Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler recently addressed his controversial remarks about Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx. He clarified his feelings about how their relationship was portrayed in his 2010 memoir, My Appetite for Destruction: Sex & Drugs & Guns N’ Roses, in an interview shared on Get on the Bus.
Adler expressed dissatisfaction with the book’s portrayal of his musical influences and, more importantly, his deep personal connection with Sixx — a bond he felt was reduced to something cheap by the memoir’s depiction.
“Ah, dude. The guy who ghost wrote or whatever. I don’t know where the hell he came up with this sh*t. I mean, for starters, this is just one thing, but it’s like, come on. He says in the book that I said that my biggest influence in music was Mott The Hoople. Hello?! What the f*ck is wrong with you?” Adler said. “I don’t like the book. Yeah, cuz I was, and like the stuff with Nikki Sixx, it just made it kind of seem cheap and it wasn’t. It was a major experience being with him. I met Sixx at first in 1980 at the Starwood. He was playing with that band London.”
Adler then went on to describe the moment he first saw Sixx perform, recalling the powerful impression the future rock icon made on him even in a small venue.
“And we would, you know, walk by there look at the VIP door and see and one night he was playing and I remembered it for one the drum set was one of those North drum sets. So it was, you know, shaped weird, and cool looking. And Nikki Sixx. I just saw a KISS at Magic Mountain and it was so huge. I mean, the guys look like they were 15 ft tall, right?” he continued. “At glance it’s like this is impossible to get to this big. This is huge. I saw Nikki Sixx that night in the Starwood with maybe 10 people in the crowd. He looked 10 feet f*cking tall. And he made being in a little place cool. He had his aura around him.”
Adler concluded by reflecting on the personal significance of his relationship with Sixx, emphasizing the mentorship and pride that defined it.
“He looked like Jean Simmons so all I mean it was amazing. And all the things that we went through. I mean, he put me under his wing, you know. He was proud of me,” he said.
The depth of feeling Adler expressed makes more sense when viewed against the backdrop of what the two men actually went through together — most notably, a harrowing night in December 1987 that would go on to inspire one of rock’s most iconic songs.
Ultimate Classic Rock reported that Sixx’s near-fatal overdose took place after a night of drug-fueled partying. Those present included Guns N’ Roses members Slash and Steven Adler, as well as Ratt’s Robbin Crosby. The incident would later serve as the inspiration behind Mötley Crüe’s massive hit “Kickstart My Heart.” Adler has long maintained that he played a direct role in keeping Sixx alive that night, a claim that adds significant weight to his frustration over how their bond was portrayed in print.
As Q105.7 noted, Adler stated in 2018 that he saved Sixx’s life during the overdose. He described how he dragged the Mötley Crüe bassist into a cold shower and slapped him with a cast before paramedics arrived. His account differs notably from the version Sixx himself has told over the years, in which EMTs revived him with adrenaline injections after he had been pronounced dead. The conflicting narratives have kept the story a point of ongoing discussion among rock fans for decades.
iHeart covered Adler’s detailed account of his role in the “Kickstart My Heart” incident back in May 2018. He made clear that the experience was far more personal and significant to him than any book could capture. For Adler, the relationship with Sixx was not a footnote or a colorful anecdote — it was a formative chapter of his life, one he felt deserved far more respect than his memoir afforded it.
Taken together, Adler’s recent comments paint a picture of a man still processing the gap between lived experience and how that experience was packaged for public consumption. His frustration is not simply about inaccurate musical influences or ghostwriting liberties — it is about a friendship forged in the fires of the Sunset Strip, tested by addiction and near-tragedy, and ultimately cheapened, in his view, by the very book meant to tell his story.
