Pod Insights DISGRACELAND Motley Crue Pt. 2: The Ballad of Nikki Sixx – Dead, Doped Up, and Running Naked with a Loaded .357 About this episode He was broke, strung out, and cleaning up other people's puke. Then he got stiffed by a gangster with ties to the infamous Wonderland Murders. A few years later, he was dead on the floor – for the second time. This is the high-speed tale of Nikki Sixx, a rock 'n roll original who came back to life more than once to take his place as the poster boy for hair metal's wildest and wettest dreams. This isn't a comeback story – It's a resurrection.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
0:13 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:44 Speaker 02 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture. Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.
1:27 Speaker 02 Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flu-like symptoms, joint pain, or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
1:44 Jake Brennan? Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. It's back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version. Disgrace Land, along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, podcast of the year award winners, Wise Crack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind the scenes storytelling, exclusive meet and greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one of a kind voyage.
2:29 Jake Brennan? Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/trucrime to secure your spot. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.
2:50 Jake Brennan? This is a story about stupidity and fun. Stupid behavior and fun music. Stupid music and fun behavior. It's about a dude who, well, after all these years, he's a dude I don't quite know what I think about. He's a rock and roll original who will one day be a rock and roll icon and, well, he's also a total cliche. He's created one of the greatest American bands of all time, and I kind of hate them as much as I love them. I totally get this guy's importance in rock history, but I could just as easily see a rock history in the rear view that would be just fine without this dude or his band in it.
3:32 Jake Brennan? This dude, Nicky Six, and Motley Crue, they were full of life. Yet he died more than once. Same with his band, who are now kind of on life support. But at one point, Motley Crue made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Ricky Rackman is the Bastard Child of Casey Kasem, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Faith by George Michael. And why would I play you that specific slice of tight jean cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on December 23rd, 1987.
4:17 Jake Brennan? And that was one of the days Nicky Six died after being shot up with heroin in a Los Angeles hotel room. On this episode, Dead, Alive, Stupid, Fun, Guns, Dope and Prince, Slash and Steven, and Jack Daniels on the Bullet Train with Nicky Six. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
5:13 Jake Brennan? 1980, West Hollywood, California. 14-year-old Saul Hudson bent his knees and shifted his way back as he tore ass down Santa Monica Boulevard on his skateboard. He looked back to see his friend Steven, who was cruising right behind him on his own board, with his wavy blond hair, a stark contrast to Saul's curly black mop. It was late, and all the Hollywood freaks were out. Dobers, drop-ups, and derelicts hung off of every curb, bathed in neon, lit by the bright lights that glared from movie theater and nightclub marquees while they took long drags off their camel filters. A kick and a push and Saul and Steven were gliding past the Rusty Nail, where men with
5:58 Jake Brennan? mustaches and tightly cropped hair, wearing tight white t-shirts and even tighter jeans, loitered before ducking back into the club to find some action on the dance floor. For Saul and Steven, the real action was just a little further up the road, where the men didn't dress so conservatively. At the Starwood nightclub, the men wore their hair long, and they teased it up. They spray painted it Mick Ronson silver, and they wore women's jackets turned inside out, cheetah print spandex and dog collars around their necks. Sunglasses were definitely required at night.
6:36 Jake Brennan? The two boys stomped their heels on the backs of their boards and came to a stop right in front of the Starwood. Saul looked up at the marquee. Tonight, it read, "London." And I'm not talking about the city. I'm talking about London, the band. With Nigel Benjamin on lead vocals and the prettiest, don't-give-a-fuckiest player on the LA scene, Frankie Ferrana, aka Nicky6 on bass. Nigel Benjamin's previous gig had been with Mott, the post-Ean Hunter version of Mott the Hoople, so he had legit glam rock credibility. But the newly christened Nicky6 was making his own cred.
