“I had a three-string nylon guitar from my stepfather. When he gave me that, he carved my future out. If I’d had a traditional guitar, I’d have had a whole different outlook”: Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx on fate, Thunderbirds and Smoke on the Water

Nikki Sixx playing bass onstage.

As a member and main offstage mouthpiece of one of the most notorious bands ever, not much of Nikki Sixx’s life goes unnoticed. As a bassist he’s the target of many shots: some say he’s not performing live on stage; others claim that, although he wrote many of Mötley Crüe’s biggest hits, he didn’t play on them.

But he doesn’t care – as he tells Bass Player: “Very seldom do I step out of the box. I don’t feel that’s what the band needs. You get to a place where you do something for a really long time; you're in fashion, you’re out of fashion, you’re in fashion.