Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx discussed his feud with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder in a new interview with Paulo Baron and Regis Tadeu, calling him a hypocrite for getting on private planes. He said about his songwriting, “I’m not trying to be the guy that wrote [the Crue song] ‘Bastard’ [from 1983’s ‘Shout At The Devil’ album], ’cause I’m not the guy that wrote ‘Bastard’. I wrote that song about somebody that ripped us off. I am the guy that if you fuck with me, I will fuck with you back. And that’s what that song is about. You take a swipe at my band; I’ll take a swipe at your band. You try to hurt my family, which is my band; I will try to hurt you. That’s not something to be proud of. [Laughs]”
He said about attacking Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder: “I remember going to MTV with [a copy of] ‘Nevermind’ before it had come out, Nirvana. Me and Tommy [Lee] were on there. We were, like, ‘Hey, you guys gotta check out this band. You gotta check out this band.’ And they were bands that were coming. I remember having a cassette — I think it was demos; it might not have been; it might have been early recordings — for Rage Against The Machine, and I remember telling everybody about that.
“We’ve never been afraid to embrace music changing because that’s the whole idea behind the music,” he continued. “If you listen to ‘Too Fast For Love’ and then you listen to ‘The Dirt’, you’re, like, ‘Well, it’s the same band, but it has grown.’ So we never had a problem with that.
“My only thing is, you wanna take a crack at my band, I’m probably gonna say something back. But what I don’t understand is why’s the guy even talking about my band? He’s a successful guy.
“Listen, let’s face it: the guy flies around in private jets; he lives in a mansion in a gated community; he sells out stadiums, and then he dresses at the thrift store and tries to pretend some guy in the ’90s. Don’t take a swipe at my band, dude. I mean, I’m at least being honest.”
Pearl Jam co-founder and rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard recently made an appearance at Revolver’s “Fan First” podcast. He was asked by the host Christina Rowatt to share his thoughts on Eddie Vedder’s recently expressed extreme dislike of Mötley Crüe and ’80s hair metal in general.
Both Eddie Vedder and Nikki Sixx have been noted exchanging words in the media. Pearl Jam’s Ten Club President Tim Bierman recently hit back at Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx for making some offensive comments on Pearl Jam.
The band’s frontman Eddie Vedder had once stated that he did not like Motley Crue due to their lyricism which displays women in a bad light. Eddie Vedder said how he despised the band.
Eddie would make another jab at Mötley Crüe during a recent show from his ongoing promotional tour for his latest solo album “Earthlings”. On the tour, Eddie is backed by The Earthlings, consisting of RHCP drummer Chad Smith, keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Josh Klinghoffer, bassist Chris Chaney, guitarist/vocalist Glen Hansard, and guitarist/producer Andrew Watt.
During the gig, Eddie pointed at Chad Smith’s drum kit and said: “That drum kit, that silver, beautiful machine that he is the engine of…does not need to elevate or rotate to do its job. Let me just point that out.” The remark was meant as a subtle diss of Mötley Crüe and its drummer Tommy Lee, who’d often perform on rotating drum kit, sometimes even upside-down.
Stone Gossard opens up on the feud
Given that this unexpected “feud” between the two iconic musicians attracted a significant amount of mainstream attention, Stone was asked to weigh in on the matter and describe his stance towards hair metal. Here is what he said:
“Yeah, and, you know – for sure, Jeff [Ament] and Mike [McCready] and I *loved* hard rock, we went through it all. I bought the first Mötley Crüe Leathür records. I thought it was, at the time, it was punk-like. It had that same – it was, like, Motorhead, and…
“There were things about it that I was discovering – you know, British hard rock – that felt also at the time, like rebellious, or against the norm, or something that made me interested in it. And I’ve always liked heavy, so…”