7:20 Jake Brennan? A new breed of LA rock and roll that was heavily indebted to the likes of the Raspberries, the Sex Pistols, and the New York Dolls, but drizzled all over with an unhealthy dose of Hollywood sleaze. At least, that's what Saul had heard. Typically, the way Saul got into these shows at the Starwood was by selling whatever drugs he could get his hands on, thus endearing his underage punk ass to the less discerning clientele of a hard rock nightclub circa LA in 1980. Tonight, however, he wasn't holding, and the fake ID he'd long ago conjured up had gone missing. But there was another way. Saul motioned to Stephen, and the two of them grabbed their boards and walked around to the back of the venue, where Saul opened an unlocked door that wasn't being monitored.
8:04 Jake Brennan? In an instant, the thunderous noise of London rattled their skulls. They creeped closer in the darkness, fumbling their way to a spot off to the side of the stage where London was playing, and where Saul and Stephen could catch a glimpse of the band, and not get pinched by one of those Lou Ferrigno wannabe bouncers out front. London was both sound and vision. Nicky6 and guitarist Lizzie Gray looked like towering gods on either side of the stage with big hair and long legs, each of them framed by a giant lightbox, literally these huge rectangles lined with at least 60 light bulbs each. Vanity mirrors come to life. And the music was fun. It was stupid.
8:45 Jake Brennan? It was 99% rockers and 1% ballads, just how Saul liked it. And just how Nicky6 liked it too. And Nicky liked what he liked: getting high, getting laid, and rocking out, though not always in that order. And most importantly, Nicky didn't apologize for any of it. And standing on the sidelines, 14-year-old Saul Hudson, the drug-dealing skateboarding kid the world would soon know better as Slash, along with his buddy Steven Adler, both of them just years away from starting their own band, Guns N' Roses, the two of those dudes were watching Nicky Six and taking notes.
9:27 Jake Brennan? Nicky Six put his back into it and mopped up the noxious puddle of puke splattered on the floor of the Starwood nightclub. He didn't know what was worse to deal with: the vomit, the piss, or the blood. It was all par for the course at the Starwoods' punk nights, where violence and uncontrollable bodily functions were as much a part of the game as was a fast-tempo three-court tune. For all Nicky knew, that was some of his blood on the floor. He'd been here last night, not as a performer but as a fan, watching the band Fear lay waste to the place. And Nicky had been wearing heels, which he didn't do on punk night unless he wanted to be pummeled by the fist of some dude with a shaved head and a bare chest. But Nicky could take the heat, and he could hold his own, so no one
10:10 Jake Brennan? was gonna keep him and his band London from their beloved Starwood. Some nights they played, and other nights they watched. And during the day, they picked up odd jobs, cleaning and repairing the place just to earn a little extra money, struggling musicians that they were. But London was starting to really come into their own. But once they became Starwoods' weekend headliners, they were pulling down something like $1,000 to $2,000 a night, which, hey, split five ways in 1980, that wasn't too shabby. And there was just one problem: they still hadn't been paid the $2,000 that they were owed for last weekend's show. And they had more shows coming up the following weekend, not to mention more puddles of puke to wipe up. So before they left any more of their own blood, sweat, and tears on the Starwood floor, Nicky wanted to get paid, which meant that
10:53 Jake Brennan? he, Nigel, Lizzie, and the boys, had to track down the Starwoods' elusive owner in order to do so. And now here's the thing about all that. The guy who owned the Starwood was this dude named Eddie Nash. Eddie Nash had a number of Los Angeles rock clubs, nightclubs, and strip clubs in his portfolio, places like the Kit Kat Club, the Sold Out, the Paradise, and a tiki bar called the Seven Seas. Eddie Nash was a Middle Eastern businessman with alleged ties to the Israeli mob. Eddie Nash had a steel plate in his head and one lung in his chest, and he was missing part of his sinus cavity, probably on account of how much cocaine he did. Because Eddie Nash was a blow fiend.
