Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx discussed how enablers can contribute to deaths of major rock stars, and how people around the artist can keep them on the road despite their drug addiction. Late Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley’s mother has spoken in the past about times Layne wanted to get out of his record contract and get clean but his label wouldn’t release him from his contract. Fans criticized some around late Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland in his final years as enablers.
Asked on ‘The Doctors’ program if the “rock and roll lifestyle” encourages and enables drug abuse, Sixx responded: “Yes and no. It depends on the artist. Like when Whitney Houston passed away, I think it was a good time to look at enablers. There’s a lot of people around the artist — there’s managers, there’s agents, there’s road managers, there’s crew, there’s family members — so when you see a person heading towards that addiction, a lot of people don’t wanna stop the money train, and that’s where you hear about a lot of the tragedies in rock and roll and other kinds of music as well. But I’m really happy to be a survivor of heroin addiction and alcoholism and be a father and be able to be here today and talk to you guys.”
Nikki also described having an out-of-body experience following a drug overdose in 1987. After being declared clinically dead, he was revived by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The incident inspired Motley Crue’s 1989 hit “Kickstart My Heart”.
“I was a heroin addict for exactly one year,” he said. “And my heart stopped for two minutes and I came back, I went home and I shot up again and overdosed again. And I woke up the next day and I kind of had a spiritual awakening — that’s the only way I can explain it. Because I woke up and it was the first time I didn’t wanna do drugs. It just changed my perspective, and it was at that time I said, ‘I wanna turn my life around and do something good with this horrible information.'”
