DJ Ashba recently spoke about how they made a perfect duo with Nikki Sixx while writing lyrics for Sixx:A.M. He stated that it was an immediate connection and called the process magical.
Sixx:A.M. was formed by Nikki Sixx, DJ Ashba, and James Michael in 2007, and DJ Ashba was the lead guitarist in Guns N’ Roses while working with Sixx:A.M. Initially, the band wasn’t planning on touring, but they started working more intensely and touring to meet their devoted fanbase’s wishes.
To concentrate more on Sixx:A.M., Ashba left Guns N’ Roses and continued his career with this band. They released five studio albums as a band, and in the following years, the band released ‘Talk to Me’ to support the campaign bearing the same name, opposing opioid addiction. They later dropped their ‘Hits’ album in 2021 and thought it was an excellent way to wrap it up and went into an indefinite hiatus. This decision disappointed their fans, who insisted that they get back together.
Recently, he spoke about working with Mötley Crüe’s icon Nikki Sixx. Known for his pen’s magic, the guitarist stated that it was an instant hit-off. The three members would sit around a circle and jam during their recording sessions. Afterward, they would listen back and realize that they had created something magical. According to him, they were a good match, and Sixx had a primary role in adding the dark twist in their songs.
Here is how Ashba described their relationship:
“It was immediate; me, James, and Nikki. We get around, and we literally can finish each other’s sentences. I mean, Nikki is phenomenal at lyrics. He’s great at putting that right dark twist on a sentence to make it even more badass. He’s great at coming up with really cool ideas slightly out of the box. Musically, yeah, we all three just gram acoustics. We literally sit in a circle, everybody has acoustics. We just strum, jam, and it’s real fast and easy.
It’s the weirdest thing. A lot of the records were written just us singing around, and we never worked stuff out, we’d just jam on acoustics. We have been recording the entire time. We’d go back and find these little ideas that are magic. Like, ‘Wow, that part there is really good, and we’ll build off of that’ And nine times out of ten, we’ll do the music first, and then we all three get in there. But I’d say lyrics are probably his forte.“
The band still doesn’t have plans to reunite, but their fans are hopeful. The Sixx:A.M. Instagram account still posts regularly, and underneath, the fans comment mainly about how they should come back and compare them to Mötley Crüe. The two bands have different styles, and Sixx:A.M. mainly has concept albums that have a story and are darker compared to Crüe’s headbanger songs.