11:36 Jake Brennan? He was also a straight-up gangster, a racketeer, and he oversaw a majority of the nightlife, illicit or otherwise, that was currently going down in and around the greater Hollywood area. Nicky and his band had heard some of the stories about what happened to the poor sons of bitches who were dumb enough to cross Eddie Nash. But Nicky didn't see his particular predicament as a conflict worthy of kneecap-breaking retribution, he just wanted the money that was rightly owed to him. So Nicky and the other guys in London tracked Eddie Nash down at the Seven Seas tiki bar, where he was holding court upstairs in his office, flanked by a couple of patuiterie cases with cheap suits and loaded guns. Nash sat in a very fancy and very large leather chair behind his desk, stoned out
12:21 Jake Brennan? of his gourd, and in full-on gangster lean. "What can I do for you, boys?" he asked. "You owe us money for last Saturday's show at the Starwood," Nicky responded, cognizant of the two big dudes with their pizzas bulging from their waistbands, but nonetheless feeling secure, surrounded as he was by his own posse. Nash laughed. It started small, and then it grew to comic proportions. His two bodyguards were laughing, too. And Nicky looked at Nigel and the others, but no one else in the room was cracking a smile. And then, suddenly, Nash stopped laughing. "I don't believe I owe you boys anything," came the gangster's cold-blooded response. "How about that?"
13:05 Jake Brennan? One year later, in 1981, an LAPD SWAT team kicked in the front door of Eddie Nash's home following a brutal quadruple murder at a Wonderland Avenue townhouse, seizing a million dollars' worth of cocaine in the process. That didn't stop Nash from being the badass thug that he was. Just like getting stiff by Nash didn't stop Nicky Six. The same year that the Starwoods owner got himself tangled up in the infamous Wonderland Murders, Nicky ditched London and formed a new band, Motley Crue, along with singer Vince Neil, guitarist Mick Mars, and drummer Tommy Lee, with the stated goal to rock even harder and to be even more fun and more stupid, even if that inherent stupidity meant playing
13:48 Jake Brennan? more gigs at the Starwood. Nicky knew when to back down and take the punch, but there was one thing he didn't do: Nicky Six did not apologize.
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14:54 Speaker 02 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depomocamab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting... It may be time to try something else. Extensure is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extensure is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.
15:37 Speaker 02 Common colds, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extensure. Learn more at Extensure.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
15:57 Jake Brennan? When it comes to the 1980s and the debauched world of so-called glam metal in Los Angeles, it's super cliched to talk about all the cocaine and heroin that everybody was doing. I guess it's cliched because it's true. I mean, this was a time when dealers drove around in sports cars with personalized license plates that said "D-E-A-L-E-R." But still, it feels like such an obvious transgression to talk about and, in a way, a lazy thing to talk about as well because, yeah, no shit, Rat and Wasp and Motley Crue and later, GNR, they were snorting and shooting and smoking all kinds of illegal drugs like there were handfuls of Skittles.
16:39 Jake Brennan? And yet, deep within that well-worn history of lines of blow and syringes of junk, there was something truly shocking. An anomaly that existed in a higher gear. And its name was Nikki Sixx.
16:55 Jake Brennan? Nicky's addiction drove him to psychosis, to madness. But not at first. You don't just go crazy overnight. You start out just another fiend, just another guy who has more in common with the Eddie Nash's of the world than your mother would perhaps like to believe. One day, you're copping a fix in a Denny's bathroom with a Pepsi bottle cap as a makeshift spoon. And the next, you're in a London taxi with Andy from Hanoi Rocks after a show at the Hammersmith Odeon on Motley Crue's 1986 Theatre of Pain tour, pulling up to an apartment building in some shady part of town. And inside, the dealer shoots you up. And as soon as the heroin hits your bloodstream, you're out. Andy, and the dealer, and everyone else there, they all think you're dead.
17:40 Jake Brennan? The dealer grabs his baseball bat, raises it above his head, and brings it down, swinging it directly into your chest. Nothing. The color drains from your skin. He does it again, this time, driving it straight into your back, again and again. He beats you with a baseball bat. Not because he's trying to hurt you, but because he's trying to bring you back to life, because you're so zonked on heroin. But it doesn't work. And now the dealer's pissed. "Oi!" he shouts, throwing your limp body over his shoulder and walking you out the front door, outside, around back, and tossing your overdosed junkie ass into a dumpster. Months later, you're still feeling the pain from that one, still feeling like the walking dead.
