NIKKI SIXX On His MÖTLEY CRÜE Bandmates: “We’re Not Friends’
MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx says that he will probably never see his bandmates again now that they are no longer a touring entity.
In the group’s farewell concert film, “The End”, which hits U.S. cinemas later this month, Sixx states: “We don’t hang out now… We go on stage… like motherfuckers. But we don’t hang out. We don’t go to dinner, we don’t go to each other’s houses for Christmas. We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends… I’ll probably never see them, except in passing.”
MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil says: “The hardest part about being in MÖTLEY CRÜE is being in MÖTLEY CRÜE. I don’t know if other bands of our stature go through some of the crap that we go through. That’s just the tough part. Being onstage and doing that stuff, that’s just the easy part.”
MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee recently told Rolling Stone that after the band’s final show in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, “we had a big party backstage that night, and I never saw the other guys. We never even said ‘goodbye.’ Strange as hell, dude. I mean, what the hell?”
And he hasn’t heard from them since. “I haven’t spoken to Vince Neil or Nikki Sixx,” he said. “I speak to [guitarist] Mick Mars a lot. He’s actually working on some new stuff, and I’m really happy for him. I think Nikki unfollowed me on Twitter, like, the next day. I was like, ‘Wow. Okay dude.'”
“The End” will be screened in selected theaters on June 14, with a DVD release expected later. The 140-minute film includes footage from the CRÜE’s farewell show on December 31, 2015 at the Staples Center along with “exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of the last week of the tour.”
Mötley Crüe fans who were surprised to hear that the band didn’t part ways on the best of terms may want to buckle in for some extra turbulence while watching their farewell concert film, The End.
The movie, due in theaters June 14, offers what seems to be a fairly unvarnished take on the band members’ feelings over the last days of their final tour — and whether it’s drummer Tommy Lee laughingly referring to himself and his bandmates as “drama queens” or singer Vince Neil admitting there were times he “really hated everybody’s guts” and “the politics of being in a band shouldn’t be as tough as it is,” it finds the Crüe saying goodbye the only way they know how.
“Did I think it was gonna last this long? No,” shrugs guitarist Mick Mars at one point, and though any artist in his shoes could easily have said the same, it’s obvious he was referring to more than record sales or longevity. As the group’s tour manager notes of the lengthy series of dates leading up to their farewell concert, “Most of it’s been pretty hard, you know? If it was easy, it wouldn’t be Mötley Crüe.”
“The hardest part about being in Mötley Crüe is being in Mötley Crüe,” adds Neil. “I don’t know if other bands of our stature go through some of the crap that we go through. That’s just the tough part. Being onstage and doing that stuff, that’s just the easy part.”
And now that the stage isn’t there to keep them together, Nikki Sixx predicts the former bandmates “probably won’t see each other.” As he puts it, “We don’t hang out now — we don’t hang out. We go on stage … like motherf—ers. But we don’t hang out. We don’t go to dinner, we don’t go to each other’s houses for Christmas. We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends … I’ll probably never see them, except in passing.”
“We wanted to continue as long as we could,” muses Mars. “But like with any band, there were different directions.”
Echoing his recent comments regarding a longstanding difference of opinion regarding new material, Lee suggests that the band simply couldn’t move any further. “Agreeing on something sometimes, getting all four of us to do the same thing? It’s f—ing brutal.”
In the end, according to Neil, it came down to the most important thing: the folks who bought the records. “We’re all here for the same reason, just give everything for this tour and for our fans,” he tells the camera. “Then … just walk away.”
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