Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries

So I finished Nikki Sixx’s The Heroin Diaries after looking at the book, snickering, and then looking at it again for another 10 minutes. When I got tired of looking like a cheap bastard by reading the entire thing in the store, I bought it. It has occupied the top of my toilet tank and a trip to the in-laws with positive results.
Can I recommend it? If you’re a fan of the Motley Crue biography, The Dirt, then yes. If you’re not, then I need to recommend reading The Dirt again, because it’s fucking awesome. Seriously, you can be the world’s biggest Crue hater and still enjoy the piss out of The Dirt because it’s better than anything in their catalog.
The Heroin Diaries follows a similar pattern of interviews and quotes from various band members, management, record company executives, and anyone who seemed to get in the way of Nikki Sixx’s penchant for self-medication.
It just seems so hard to believe how a guy who professes inspiration from several well-deserved sources could be the man responsible for much of what was wrong with 80’s music. The decadence sometimes overshadowed the music and Sixx even supports that claim himself. The Heroin Diaries explains how a pointless and piss poor live version of Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” actually made it on Girls Girls Girls: they rain out of ideas.
With such contradictory information (buying into the Motley myth while acknowledging that much of it was merely a turd of complacency) being admitted, one has to wonder if he’s throwing his brand under the bus. Does Motley Crue even have enough material to make a vital entry? Do we take it for what they appeared to be: a decent metal band from L.A. that started out with a promising debut, followed it with a more aggressive bit of imagery and then discovered a formula for funding a never-ending vacation without ever having to consider a world based in reality. Want proof? That aforementioned album of mediocrity made it to #2 on the album charts and fueled a sold-out arena tour. Could it be that a lot of what fed Sixx’s addiction was knowing that, despite the success, Motley Crue was turning into a corporate machine, the same kind of beast that Sixx rebelled against while growing up?
Probably not, as Sixx continually rails against his Mother for abandoning him throughout the book, offering a half-hearted “I’m not mad anymore” response at the end of the book while suggesting that most of his bile originated from her irresponsibility.
He also tiptoes around the idea that he may be repeating exactly the same kind of harm to his own children as his mother did to him. Of course, not of the same degree, but I find the fact that Sixx wasn’t able to develop a healthy relationship with the mother of his own children as incredibly telling.
He goes on to project an almost congenial and pedestrian attitude for his band. I can’t understand how he could see all of vocalist Vince Neil’s inadequacies under the haze of heroin, but now that he’s clean and sober, he doesn’t seem to notice that the vocalist has become even more limited in his abilities and even lazier in his performances. Is Sixx merely trying not to rock the money boat or does he even give a shit anymore?
With that being said, The Heroin Diaries mirror The Dirt is the sense that it barely talks about the Crue’s music. From that perspective, it is highly entertaining while shedding no insight on why we’re even talking about Motley Crue nearly two decades removed from their limited impact on rock music.