18:23 Jake Brennan? You do a bunch of cocaine to take your mind off of it, but the coke makes you paranoid, so you shoot some heroin, and that calms you down. And you don't know it yet, but the madness is coming. It's looming there in the dark corners of your house on Valley Vista Boulevard in Van Nuys. Soon, you'll be homebound, freaking the fuck out in your bedroom closet, but right now, you still have some autonomy left in you, so you hop on your Harley-Davidson, China White as your trusty co-pilot, and drive over to Vanity's house. Vanity, as in Vanity 6, the female pop group Svengali by none other than Prince. But Vanity doesn't fuck with the purple one anymore, or so you think. She fucks with you when she feels like it.
19:05 Jake Brennan? Are like a moth in a flame. Though, you never know which one is which. Usually it goes down like this. She cooks up some base, you guys get high, and then more often than not, she gets crazy and starts ranting about Jesus and God, and you can't handle it when she does that. You think of what your grandfather used to say, "Who needs God?" You have a Chevy pickup truck and a 12-gauge shotgun. You've got the shotgun at home, not the truck, but your Harley-Davidson. It's what God himself would ride, isn't it? But tonight, Vanity is still prepping the base when you see them. There, on her dining room table, something like 200 roses inside the biggest vase you've ever seen. "Who the hell are these from?" you ask. She doesn't answer. She's either too busy cooking up your next fix, or she's ignoring you.
19:49 Jake Brennan? And there's a card there next to the flowers, so you pick it up. "Vanity," it reads. "Drop 'em. Take me back." "Prince." Your blood boils. "That fucking backstabbing midget? You'll fucking murder him? You'll break his knees, just like you tried to break Jack Wagner's knees." You never did get to finish the job on the General Hospital, pretty boy who fancied himself a singer. You were 99% sure that this other girl you'd been seeing, this chick Nicole, that she was cheating on you with Jack Wagner while you were on tour with Motley Crue. Not that you weren't cheating on her at the same time, but in your drug-addled brain, you felt disrespected. Your macho fucko gland went into overdrive. You called in a favor from some biker friends, the kind that would've run security at Alt Maught back in the day.
20:33 Jake Brennan? You told them where Jack Wagner taped General Hospital, and then further told them to bust his kneecaps when he came walking out at the end of the day. And then, when he was writhing about on the ground, crying like a little bitch, to tell them, "Nicky Six sends his love." But they never get the chance, because Jack Wagner, the klutz that he was, tripped over himself while filming his TV show and broke his own fucking knee. Nicole thought you did it. She never forgave you. Whatever. You try your hardest to forget about that shit show, and passive-aggressively take a hit off Vanity's pipe, instead thinking the whole time about taking out Prince with a fucking golf club that you didn't even golf.
21:11 Jake Brennan? You ride back home and feel like having some company. You call up some friends and soon your house is full of people and cocaine and whiskey. And your boys Slash and Steven Adler are there, hooligans that they are, the same kids who used to sneak into your shows back in the day. And now they want you to produce their debut album. You're flattered, but your habit is overtaking you. And while you don't have many of your wits about you, you at least recognize that you're in no state to produce anything, never mind anyone's record. Not that Guns N' Roses are in any better state. The next morning, you wake up to find that Steven is fucking some chick on your toilet and Slash is pissed in the guest bed.
21:51 Jake Brennan? Soon, your place is empty again and you wait impatiently for your dealer to show up. He's there right on time with the goods and the gear. And once he leaves, you shoot coke into your leg, or maybe it's your arm, doesn't matter. But unlike any other time you've done this, this time, it's different. Perhaps it's the accumulation of your habit. Perhaps it's the miles you've logged, so to speak. But as soon as you do it this time, you get an overwhelming feeling that someone is in your house. You run to your bedroom to hide. And as you do so, you pass by a window and you see people outside in the trees staring in at you. Holy fuck! You jump into your bedroom closet and slam the door behind you. You're shaking. You've got your shotgun on one side of you and your .357 on the other. They're coming for you, man. They're fucking coming for you.
