“I’d just hit the bass really hard and overdrive it with my hand. There’s no need to have any finesse if you’re a bass player”: Nikki Sixx recalls his decadent early days with Mötley Crüe

Musician Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue performs onstage during the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 19, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. .

Back in 1981, Mötley Crüe merged glam-rock and metal with their debut album, Too Fast For Love. “I don't know where that one came from!” laughed bassist Nikki Sixx in October 2021 when we asked him if the album title was about premature ejaculation. That set the scene for an appropriately hilarious interview about the crazy times he “enjoyed” with Mötley Crüe.

“Now I look back on it, I was really nailing my influences. I was pretty much blending early AC/DC and Aerosmith with the Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols and all my pop influences. The shit I loved about Mott The Hoople, lyrically, and Slade – all the stuff that I thought was pretty fucking cool.”