Nikki Sixx recently shared his thoughts on John 5 and Mick Mars during a recent interview with Bass Player (via Guitar World).
Nikki Sixx talks about John 5 and Mick Mars
“I’ve been writing music with John for 15 years. One of the first songs I wrote and he played guitar on was ‘The Monster is Loose’ by Meat Loaf, with Desmond Child producing,” the bassist responded as he was asked how working with John 5 differs from the usual way with Mick.
He added:“Even though John wasn’t a songwriter on that, he played guitar, and we got to know each other.”
He further shared, “I was working on some Sixx: A.M. songs after ‘The Heroin Diaries’ came out. I had John come out to my little studio. We sat around with a couple of cheap amps and banged out a song called ‘Lies of the Beautiful People’ – a Number 1 song for that band.”
“Then I brought him in on some other songwriting. I was like, ‘We’re gonna release a movie called ‘The Dirt’ – we should probably have a song called ‘The Dirt.” We wrote a bunch of songs and he was in the studio for that, and he played some guitar on those songs from the movie. We just spent a lot of time together,” Nikki Sixx continued.
The rocker added, “I’m a person who has a pretty clear vision, at least starting out – in a band, sometimes it gets diluted or added to, just by team effort. You could be the greatest quarterback in the world, but if you don’t have a good team, you’re going to get f*cking sacked every time.”
“What I love about John is he’s really good at adapting to the room. On the song ‘Cancelled,’ we were working on some cool riffs, and he would bring in these ideas that went on top,” Sixx talked about what he loves about John 5.
“Being able to depend on a musician is key in a band. He’s a great player and consistent… We’re all operating on a higher frequency. I’ve known and worked with J5 for over 15 years,” the bassist said of John 5’s contributions to the band in February.
A couple of years back John 5 officially joined Mötley Crüe during their Stadium Tour with Def Leppard. The band announced that Mars wouldn’t be part of the rest of the tour or future live shows because of health issues.