Nikki Sixx Bass Player for Motley Crue

Early life

Sixx was born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna on December 11, 1958 in San Jose, California.[1] He was raised by his single mother, Deana Richards, and her abusive boyfriend, after his father and namesake, Frank Ferrana abandoned the family. When he was six, he and his mother moved to New Mexico for a short time, after which they moved to Jerome, Idaho, with his grandparents. The family moved several more times, to El Paso, Texas, then to Anthony, New Mexico, back to El Paso, and then returned to Jerome.

While living in Idaho, Sixx became a teenage vandal, breaking into neighbors' homes, shoplifting, a drug addict and being expelled from school for selling drugs. His grandparents sent him to live with his mother, who had moved to Seattle. He lived there for a short time, and learned how to play the bass guitar after buying his first instrument with money made from selling a guitar he stole from a guitar shop that he stopped by while waiting for a bus.

At the age of 17, he struck out on his own, moving to Los Angeles and working at jobs at a liquor store and selling vacuums over the phone while he auditioned for bands. He auditioned for the band Sister, with Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P. before joining London, a local glam outfit whose lineup saw numerous changes and whose major claim to fame was that its singer, Nigel Benjamin, had sung with a late version of Mott the Hoople. Nikki soon left the band, convinced that his ideas for world domination would never come to fruition with Dane Rage and Lizzie Grey as his partners in crime.

Mötley Crüe

In 1981, Sixx founded Mötley Crüe with drummer Tommy Lee. The band decided to self-record their debut album, Too Fast for Love, which was subsequently released in November 1981 on the band's own Leathür Records label. After signing with Elektra Records they re-released the album. The band then went on to record and release Shout at the Devil, raising the band to national fame.
Like his bandmates, Nikki Sixx binged on alcohol, cocaine, and most notably heroin. Sixx has often stated that he would use his body as a human chemistry set, mixing excessive amounts of drugs on a regular basis to search for a new high.
On the night of December 23, 1987, Sixx was declared dead for two minutes after a heroin overdose, only to be revived by paramedics with two adrenaline shots to the heart (this incident was the inspiration for the song "Kickstart my Heart").
In an interview, Sixx states that after he was declared dead, the ambulance arrived, but one of the paramedics in the ambulance was a Motley Crüe fan. "Apparently, the paramedic took one look at me and said, 'He's not gonna die'". On an earlier trip to London, Sixx overdosed at a dealer's house and the dealer apparently tried to beat the life back into him with a bat. Afterwards, the dealer dumped Sixx into a nearby dumpster. Sixx recounted the incident in The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star.
This incident was the inspiration behind the lyric "Valentine's in London, found me in the trash" from the Mötley Crüe song "Dancing on Glass".

Soon after his overdose, he and his bandmates went into rehab. In 1989, the band produced their most successful record, Dr. Feelgood, with producer Bob Rock. The album stayed on the charts for 109 weeks after its release. When Mötley Crüe reformed at the end of 2004, Sixx declared himself sober.

Sixx wrote most of Mötley Crüe's material, including tracks such as "Live Wire", "Home Sweet Home", "Girls, Girls, Girls", "Kickstart My Heart" and "Dr. Feelgood". In the 1990s, all four members began contributing to the material on the albums.

As of 2006, Mötley Crüe have finished a reunion tour featuring all four original members. They've stated that they will record demos for a 2007 album. An exact target release date has not yet been set. Mötley Crüe also embarked on a 2006 tour co-headlining with Aerosmith, called "The Route of All Evil". According to a recent press release from Neil, Mötley Crüe is set to go into the studio in January to record their new album, due for release in 2008. They have released a new single The Saints of Los Angeles, from their upcoming album of the same name.

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