Nikki Sixx recently spoke to Spin magazine and admitted that working with Tommy Lee and Mick Mars for all those years gave him hearing damage, and he cannot differentiate the quality of sounds anymore.
Mötley Crüe’s bassist has had a successful career with the band he formed in 1981. Mötley Crüe became known as one of the bands who blasted the music, partied every night, and spent their time together, losing themselves in drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Like their private parties, their stage shows were also described as ‘crazy’ by most fans, and they would attempt many dangerous acts while performing.
The iconic scene of Tommy Lee playing the drums while tied up in a transparent cage and spinning around while cruising above the crowd is probably the most unconventional and thrilling thing the band has ever done on stage. However, it was not just visual exaggeration they were going for; Mötley Crüe did justice to rock and roll by blasting their music up on stage, making sure their riffs rang in their fans’ heads after the show.
Even though they aren’t named among the loudest bands of all time like Motörhead, Foo Fighters, or The Who, they were loud enough to give their bassist hearing damage. As he stated in his Spin interview recently, he currently cannot differentiate the sound quality between an MP3 and a tape, and they all sound the same to him. He blamed this ‘defect’ on his bandmates Tommy Lee and the guitarist Mick Mars.
Here is what he stated in the interview:
“I have a lot of friends that tell me they can hear a difference in digital recordings and analog recordings, and I have so much hearing damage because of Tommy Lee and Mick Mars that I can’t tell the difference from an MP3 or a 2-inch 24-track tape, so I don’t care where I get my music as long as I get it.”
Having spent 40 years with these two musicians blasting their instruments on stage, it doesn’t sound surprising that Sixx would experience such an issue. Although he voiced his complaint jokingly, it must have affected his ongoing music career.
