Rather than escalate his feud with Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder, Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx is trying to explain his anger at Vedder’s comments. During a recent chat with The New York Times, Eddie Vedder recalled working at a San Diego venue back in the 1980’s when glam metal was at its peak. Vedder remembered, “I’d end up being at shows that I wouldn’t have chosen to go to — bands that monopolized late-’80s MTV. The metal bands that — I’m trying to be nice — I despised. ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ and Mötley Crüe: F*** you. I hated it. I hated how it made the fellas look. I hated how it made the women look. It felt so vacuous.”
Blabbermouth transcribed a chat between Sixx and Brazilian entrepreneur Paulo Baron and music critic Regis Tade in which he shed light on his feelings about Vedder’s unprovoked slamming of his band: “I’m not trying to be the guy that wrote (the Crüe song) ‘Bastard’ (from 1983’s Shout At The Devil album), ’cause I’m not the guy that wrote ‘Bastard’. I wrote that song about somebody that ripped us off. I am the guy that if you f*** with me, I will f*** with you back. And that’s what that song is about. You take a swipe at my band; I’ll take a swipe at your band. You try to hurt my family, which is my band; I will try to hurt you. That’s not something to be proud about (laughs).”
Sixx explained that he and his bandmates were totally open to the grunge scene emanating out of the Pacific Northwest, recalling, “I remember going to MTV with (a copy of Nirvana‘s) Nevermind before it had come out. We were, like, ‘Hey, you guys gotta check out this band. You gotta check out this band.’ And they were bands that were coming. I remember having a cassette — I think it was demos; it might not have been; it might have been early recordings — for Rage Against The Machine, and I remember telling everybody about that.”
He went on to say, “We’ve never been afraid to embrace music changing because that’s the whole idea behind music. If you listen to ‘Too Fast For Love’ and then you listen to ‘The Dirt’, you’re, like, ‘Well, it’s the same band, but it has grown.’ So we never had a problem with that. My only thing is, you wanna take a crack at my band, I’m probably gonna say something back. But what I don’t understand is why’s the guy even talking about my band? He’s a successful guy.”
Nikki Sixx added, “Listen, let’s face it: the guy flies around in private jets; he lives in a mansion in a gated community; he sells out stadiums; and then he dresses at the thrift store and tries to pretend some guy in the ’90s. Don’t take a swipe at my band, dude. I mean, I’m at least being honest.”
CHECK IT OUT: Nikki Sixx’s full chat with Paulo Baron: