down shirts. It was unnatural for us, but we didn’t want our kids to be embarrassed by their dirty rock-and-roll dads. Nikki smiled at me and we hugged. It was tripped out: here were two guys who fucking killed the planet together meeting again on the steps of a fucking elementary school.

“I’ve never been here before,” I told Nikki. “Which way do I go to get to the classroom?”

He led me into the building and pointed down the hallway. I told him I’d be back in a minute; I wanted to make sure my son was settled and happy. Nikki said he’d wait and, when I was finished, maybe we’d grab breakfast together and talk about old times.

But I ended up staying with Brandon for half an hour because he was nervous and frightened. When I returned to the lobby, no one was there. I ran out of the building to the top of the steps and looked around. Nikki had disappeared. I walked down the steps and peered into the window of the classroom to make sure Brandon was making friends. And he was: He was sitting there laughing at something. I took another step forward to see what he was laughing at and saw Nikki’s son, Decker, taking off his shirt. A whole new generation of Sixxes and Lees—and Neils and Marses—was about to be let loose on the world.

And so
OUR HEROES ENDED THEIR TWO-DECADE ODYSSEY OF UNISON AND ANIMALISTIC ADVENTURING, HAVING LEARNED LESSONS GREAT, SMALL, AND NONE AT ALL. WE SHALL LEAVE THEM NOW, TO CARRY ON THEIR MÖTLEY WAYS : TO GROW MORE WISE, TO LOVE THEIR WIVES, AND TO PAY ALIMONY ALL THEIR LIVES; TO READ THEIR CHILDREN THIS STORY, TO PLAY FOR CROWDS IN GLORY, AND TO RETURN, TIME AND TIME AGAIN, TO THE FEDERAL REFORMATORY. DEAR READER, TURN AROUND TO GAZE ON THEIR BACKS ONCE MORE AND YOU SHALL SEE THEM FADE FROM VIEW, GALLOPING INTO THE WANING SUN TO CONQUER NEW LANDS, SINGING A NEW TUNE THAT SHALL ALWAYS BE THE SAME TUNE. AND IT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

SPENT A MILLION DOLLARS ON AMPHETAMINES,

CRASHED A LOT OF CARS,

FUCKED ALL THE STUPID STARS IN HOLLYWOOD,

BECAUSE I COULD, BECAUSE WE COULD.

SO YOU LOVED TO HATE US IN YOUR PRIVATE JETS.

FUNNY HOW YOU BITCHED AND MOANED

’CAUSE YOU GOT FAT AND RICH.

AND WHEN I’M DEAD,

ALL YOU’LL PUT ON MY HEADSTONE IS THAT…

I’M SO FAKE,

I’M A DIRTY LITTLE BASTARD.

FAKE, I WAS ALWAYS SO PLASTERED.

FAKE, SO YOU SAY IT’S TRUE.

FAKE, I’M A DIRTY LITTLE WHORE.

FAKE, I’M EVERYTHING AND MORE.

LOOKS LIKE I’M FAKE, JUST LIKE…

JUST LIKE YOU.

FORTY BILLION RECORDS AND GOING STRONG.

NEVER GOT A GRAMMY.

STILL WON’T PLAY ALONG IN HOLLYWOOD,

LIKE WE SHOULD.

MY DIAMOND RING AND COCAINE BINGES,

ALL STRUNG OUT ON YOUR SYRINGES.

SOLD MY SOUL WHILE YOU SOLD RECORDS.

I’VE BEEN YOUR SLAVE FOREVER.

YOU’RE SO FAKE,

YOU’RE A DIRTY LITTLE BASTARD.

FAKE, YOU’RE ALWAYS SO PLASTERED.

FAKE, SO YOU SAY IT’S TRUE.

LOOKS LIKE I’M A FAKE JUST LIKE YOU.

I’M NOT BITTER, I’M JUST BETTER.

To do something the Mötley way is to do something the hard way. And this book was done the Mötley way. Its endless road to publication involved arguments, fights, vendettas, illnesses, lawyers, prisons, divorces, drugs, gunshots, strip clubs, and, most egregiously, E-mails written in all capital letters. In fact, you wouldn’t even be holding
The Dirt
in your grubby paws right now if it weren’t for the following people:

At the Left Bank Organization, a Bullwinkle-sized thanks to everybody, especially Allen Kovac, who made sure
The Dirt
stayed dirty; Jordan Berliant, who moved mountains and other insurmountable natural wonders, like human egos, to make this happen (ask him about visiting Tommy Lee in prison sometime); Jeff Varner, who had his first kid while trying to keep us kids in line; the mighty legal team of Jim Kozmor and Justin Walker plus band attorney Doug Mark, who were mighty indeed; Carol Sloat, who has suffered much for us and complained little; and Sue Wood, who so enjoyed transcribing hundreds of hours of tape recordings that she made one Nikki Sixx comment into her answering machine message: “Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Ozzy licked up my pee?” Mighty praise also to Randy Castillo and Samantha Maloney, whose voices will be heard in
The Dirt, Book II: Oh No, Not Again
.

At ReganBooks, special thanks to Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, whom we blame for starting this whole mess; Dana Albarella, who tirelessly finished the mess he started; Lauren Boyle, who suffered patiently though it all; Andrea Molitor, for making it read as professional as it wasn’t; and Judith Regan, our relentless taskmaster and arbiter of quality. Additional thanks to John Pelosi, one of the only lawyers who knows the difference between Monster Magnet and “The Monster Mash.”

Thanks also to everyone at Deluxe Management, like Carl Stubner, Jade McQueen, and Blain Clausen. And to two book agents, Sarah Lazin and Ira Silverberg, who would probably be happy if they never heard the words Mötley Crüe again.

The biggest thanks of all goes to the tireless legions of Crüeheads, specifically Paul Miles of Chronological Crüe, whose list of corrections was almost as long as this book; Brent Hawryluk, who slaved night and day over his VCR taping classic Crüe TV footage in return for this petty thanks; and Laura Arroyo and Caitlin “Cat” Uecker, who rock.

As for anyone else we may have forgotten, fuck you.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

MÖTLEY CRÜE
is Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, and Tommy Lee. They have sold over 75 million albums worldwide, and combined have five
New York Times
bestselling books:
The Heroin Diaries
and
This Is Gonna Hurt
by Nikki Sixx,
Tommyland
by Tommy Lee,
Tattoos and Tequila
by Vince Neil, and of course,
The Dirt
. Multiplatinum recording artists, international rock stars, and legendary raconteurs, MötleyCrüe defined a generation.