Nikki Sixx

The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx

“When I heard Nikki was dead, my first reaction was, ‘I knew that fucking prick would going to do something like that!’” Mick Mars, drummer for Motley Crüe.

Lil Wayne, DMX and Bobby Brown combined ain’t got shit on Nikki Sixx.

If I took one thing away from reading this book that I could relate to hip-hop, that would be it. For all the “living the life” and drug addict behavior we see in our artists now, it pales in comparison to Nikki’s journey, which at times probably had him perched on the moon with houseshoes on.

I’ve always known of Motley Crüe, having lived in the era of the time of Motley Crüe’s prominence & lived in an area where the radio was heavily ruled by rock & not rap. I knew all the badass white dudes I grew up with, the hellions who if they were Black would have been thugs instead of “rebels,” all wanted to be Nikki Sixx.

Now, I finally see why.

If ever there was a “rock star,” Sixx was it & he details it in his autobiography, chronicling their ascent to the peak of stardom…and the lowest points of his drug abuse. Sex, drugs, music all amplified by ten. The time span of the book covers one year, in the form of actual diary entries, from Christmas 1986 to Christmas 1987.

Overall, as “Sikki,” as he’s so affectionally referred to, gets higher & higher, the antics get wilder and you enter a deep dark hole along with him. While the idea of journal entries gets trite after a few chapters, I found myself anticipating reading more just to see how he was going to escape the seemingly inevitable fate of death. Even knowing that the man is still alive, I continued to watch as he wallowed in his own disgust & desperation. His addiction to heroin, coupled with the use of pills, alcohol, sex & other debauchery takes a path that few have traveled and lived to tell. Along the way, there’s plenty of testimonials to the events from other band members, managers, other bands and security, adding a little more weight to the self-aggrandizing accounts that would otherwise seem to far-fetched.

The most amazing thing I learned – Nikki Sixx used to bang Vanity, once a young boy’s dream…and an often participant in freebasing with Sixx.

Nothing’s really topping that but the other stories contained in the book did give it a run for the money.

Motley Crüe – Shout At The Devil

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