Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen has put a black overcoat up for auction, the same coat that Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx famously peed on during a night out in Europe. The item is listed on Julien’s Auctions with a current bid of $350 and an estimated value of $600 to $800.
The coat is a black rubberized overcoat with silver-tone nautical button closures, shoulder epaulets, and two side pockets. It was made by Alchemy of London and is labeled size 44. Nielsen acquired the coat during a time when punk fashion was popular, and he bought it at a London market for its unusual rubber material.
According to Nielsen’s 2021 account of the incident, he was standing at a bar wearing the coat when Sixx decided to urinate on it. “I had this jacket or a coat, and it was rubberized,” Nielsen explained. “It was around the time when all the punks were doing it. It was from… what was the place? There’s a market… Kensington Market? They had all the weird stuff. Well, I liked this thing because it was a rubber coat…and I got a Norton rubber belt with a Norton motorcycle insignia on it. It was just, it was awful. It was not me, but it was so disgusting, and I had it. And so I was standing there at the bar, and he was peeing. Luckily, it was a rubber coat because you’re peeing on the back of my coat… yeah.”
Sixx later described the same event in Mötley Crüe’s 2001 autobiography. “I kneeled on the stool, pulled down my leather pants, and did what I’d been promising to do all night: peed on Rick’s jacket,” Sixx wrote. “He didn’t even realize anything was happening until it started dribbling down his pants and onto the floor. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but when I went up to my room afterward, I felt terrible: I had just pissed on my hero.”
Nielsen’s coat is part of a large auction of items from his career with the rock band.
Nielsen has been the lead guitarist, primary songwriter, and leader of Cheap Trick since the band formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973. He is famous for his collection of custom-made guitars from Hamer Guitars and his iconic five-neck guitar, with his overall collection numbering around 500 instruments.
Nielsen has teamed with Julien’s Auctions for a sale of over 300 items including guitars, a 1955 Ford Thunderbird, and a tractor. The auction took place on October 24 at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at the Historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium. The sale benefited St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an organization close to the rocker’s heart. The two bands shared the stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on Valentine’s Day in 1986, when Mötley Crüe was touring in support of the Theatre of Pain album and Cheap Trick appeared as the opening act for a run of dates including the Hammersmith show.
