Love or hate the hair metal era, it’s difficult to contest that was really the face of the hair metal movement in the 1980s. The band first got together in , and was spearheaded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, according to the . Later, lead guitarist Mick Mars and vocalist Vince Neil joined the band, and the rest is rock history.
To date, Mötley Crüe has sold more than 80 million album copies around the world, with 25 million of those being in the U.S. They’re loved for catchy, party-happy songs such as “Girls, Girls, Girl,” “Kickstart My Heart” and “Too Young to Fall in Love.”
While Mötley Crüe’s music is pure glam bliss, the band’s wild lifestyle also made them kings of the hair metal movement in the ’80s. As captured in their film “The Dirt,” all of the members of the band have struggled with either alcoholism, addictions to drugs or problems with the law. Don’t bring these guys home to mom and dad, ladies.
Nikki Sixx Largely Wrote Mötley Crüe’s Music
While it’s not common for a band’s bass player to write that group’s music, that was largely the case with Mötley Crüe. Nikki Sixx served as the main songwriter for the band’s music, with other members also having a part of the songwriting credits. While other band members did contribute, that largely happened more in the 1990s, so Sixx, for example, has sole writing credits for “Too Young to Fall in Love,” “Kickstart My Heart” and “Black Widow,” as noted by the .
Even though Sixx wrote the majority of the band’s music and lyrics, the music wasn’t just about him. For example, Lee’s relationship with Heather Locklear back in the 1980s and early 1990s actually inspired the song “Without You.”
“That was a very simple idea for a song, which I had written a lyric about Heather Locklear and Tommy,” Sixx told in 2009. “They were coming over to my place all the time. I thought to myself one day, ‘Without You,’ coming from Tommy’s perspective, life would not be the same.”
Lee and Locklear had already been married for three years when Dr. Feelgood dropped, and even though their marriage ended in 1994, Nikki Sixx said “it was a good relationship at that time. It was sort of a romantic moment. I apologize for that.”
Sixx has even written for bands outside of the Crüe. For example, he wrote Alice Cooper’s released in 1991, alongside Mars, Cooper and Jim Vallance.
So, songwriting is Sixx’s legacy. He actually says he has no desire to be a lead vocalist, ever.
“I don’t think of myself as a singer, but I’ll do background vocals. And what I learned about my voice is if I’m in the right key, I actually have some strength,” podcast in 2021, while emphasizing that he “will never be a solo artist.”
