Nikki Sixx, Mötley Crüe’s founder and bassist,
would like everyone who watches The Dirt, the
long-awaited biopic of his band, to know one thing:
“Is there anything I feel the need to apologise for? ” he
says. “Ha! I’m afraid I have nothing to apologise for.
You just have to lay it out there – this is what we were
like, this is what was happening. There were a lot of
reasons for what was happening, and that gets f lushed
out in this movie.”
After an interminable gestation period and following
years in development hell, The Dirt will finally be
released on March 22 via Netf lix. Like the infamous
biography it’s based on, written by US author Neil
Strauss with full input from the band, the film is
a riotous retelling of the Mötley Crüe story in all its
booze-soaked, cocaine-crusted, bodily-f luid-
drenched glory, with full input from the four men
who lived it first time around.
“I was kind of scared,” Sixx says of the initial idea of
turning the book into a film. “There’s been so many bad
rock movies throughout the years that depicted
rock’n’rollers as a bunch of idiots; ‘Is this what people
really think we’re like? ’”
Mötley Crüe’s reputation for insanity, which was
only enhanced by the book, has undoubtedly been an
obstacle to getting the film made. It’s now 18
years since The Dirt was published, and 13 since
Paramount Studios and MTV
Pictures jointly bought the rights
to adapt it. Seinfeld director Larry
Charles was originally slated to
direct, but that fizzled out in 2008.
A roll-call of other studios,
directors and actors came and
went, and still the project failed to
get off the ground.
“We definitely had our struggles,” says Sixx. “I came to
learn that’s just part of the process of making movies.
Some people had a hard time with some of the honesty
that was in the book. We weren’t really concerned with
covering our asses then, and it was important for us to
do the movie the same way.”
According to Sixx, things stepped up when
director Jeff Tremaine came on board in 2013.
Tremaine had overseen the notorious MTV show
Jackass and its spin-off films, and suggested he could
bring the same gonzo approach to The Dirt. But Sixx
admits he “had mixed feelings” about Tremaine’s
initial involvement.
“I was a fan of Jeff ’s work with Jackass,” he says, “but
as a filmmaker I hadn’t seen him cross over with
storytelling and subject. But it was his enthusiasm and
his passion for Mötley Crüe, and for how we tied in with
the skate culture and the snowboard culture and the
heavy metal culture and the punk rock culture that was
all stuff that he was into. It really only took one meeting,
and I felt like he was the guy.”
The second big breakthrough came in 2017 when
powerhouse streaming service Netf lix came on board.
Free from the stylistic and moral constraints of the
Hollywood studios, Netf lix gave the band and Tremaine
their blessing to go for broke.
“Netf lix said: ‘Make the movie that ref lects the book,”
says Sixx. “And Jeff is like: ‘I’m into punk rock andheavy metal, and I want to make this movie of that book.
Everybody right out of the box was just: ‘Go for it! ’”
The finished film doesn’t stint on graphic details.
Nothing is held back, whether it’s scenes of drug-taking,
violence or female ejaculation.
“And it’s all downhill from there,” Sixx says, laughing.
“It was really important for us not to whitewash
anything over. We know that there were scenes in
[NWA biopic] Straight Outta Compton that were deleted
because they just didn’t want to be portrayed that way,
and I don’t know if they sugar-coated anything in the
Queen movie. With us you’ve got four outrageous
characters, and it was important we didn’t pull any
punches. I know the guys in the band, that’s how we
all think.”
But The Dirt isn’t just an hour and 50 minutes of
drug-taking and groupie fucking. It doesn’t duck the
death of Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle in a drunken
car smash with Crüe singer Vince Neil at the wheel,
and, later, the death of Neil’s young daughter Skylar
from cancer. Nor does it glamourise Nikki Sixx’s battles
with heroin or swerve his fractured relationship with
his parents.
“That’s probably one of the biggest hardships of my life- my non-existent relationship with my father and my
barely existent relationship with my mother,” says Sixx.
“There’s scenes in the film based around that that are
just like a punch in the gut. It’s in
the book, it’s in the script, I’ve had
therapy for it, but then all of a
sudden you’re sitting in a movie
theatre and you’re seeing your life
played out and it’s emotional. I felt
the same thing for the other guys in
the band – what Mick Mars has had
to go through [the guitarist suffers
from the degenerative bone disease ankylosing
spondylitis]; what Vince had to go through with his
daughter and the car accident that killed Razzle and
really hurt two other people. It’s all in there. We didn’t
pull any punches.”
Filming of The Dirt finally began in New Orleans in
January 2018. Ironically, this most Los Angeles of bands
are portrayed by a multi-national cast. Upper-crust
British actor Douglas Booth plays Sixx with
f lashbomb charisma and a water-tight American
accent, and Colson Brown (aka US rapper Machine
Gun Kelly) perfectly captures Tommy Lee’s puppy-
dog enthusiasm and bouts of booze-induced idiocy.
Wel sh Game Of Thrones star Iwan Rheon portrays
Mick Mars as the Crüe’s resident grumpy old man,
while Australian actor Daniel Webber manages to
make Vince Neil more than just a blond bombshell
surfer dude with an over-active penis.
“I gotta tell you, I don’t know how Douglas
transformed into me,” says Sixx. “I mean, how they all
did. Machine Gun Kelly is Tommy Lee. Me and Tommy
were sitting in while they were rehearsing the music,
and we were just like: ‘It’s us.” And they bonded the way
the band bonded, too. They’d go out and get into trouble
together in New Orleans. Except Mick’s character didn’t.
He’d just stay in, probably learning lines, very much like
the real Mick Mars did.”Crüe Mövie Finally Arrives
This month The Dirt was compiled by Lee Dorrian, Dave Everley, Rob Hughes, Dave Ling, Sleazegrinder, Henry Yates“It was important
we didn’t pull
any punches.”
Nikki Sixx
Mötley biopic The Dirt hits screens in March.
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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 11Early days on the road to
success and notoriety, in
1982, and (inset) at
their peak in ’89.