Not only did Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx steal a guy’s girlfriend, he stole his name after a night in bed! Sixx told the story in a new joint interview with Tommy Lee on Trunk Nation, transcribed by Ultimate-Guitar.
First of all, how did you come up with Nikki Sixx?
Nikki: “I was in a band called London and I changed my name to Nikki – I was Nikki London from London, ’cause all my favorite bands were from London, and I wasn’t a big thinker. …
“But I figured I don’t want to be Nikki London of London, I don’t know why that kept coming to my head, so I was going to change my name to Nikki Nine.
“But there was this girl, we were sharing a bed together, and she had a boyfriend named Nikki Six, so I said, ‘Not only am I gonna steal his girlfriend, I’m gonna steal his name.’ It was a joke that turned out pretty cool. Isn’t that weird?”
On covering Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”
Tommy: “We covered Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin,’ right. It’s fucking rad, right? So he’s, like, ‘Tommy, I have an idea for a cover.’ And I was, like, ‘Alright, I’m always open for everything.’
“He’s, like, ‘I can’t tell you what it is, I just have to play it for you.’ So he comes over, we’re working on bass and drums for the record, and he goes, ‘Dude, check this out’ and he puts a demo on, and I was, like, ‘What the fuck?’.
Nikki: “At first, he was, like – ’cause it doesn’t sound like Madonna at all, and he was going, like, ‘This is cool.’
“It got this big heavy thing in the beginning, and then Tommy’s like this, and all of a sudden I saw his eyes go bigger, and I was, like, ‘Oh man, he’s gonna punch me right in the fucking face’. I was getting ready to get up and leave and that verse he started and he was, like, ‘Wow.'”
Tommy: “Then the chorus dropped, and I said, ‘Dude, this is fucking insane, let’s rip it.’ It was fucking crazy.”
Nikki: “And I think it’s funny that Vince is singing ‘Like a Virgin’.
Tommy: “Can you imagine Nikki going, ‘Hey dude, I have this really rad idea – wanna cover Like a Virgin””?
