Carmine Appice Responds to Nikki Sixx: “We Were Friends, But I Guess We’re Not Anymore”
The drama between Mötley Crüe, former guitarist Mick Mars and noted rock and metal drummer Carmine Appice over the legendary hair metal band’s treatment of their former guitarist continues. Last month, Appice discussed Mars’ issues surrounding his departure from the band, which led Nikki Sixx to call Appice a “washed-up” drummer. Then, a few days later, it became known that Mars was suing his former band due to their poor treatment of him.
In an interview with Goldmine, Appice discussed Sixx’s response to him and the Mötley Crüe drama.
“Oh, it’s been unbelievable. Did you see what came out since then between Mick and the rest of the band? I’m sure you did. It’s all so sad, but it vindicates my story, which I never thought would start an entire viral Internet thing. The response that came out of it was amazing, and his [Nikki Sixx’s] response of calling me a ‘washed-up drummer’ was pretty wild and pretty hurtful. But I got a great response from people through their comments, and a lot of people are behind me, so it’s all good. That said, I did get a cease-and-desist letter from all these lawyers who work for Mötley Crüe, so I can’t go into too much detail. I have to be careful with what I say, but then again, we’re not really talking about details; we’re just talking about what happened.”
Appice also says he was “very surprised” by Sixx’s response because he thought the two musicians were friends. And he still wants his jam-off.
“I didn’t think he’d go there, all things considered. It really was a surprising thing because we were friends. And after the fact, I challenged Nikki Sixx to a jam-off, but I got no response. I’m not surprised, as I could jam circles around all of them. I’m sure of that. But yeah, what he said was sad because we were friends, but I guess we’re not anymore. I got texts from Derek Sherinian saying, ‘Man, what the hell is wrong with Nikki?’ and Stephen Pearcy apparently said to Nikki, ‘Dude, what the hell are you doing here? We’re all friends.’ And then I started to see a ton of responses from other musicians who said that they don’t like Nikki, and the rest of those guys too much and that the fans have been getting on Mötley a lot… I read that and was like, ‘Oh, my God. I didn’t know that.’ I really didn’t know about any of that stuff, so I had no way of knowing that this whole thing would get as big as it did.”
No one in Mötley Crüe, nor Carmine Appice, can stay quiet for long, so I’m sure we’ll have another update soon.