22:36 Jake Brennan? Coming for your cocaine, fucking DEA, FBI, fucking tree people. You gotta get rid of the drugs, even though you just had them deliver thousands of dollars down the drain. You take a deep breath, throw open the closet door, make a mad dash to the bathroom and flush the rest of your stash into the toilet. Thankfully, no one saw you do it. Or did they? You're back inside your closet now and you look down and realize that you're naked. Which, whatever, man. You're in your own house. You can be naked if you want to be naked. But now, you're hearing more noises in the house, coming from the living room, the dining room. You can't be too sure. You just hear people talking. Is it those damn tree people that they get in my fucking house? They're gonna find you here eventually, even though the drugs are gone. And then what?
23:20 Jake Brennan? You pick up the .357 Magnum. You check the cylinder to make sure it's loaded. And then, flick it shut. Another deep breath. It's go time, motherfuckers. You bust out of the bedroom closet buck naked, every tattoo on full display, tearing through the house with the butt of the .357 pointed straight out like a magnet. The gun pulls you into the living room screaming at the top of your lungs, where you instinctively squeeze the cold trigger firing off multiple rounds that seem to burst your eardrums wide open.
23:50 Jake Brennan? Nicky Sixx stood alone in the middle of his house. Smoke billowed from the muzzle of his magnum. He'd just shot up his front door in a stereo which seconds before had been on, the sound of which he mistook for the sound of people invading his private residence. And now he had no tunes, no drugs, and a front door with bullet holes in it. He also soon realized that he had no nemesis in Prince, because the flowers and the card that Nicky found in Vanity's house, these were bought and written by Vanity, simply to fuck with him. It's easy to understand on an intellectual level that your addiction is quite literally destroying your life, and Nicky Sixx, writing in his own diaries at the time, did understand it that way.
24:33 Jake Brennan? He also understood, at least in his sobering moment, that not only was there no beef with Prince, but that there weren't people climbing in the trees outside his house, and no one was coming to get him. Not tonight. But make no mistake, death was coming for Nicky Sixx.
24:56 Speaker 04 We'll be right back after this word.
25:04 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
25:35 Speaker 02 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting... It may be time to try something else. Extensor is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extensor is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.
26:18 Speaker 02 Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extensor. Learn more at extensor.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
26:37 Jake Brennan? It wasn't just Nicki Six's days that were numbered. At the end of 1987, glam metal, or hair metal, the subgenre turned money-making machine by the likes of Nicki's band, Motley Crue, was living on borrowed time. But nobody knew it. Hair metal was actually entering a new phase of its life, thanks to Motley Crue's Disciples and Guns N' Roses. In a little more than three years, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would flick on a light switch and suddenly Big Hair and Spandex would appear to be far more schlocky than they were trend-setting. But right now, in December of 87, hair metal still ruled the airwaves. Whitesnakes, "Here I Go Again," Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer," Def Leppard's "Pour
27:21 Jake Brennan? Some Sugar on Me," and Motley Crue's "Girls, Girls, Girls," the lead single from their fourth studio album of the same name. An arena rock ode to one of the crew's favorite groups of people: strippers. By December, the album "Girls, Girls, Girls" had already gone double platinum, and Motley Crue had taken their hard-living, always-partying, mega-heatonistic rock-and-roll lifestyle as an export from Los Angeles all the way to Japan.
27:48 Jake Brennan? That lifestyle, for Nicky Six at least, for the time being, meant kicking junk, which would explain the routine visits he was making to the bathroom on the bullet train they were riding from Osaka to Tokyo. Nicky puked in shit his brains out, and then returned to his seat next to Motley Crue's drummer Tommy Lee, who was already half in the bag on pills and booze. And Nicky joined in and caught up fast, because although he may have been abstaining from heroin and cocaine as much as possible, that didn't mean he was actually sober. From a few rows down, a Japanese businessman, dressed to the nines, was giving Nicky a look. It was a look that said, "Check out these Hollywood freaks with their women's clothing and loud disruptive behavior." It was bad enough when they let the Beatles play Budokan some twenty years ago.
