My Appetite For Destruction (23 page)

Nikki really knows how to work it with the ladies. When we were ready to come, they all crammed in really tight together in front of us. They put their heads together with their mouths wide open, anxiously awaiting our climax. We both shot our come on their faces. I yelled, “Make it sick!” and they swapped our come through tongue kisses, licking it off of one another. It was awesome.

Nikki is a smart, all-around together, down-to-earth, professional, cool guy.
GNR
originally wanted the Crüe’s team, Doc McGee and Doug Taylor, to manage us. Mötley had heard all about us from the club days and they had read about us in magazines. They came to our shows, they dug us, and we started hanging out. When November 1987 came around and the opportunity arose, we told Alan Niven, “Dude, we’ve got to do this tour with Mötley Crüe.” Shortly thereafter, it happened.

The pairing of our two bands electrified fans of both camps. Each band was in its kick-ass prime and I think we both delivered the best rock ’n’ roll show on earth in a long time. The first show was down south in Alabama. Late that night, after an amazing performance, Tommy invited me into the hospitality room where people would wait to meet the bands. They had catered food set up on three big six-foot-long tables.

Tommy put his arm over my shoulder and said, “Stevie, come here, I wanna show you something.” He brings me into the room and closes the door and says, “Blow your nose real well.” I looked down, and on one of the tables were two lines of coke spread the entire length, six feet long. I smiled and yelled, “All right!” He handed me a short straw; he started on one end and I started on the other.
Snort!
We met in the middle, just looked at each other, and laughed. He fell back on a couch behind him, and I fell back on another couch, and we just sat there for at least ten minutes. Well, it could have been an hour. Who knows? We finally got up, wired to the max, and finished the rest of the “krel.” That’s what they called coke back then. “Got any krel? Got any krel?
Où est la
krel
?
Here comes the krelly, man!” All the guys in Crüe were great. Vince seemed kind of involved in his own coolness, though not nearly as stuck-up as Axl was becoming. They both shared a sort of “too good for you” attitude. Mick Mars was very quiet and shy. I got to know him a little better on their private jet. We were thirty thousand feet in the air, and Mick made me a drink. It was the first martini I ever had. It was awesome, and it really gave me a taste for the art of a nice dry martini. The plane was the way to tour. We made it to the next town in like forty-five minutes.

At the time, Tommy Lee was married to Heather Locklear. She was the hottest thing on wheels back then. Whenever she would come out to visit Tommy during the tour, everything was “hush-hush.” We couldn’t talk about girls or drugs. We’d have to stop partying and be on our absolute best behavior. Truth be told, it sucked when she was there. Tommy had to act like a saint, although the night before we’d be getting blow jobs backstage from a dozen groupies.

The Mötley tour lasted only a month, and on the last night of the tour we were in Florida. Tommy had a drum set that was built in a cage. It would rise, go out twenty feet above the audience, and rotate vertically 180 degrees with Tommy in it! I said, “Dude, Tommy, you gotta let me try that.” Since it was the last show and I was buddies with Tommy’s crew, he gave the go-ahead.

After sound check, they said, “Dude, you wanna do this thing? Let’s do it now.” They strapped me in, the set rose, and they flipped it around 180 degrees and just let me hang there upside down. I was trying to play while all this was going on, but I had to lock my feet into the base of the snare drum stand to keep myself anchored properly. I couldn’t figure out how the hell Tommy managed to keep playing. So I’m hanging and they’re all, “See ya, Stevie.” They start walking away. “Guys? Guys? Okay! Blood’s rushing to my head. Not good!” Finally they came back, laughing their asses off.

Now, remember, on the last night, it’s traditional for the headliners to play some sort of joke on the opening act. This show would be no exception. We were performing our last number, “Paradise City,” when all of a sudden what appeared to be cocaine came pouring from the rafters, snowing all over the stage. It wasn’t actually coke, but rather flour, massive amounts of it in the air. It was so damn funny. Anyway, sweat and flour do not mix. I was washing dough out of my hair for two weeks.

