NIKKI SIXX
A pop psychologist would have a field day with Nikki Sixx. He arrived on the California birth register on December 11, 1958 as Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr. A smart, sensitive kid, he was soon to be deserted by his Italian father and dragged across the States on the whims of his untamed mother. Next, he was a troubled teenager with a burgeoning rap sheet, which featured theft, slashed tyres and schoolyard drug deals (50 cents for two joints).
But it was Feranna’s touchdown on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1975 – and his rebirth as Nikki Sixx – that proved the defining moment of his life, as documented in his new memoir, The First 21. Patently a star-in-waiting, Sixx got his golden ticket as chief songwriter and bassist of Mötley Crüe – an aptly named rabble who ran through the 80s like wild dogs, occasionally looking up from the strippers and cocaine to toss us the era’s most glorious stadium anthems.
From Shout At The Devil to Dr. Feelgood – not to mention underrated side-project Sixx:A.M., whose new Hits package accompanies the book – Sixx’s 100-million-selling catalogue should not be brushed aside. But no interview is complete without an excavation of the man’s considerable infamy, and though we’ve been warned by his management not to ask about his wild years, Sixx himself is happy to bend that proviso. “Life happens,” he shrugs, “and suddenly you’re eating Cap’n Crunch with Jack Daniel’s in the morning, and snorting and drinking and car-crashing…”
You write powerfully about your childhood in The First 21, and especially the absence of your father. How do you feel about him now?
In my earlier book, , there was a lot of disclosure about how I felt about my family. I had preconceived notions of what had happened to me – mixed with drugs – so I was pretty angry and confused and couldn’t get a lot of answers. With this book, I went back and reached as many people as I could from my life and it ironed out some of the wrinkles. For years, it was like my dad had bolted for no reason. Because that’s the story that I was told, mostly from my mom. It was like, “Yeah, your dad was an SOB, he just left us here.” But following the footsteps backwards, talking to a lot of family members