28:33 Jake Brennan? Now they're taking junky shits in our bullet trains like they're king of the castle. And Nicky locked eyes with the stone-faced Japanese gentleman. He knew that if the guy wasn't bound to his own cultural decorum, he would spit in Nicky's face, make him feel sorry for himself, make him feel regret. But you couldn't squeeze regret from Nicky Six, just like you couldn't wring a drop of blood from a stone. Fuck regret. Fuck being dope-sick. And fuck this guy. Nicky grabbed the Jack Daniels bottle he was passing back and forth with Tommy and hurled it in the man's direction. It exploded on the wall above the man's head, sending shattered glass and brown liquor all over him. And Nicky laughed as the man leapt from his seat and ran down the aisles, screaming.
29:15 Jake Brennan? But when the bullet train pulled into the Tokyo station and Motley Crue stepped off their train car to find one hundred Japanese police officers waiting for them, Nicky Six wasn't laughing anymore. Actually, yes he was, because Nicky was fucked up. Drunk on whiskey, high on pills, reveling in being stupid and engaging in his definition of fun, and not making excuses for any of it. The Japanese man who Nicky had hurled the Jack Daniels bottle at was there too, pointing at him, outing him to the cops. And they put Nicky in handcuffs and took him in immediately to the police station, where he was tossed into a cramped cell.
29:50 Jake Brennan? It wasn't long until Tokyo's chief of police made an appearance, and this guy didn't want an autograph, and he didn't want to keep Nicky locked up forever either. All he wanted was an apology. The translator, sitting between Nicky and the chief, communicated this request to Nicky. And Nicky mulled it over for a moment, and then said to the translator, "Ask the chief this: Ask him, if my balls were on your chin, then where would my dick be?" The translator blushed, and Nicky grinned. And the police chief furrowed his brow and asked what Nicky had said. The translator composed himself, turned to the chief, and told him that Nicky had said he was very sorry for what had happened and didn't mean any disrespect. The chief gave a curt nod. He was satisfied. And Nicky Six was set free on an apology he never made.
30:38 Jake Brennan? Within a few days after playing to thousands of screaming fans in Japan, Nicky Six and Motley Crue were back home, back in Los Angeles, where the familiar sights and smells brought out familiar urges: strippers, porn stars, and boku alcohol at Ricky Rackman's Cthouse Club; cocaine in the limousine tooling up to the Sunset Strip; and heroin courtesy of a friend of Nicky's friend Slash. In the logic of an addict, choosing to not hit up your own dealer and instead procuring heroin from a dealer you don't know, a dealer who provides goods to your friend's friend, it's logic that says, "Hey, you're just ordering something on the side here, because if you order from your guy, then of course, that's a rabbit hole where you start ordering on the regular again,
31:23 Jake Brennan? and then before you know it, you're hallucinating people who aren't there. But this, having your boy Slash talk to his guy and then scorn from Slash's dealer? That's just a one-off, brother. That's a lark." This was the logic that led Nicky Six into Slash's hotel room at the Franklin Plaza just two days before Christmas on December 23, 1987, along with a group of friends, including Nicky's limo driver and Slash's girlfriend at the time, Sally. Nicky wasn't already fucked up to begin with, so he had the dealer shoot him up. And the junk turned him catatonic. Nicky curled up into a fetal position on the floor, a skinny ball of hair and tattoos. The dealer then noticed that Nicky's skin was turning blue. He kneeled down for a better look. He checked for a pulse. "Oh shit, yo!" the dealer cried out.
