Sixx AM
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Blistering.com: It must be surreal telling someone like Nikki that a part sucks.
JM:We have our fights.
Blistering.com: The songs on the Heroin Diaries have a real deep feel within each song. Which songs hit you harder than the others?
JM: I would say for all three of us different songs. For me, it’s the ones that I had the biggest hands in writing, like ‘Van Nuys,’ ‘Courtesy Call,’ ‘Dead Man’s Ballet,’ ‘Permission’…those were all songs I had written for another solo record that I was going to do. They certainly come from a place in my emotion that also means a lot to me. It’ll always have a place in my heart but I think what had been the most exciting for me is the collaboration between Nikki, DJ and myself, because there’s something so satisfying and rewarding about getting in a room with those two guys and writing songs, like ‘Life Is Beautiful.’ No one of us could have done that song by ourselves. It was absolutely a great collaboration and an exciting thing to do. I think a song like ‘Life Is Beautiful’ is an exciting one for me, because it’s different from the other songs. ‘Girl With Golden Eyes’ I love because I love marrying the music and the melody lines to Nikki’s narration, reading from his journal, in the song. That’s something I haven’t heard anyone do before. So it excites me because we’re breaking new ground with stuff like that.
Blistering.com: You released ‘Life Is Beautiful’ as the first single. It’s almost like an inspirational tune.
JM: We wanted all of the songs to be positive. I think that was one of the real challenges about this record, especially one called The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack. One would certainly imagine that it could be a miserable, complaining type of record. We wanted to give people a reason to listen to it again. It was very important to us to make each song have an element of hopefulness, inspiration or achievement. That was a big challenge for us. We constantly, during the process of writing the songs, would have to keep ourselves in check, and say ‘hey, are we starting to complain a bit too much in this song? Let’s at least give this a positive enough twist and feel like they’re growing while listening to this.’ They can apply it to their life in a positive way.
Blistering.com: If these songs are these strong, what were the songs like that did not make the record?
JM: That’s a great question. We did write almost a double album’s worth of material. Because we are always writing together anyways, we have a lot of songs to pull from. We visualized this like a movie. When we started writing for it, we actually had a movie in mind. So the songs were a lot more theatrical or pertain to one specific scene in this movie that was bubbling around in our heads. There was a dwindling down process where we’re heart broken because we had a great song but it wasn’t going to make sense in the context of the 13 songs of the actual record. There are a lot of great songs that we may at some point release as bonus tracks.
Blistering.com: You and Nikki had been writing songs together for some time. How did you meet D.J. Ashba?
JM: I think Nikki and D.J. met at Randy Castillo’s funeral, which is ironic they would meet and go onto make a record like this. Nikki and D.J. have done some studio work together on some projects. I actually met D.J. in the studio working on a project. I’ve always say that D.J. was the missing link in this whole record. It’s something Nikki and I were talking about doing for five or six years. After Nikki and D.J. partnered up, everything started happening.
Blistering.com: Are there plans on making more music under the SIXX: AM banner?
JM: There are no immediate plans but we’ve all agreed that it would be ridiculous for us to not to continue to make music together, whether it is under the SIXX: AM moniker or not. We have way too much fun doing it. We definitely have chemistry together that we’re going to pursue. What’s been interesting is trying to manage people’s expectations. We never had this kind of expectation. To sit here with the number five single right now is way beyond our expectation. It’s certainly exciting to watch it happen. We’re getting a lot of requests to tour. But it is a matter of managing people’s expectations. We accidentally came into this band. We never had the intension of being a band. I’m working non-stop producing records. D.J. and Nikki have the Motley thing going. It’s something that we are excited about and thinking about doing. If the need arose, we’d jump at the chance.
Blistering.com: What are you working on these days?JM: Right now I’m producing a band on Warner Brothers called American Bang. I am extremely excited about this record. It’s a Southern rock band from Nashville. I’ve been developing them for about eight months and we’re now in the process of making the record and probably done in about another month.
Blistering.com: D.J.’s writing his own stuff?
JM: Yeah. He’s doing studio work. He’s a busy man.
Blistering.com: And Nikki’s off playing where in Carmen San Diego is he now…?
JM: Exactly! Nikki’s off busting his ass promoting this book and signings. That’s one thing you learn about Nikki very fast. He’s always doing ten things and doing them very well. He’s the hardest worker in the business.
Blistering.com: Tell us something about Nikki that no one would ever know about him.
JM: That’s a tough one. I would have to answer generally, with his reputation, and his past, which is a public one, and all of the decadence and the insanity, he truly is the most generous, kindest, coolest, and most laid back, trust-worthy person I know. I think that a lot of people would never assume that. Maybe that shatters the illusion of what a rock star is, but he’s just an incredibly down to earth guy.
www.myspace.com/heroindiaries
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