We got along so well with the Crüe that we felt it would be okay to get them back. We did the same prank we had played on the Cult. During the Crüe’s set we set up the gag. I had the cup containing a gross mixture of eggs, relish, mustard, and mayo. I walked up the drum riser, stood by Tommy, faced the crowd, and held the cup up for their approval. They cheered me on. I looked at Tommy, said, “Hey, buddy,” and slammed it down right on top of his head. All the gooey ingredients splattered over his face and hair. He was definitely cranky about it. While he was playing, it got in his eyes. I could tell that he was irritated, so I wiped his face for him. After the show he stared me down, shaking his head. “You fucker, man.” But we were good.

T
hat night, Nikki, Tommy, Ronnie, and I were in the motel room doing coke and Nikki suggested that we cook it up. I knew this would take a while so I cut out to get more ice for our drinks, figuring I’d be back long before Nikki was done with the alchemy. Coming back though, I couldn’t fucking remember which room we were in! I knocked on every door on that floor, but nobody answered. I ended up roaming the halls in total agony, realizing I wouldn’t be partying with them on our last night together. It was such a bummer. Come to think of it, the way they were probably in a frenzy cooking up and smoking the shit, there was no way they were going to open the door anyway.

When the Crüe tour wrapped, we jumped on the Alice Cooper/Ace Frehley tour in early December 1987. I had become friendly with Tommy Lee’s “krel” dealer, and he told me, “Dude, I’ll take you to the airport, we’ll get you some stylin’ new tennis shoes and a pile of coke.” So I scored some coke and a sweet pair of British Knights. I hid the blow in my carry-on while he drove me to the airport. I got on the plane and flew to Dallas, where we would open our first show with Alice. As I got to the curb to hail a cab to the show, I suddenly started to feel very tense about running so late. I jumped in the cab totally freaking out and said to the cab driver, “Dude, take me to where the concerts are. You got to get me there right away.” I just had blind faith that the cabbie would know the place I was talking about. I had like fifteen minutes to get to the place.

The hack drove like a wild man and I got there two minutes before we were scheduled to go on. The guys gave me mixed looks. Some were pissed and others just worried. Dougie had my stage pants and a fresh shirt all ready for me to slip into, and I ran right out to the stage with the rest of the band.

Afterward, I explained that the cab driver didn’t know where the fuck he was going. But the whole experience really shook me up and I swore to myself I’d never get separated from the band like that again.

When we got up to Madison, Wisconsin, a couple of weeks later, I finally had a chance to talk with Alice. I had resolved to have this conversation because it had bothered me for a long time. “Hey, Alice, remember that time when you let us open for you in California, and we kinda blew it?”

Of course he remembered. “Yeah?”

I told him I wanted to apologize. I told him how much I worshipped his music.

Alice didn’t blink and said, “Don’t worry about it.” Alice is the best.

Sadly, Alice’s father was mortally ill. Initially, they were telling us that the tour was canceled. And we were bummed. Then a few minutes later, they informed us that the tour was back on. Then word got to us that no, we were packing up and going home. We couldn’t get a definitive answer out of anyone. Then it became ridiculous. We’re going home, we’re not, we are, we’re not. I got so frustrated listening to all these clueless fucks telling us what was going on when they really had no idea. I said, “Fuck it. I’m going to the bar, let me know when you figure it out.”

This precipitated the beginning of a series of pretty self-destructive events that eroded my status with Guns N’ Roses while intensifying my occasional bouts of low self-esteem. In fact, almost missing the show in Dallas was nothing compared to what happened during the next few months. All these little things began to add up, although I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. That afternoon, I went straight to the local watering hole Slash and I had discovered the night before. I was so depressed; I slammed something like twenty kamikaze shots. I got terminally shit-faced and became pretty damn obnoxious. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but the bouncer pounced on me, grabbing my legs, and another guy got my arms, and they threw me right out the front door. I remember bouncing up real quick, screaming, “Fuck you guys!” I charged the front door, but they slammed it shut, so I punched the metal casing that covered the light on the bar’s front door. I wanted to smash it but broke the little finger on my right hand instead.