32:08 Jake Brennan? "Nicky's dead!" The dealer jumped out of the hotel window, and I mean that literally, go look it up, and disappeared down the street. Sally started giving Nicky mouth to mouth, and it did nothing. So she dragged his body into the bathroom, hoping to get him into the shower and blast him with cold water. But Slash, helpless and drunk, went into a blind rage and punched out the shower's glass door. So instead of water from the showerhead, Sally and Nicky were showered with broken glass. In frustration, she yelled for someone in the room to call 911, as it was obvious that even such a simple task was impossible for Slash to carry out at the moment. Seconds later, Sally could hear someone else screaming, "Nicky Six is dead!" to the phone. And looking at Nicky's lifeless body, she couldn't help but agree.
33:13 Jake Brennan? It's a strange feeling to wake up in a place you don't recognize, surrounded by doctors and cops, and wearing nothing but a pair of your tight leather pants, and hooked up to machines that are beeping and humming. You're so disoriented that you rip the tubes and wires from your body, and you yank the IV from your vein, and swing out of bed and onto your feet. You stumble through the halls, past nurses and first responders, past some dude with a bleeding head wound, and another complaining about a car that ran over his foot, and you do it all with one goal in mind: to get yourself out of there. And as you make your way through the darkness of this place, through the smell of death and disease, all the way to the front door where you finally burst outside, the bright
33:54 Jake Brennan? LA sunshine suddenly blinding your eyes, you gotta admit, it feels like you've just been reborn.
34:03 Jake Brennan? Nah, that was a bunch of horseshit. "Reborn"? It's a fucking cliche. But then, you are a cliche. Or more accurately, you're dead. A dead cliche. At least you're supposed to be. That's why there are two teenage girls sitting outside the hospital, holding a candlelight vigil in the middle of the day. But you don't know that's why they're doing what they're doing. They see you, wobbling forward, no shirt, just those leather pants that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination, and suddenly they stop crying and look like they've seen a ghost. You don't get what all the fuss is about, because, well, you also didn't bother to check yourself out of the hospital. You ask the girls to give you a lift home in their little Mazda shipbox, and they gladly oblige.
34:46 Jake Brennan? And as they drive you back to Van Nuys, you get it. You listen in complete shock as a DJ on the radio gives a full report on the sudden and tragic death of you, Nicky Six, at 29 years old. And for two minutes, Nicky Six was dead. Depending on which version of the story you believe, he was either brought back to life by Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler, who said he revived Nicky by getting him in the shower inside Slash's hotel room, or, as Nicky himself tells it, "He was brought back to life in truly dramatic fashion by the paramedics who rammed syringes loaded with adrenaline into his chest in the back of an ambulance as it raced through the streets of L.A. en route to Cedar Sinai."
35:29 Jake Brennan? Just like young Slash once raced on his skateboard down Santa Monica Boulevard to catch Nicky's show in London at the Starwood. And look, I'm not suggesting that hustling to a rock show involves the same stakes as getting a dead or dying heroin addict to the hospital, but where Slash, little Saul Hodgson, had once craved the stupid and fun aspects of the rock and roll that London and later Mott the Coop dished out, Nicky Six, too, found himself in this predicament because of his devotion to the stupid and the fun. And just like there's a fine line between the two, there's an even finer line between stupidity and disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
36:27 Jake Brennan? All right. I hope you dug this episode. Apple Podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on so you never miss an episode of Disgraceland. This week's question of the week is, who is the greatest hair metal band of all time? Was it Motley Crue, or was it someone else? I want to know. School me glam metalheads. Let me know. 617-906-6638. Leave a voicemail or send me a text to be part of the show. We play and read some of your answers on the after-party bonus episode. It's coming up right after this in your feed. I can also be reached on Instagram, Facebook X, at DisgracelandPod, and [email protected] . Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might win some free merch. Okay, here comes some credits.
37:08 Jake Brennan? Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand-new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow
37:50 Jake Brennan? us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook, at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgracelandPod. Rocker roll.
38:03 Speaker 05 He's a bad, bad man.
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38:38 Jake Brennan? Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyages. Back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape set sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the beach club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of Disgrace Land, along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners, Wisecrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage.
39:22 Jake Brennan? Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/trucrime to secure your spot.
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