Bob Rock Clarifies That Nikki Sixx Did Play Bass on Early Mötley Crüe Albums

Last week, Bob Rock talked about the new Mötley Crüe recording sessions he’d recently been a part of. In that same discussion, he made a statement that Nikki Sixx told Rock he wasn’t sure he played on Mötley Crüe’s first four albums. That story caught on fast and now Rock has returned to clarify an important detail: he didn’t actually mean that Sixx thought someone replaced his parts on Mötley’s recordings. Sixx was just on a lot of drugs at the time, as we’re all very aware.

“Yesterday on a podcast with Chris Jericho I told a story about working with Nikki Sixx and Mötley Crüe on the ‘Dr. Feelgood’ record. Unfortunately, like many things on the Internet today, it was taken out of context and misconstrued. When I began working with Mötley Crüe on the ‘Dr. Feelgood’ record, the band was sober for the first time and Nikki particularly was recovering from a very public addiction to heroin. We joked around a lot and Nikki, in his very self-deprecating style would say he didn’t even remember playing on their prior records. This was Nikki’s way of saying that for the record we were working on, he was showing up to do the best he possibly could and to make the best record of the band’s career. Which we did. At no time did I ever actually think Nikki didn’t play bass on Motley Crue’s records. He’s one of the most unique and talented players in the world and his approach to the instrument is part of what has made Motley Crue great throughout the years.

“Lastly, I was commenting on and commending Nikki because he never stops learning and never stops improving. I respect Nikki for always wanting to be better at his craft and it shows. I have worked with some of the biggest bands in the world and I can say unequivocally that Nikki Sixx is one of the most talented players, lyricists and songwriters I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. And if the Internet wants to latch onto a story from one or two sound bytes, its extremely unfortunate because it doesn’t reflect the truth of the contributions he’s made to music over the last 40 years.

“Mahalo – Bob Rock”