M
y finger swelled up like a sausage, but I was too drunk to feel a thing. I staggered back to the hotel and entered the lobby screaming for Dougie. At some point, “naked boy” had reappeared, and hotel guests were flipping out. Fortunately Dougie was at the front desk, checking out or something. He spotted me, took one look at my finger, and his eyes bugged. My entire hand had blown up, making it look more like a foot. He said, “We gotta get you to the hospital.” I spun away and ran out of the hotel into the parking lot. “No way!” Dougie had to chase me down as I darted between the parked cars. We attracted a nice little crowd before he was able to drag me to the hospital in my birthday suit.

After that incident, things started to accelerate downhill. The band was just like, “What a dumbass, breaking his hand.” They didn’t care about me one bit. No one called the hospital while I was there. No one gave a shit. There was no talk of postponing anything until I knitted up. They just went out and got someone else to fill in. I swear, if it was
anybody else
in the band, they would never have gotten a replacement. No way in hell.

Now, maybe this was the blow talking, maybe the painkillers for my hand were messing with me, or maybe it was the recurring shitty self-esteem, but I began to harbor this growing dread that Duff and Slash didn’t think I could play the drums that well. It wasn’t anything they said; it was just their general attitude toward me at the time. I could tell they didn’t think I was a good drummer, and I started to think they didn’t think I was so cool either. Breaking my hand on a bar light didn’t help. But I was just feeling very down at the time. Taking myself out of commission and off that drummer stool, however temporarily, was like taking away my identity.

Fortunately Dougie was my go-to buddy and he was very good at propping up my spirits. He had me believing everything was fine and I could count on him to have my back.

We said good-bye to Alice in Madison and flew back to California, where they had quickly booked a series of shows in Pasadena for the following week. My buddy Fred Coury, the drummer for Cinderella, was brought in to replace me. I remember going over the parts with him. I wanted to be gracious about the whole thing, and Fred was cool about the opportunity. He was well rehearsed and told me that
Appetite
was one of his favorite records to jam to.

We quickly sold out four homecoming shows at the Perkins Palace in Pasadena, and I was completely bummed that I couldn’t be a part of it. I was angry too, at Slash in particular. I told him, “Dude, if you broke your finger there’s no way you’d let them get someone else to sit in for you.” Slash just shrugged, which is his standard noncommital response. Regardless, the shows went on, and Axl was cool about it, introducing me and bringing me out onstage every night. I played tambourine on our new song “Patience.” I’d talk to the crowd a bit and give Freddie major props. I’d say, “You rock my world, buddy.” He was a good guy, but the situation just sucked.

W
e were holed up at the Franklin Plaza suites again, and one night Nikki Sixx came over. It was me, Slash, and his new girlfriend, who I thought was a total bitch. Our drug dealer came over, and we got about a pound of coke. I grabbed my share and went back to my room to shoot up. After a few minutes, I decided to rejoin the group.

The door was open slightly, and when I pushed at it, it wouldn’t open. “What the fuck?” I peeked in and discovered why the door was stuck. There was Nikki’s huge, motionless body, passed out against the door with his face up. He had turned completely purple. “Shit!” With my shoulder, I put all my weight against the door and forced myself in. Everyone else was gone and Nikki was just lying there. I thought he was dead. I still had my cast on my right hand, so it was useless. With just one hand, I tried to drag him into the shower.

Suddenly, Slash’s friend shows up, and I’m all, “Call a fucking ambulance. Call 911 now!” She just stood there. “Fucking call 911, you bitch!” She still just stood there. I swear she just wanted to be there when Nikki Sixx died. “Fucking help me drag him into the shower.” Again, she had no reaction. I’m pulling, pushing, shoving, half dragging him with one hand, working as hard as I could. I made it into the bathroom and rolled him up and into the tub. I turned on the cold water and trained the flow from the showerhead directly on his face.

Nothing.

I started smashing him in the head, and I can still hear the sick sound it made when my cast slammed into his face. But Nikki wasn’t moving. Not even a groan, despite the freezing cold water, the hammer blows, and me screaming at the top of my lungs.