In a new interview with Classic Rock magazine, Nikki Sixx was asked who the best musician in MÖTLEY CRÜE is. He responded: “They’re all really fucking good. Tommy [Lee] is a monster on drums. Mick [Mars] is one of my favorite guitar players. And Vince [Neil] has something that nobody else has. Isn’t that what you’re looking for — guys that don’t sound like anybody else? I’m not a great player. Like, if I really woodshed for six months, I’m okay. But if I was a different kind of bass player, it would offset the sound of the band.
“MÖTLEY CRÜE is an interesting band, because if you remove any one member, it completely changes the sound,” he continued. “We all played against each other. A lot of times, Vince would tell me he struggled with the fact I put so many lyrics in a song. ‘Shout At The Devil’ is a good example. But it was because I grew up with beat generation writers as a teenager, and I would get into this kind of rhythmic frenzy. And because of the way that Vince sang, that was what made his voice excel. His voice was kind of like a Gatling gun. Like, bap-bap-bap. I remember the first time the four of us ever played together, we ran ‘Live Wire’. I turned around to adjust my bass amp, and Tommy and I just gave each other a look: ‘Something’s happening here.'”
Two months ago, Sixx told Yahoo! Entertainment that Vince “has this amazing, unique voice — sometimes like Robert Plant, Perry Farrell… They have these interesting voices that are… they’re not pitchy; they’re just raw and just kind of on top. I always loved that about Vince‘s voice, and I would write for Vince.” He added: “Vince will tell you, ‘Nikki wrote all those lyrics for me.’ I did. I gave him stuff. I understand his voice so much.”
Sixx also speculated how different CRÜE would have sounded if it was fronted by a vocalist with a bluesier tone.
“I got lucky,” he said. “I got a guy with a really different voice. Imagine if he was a bluesy singer — if he was a David Coverdale? I love David; I love his voice. Or Glenn Hughes. [They are] some of my favorite people and favorite musicians… Could he deliver ‘Bastard’? Could he deliver ‘Dropping Like Flies’? Could he deliver ‘Generation Swine’? I don’t know, I’ll never know. But I do love that about MÖTLEY CRÜE that we kind of four individually… I don’t know. It’s almost like we don’t belong together. We’re all so weird and different and it makes for some really interesting magic.”
MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s “The Stadium Tour” with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020 but ended up being pushed back to 2021, and then to 2022, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
