nicole_powers

My dream has always been the same since I was a kid, to somehow show people life through different colored lenses, writes Nikki Sixx in the introduction to his new book, a collection of very personal words and images called This Is Gonna Hurt. Now more than ever I feel its important to see that way. We need to be aware that the warped perspectives of television, Internet, and magazines are sometimes poisonous, he continues. I cannot walk down the street without feeling I am being subjected to some constant sales pitch on what we should look like, smell like, dress like, or even worse, what we should be like.

A devout nonconformist, Sixx wears many hats in his life. SuicideGirls last caught up with Mtley Cres co-founder and bass player shortly before the release of his bestselling book, The Heroin Diaries, a collection of journal entries that chronicled his self-destructive but ultimately self-saving journey to the other side of drugs. To accompany its release, Sixx put together a side project called Sixx:A.M. a band which went on to have a life of its own. The musician, songwriter and author also has his own clothing line, and hosts two radio shows, Sixx Sense (which airs Monday to Friday) and The Side Show Countdown (which is broadcast on weekends).

But its Sixxs work as a photographer that made a further conversation with the multi-talented man mandatory. His photography, as seen in this first bound collection, is shockingly beautiful. However, the beauty within the images is of a kind that complies with nothing except Sixxs own very individual aesthetic. Reflecting the contradictions in life that have troubled him in the past, his often preconceived portraits are both ethereal and hyperreal at the same time.

Sixx spoke with SG by phone from the Funny Farm, his photography studio and creative sanctuary

Nicole Powers: I read your book cover to cover, and what really struck me is how incredibly in tune your philosophy about beauty is with that of SuicideGirls.

Nikki Sixx: Oh, absolutely. I think it's probably spot on isn't it?

NP: It really is...Your rejection of mainstream ideas of beauty - the way you see beauty in people and things others might find ugly, and the way you find ugliness in what most of society calls beauty.

NS: Yeah, it's a conflict for me. One of the hardest things for me was growing up in Seattle. We all hung out, it was me and about five or six other guys, and about five or six girls. We were these outcasts. We were a cross between these punk rock kids and these glammed up heavy metalers. You had The Sparks, and you had The Stooges, and you had some very early metal, Black Sabbath and some Zeppelin, which was almost a little too heavy for us. It was all a big mixture of styles and looks and fashion. We were all into the fashion. Then there was the jocks. They despised us. Then you had bussing, and you had all the black kids being bussed in, and all the white kids being bussed into the black areas. It was a smart thing to do because it was a break down of that racial wall. It was a really hard time to grow up, but it was a magical time to grow up, and we really sort of clicked together. We were like these outcasts, these misfits. We didn't even have tattoos at that time...

Growing up that way and feeling part of something really important, like art, and then playing in this rock band that was also an outcast, and then all of a sudden one day being a sex symbol. Being the most popular kid, when I was always the one laughed at. It was really hard for me. I think it was really confusing and I just carried a lot of that confusion into my addiction. I didn't want to be famous. I wanted to fucking play rock & roll. I never really understood the whole fame thing.

NP: Right, you hadn't changed inside, but the world flipped on a dime and all of a sudden, almost overnight, had a very different attitude towards you.

NS: Right. So, it was weird because I'm then surrounded by those people that didn't get me, who all of a sudden said they did get me. Of course everybody wants to be understood, so, you then go, 'Oh, you understand me. But, wait a minute, I don't trust you. But I want to trust you.' It was so conflicting. It was like, 'Oh, I'm attracted to her, but she's the enemy. But why is she the enemy? She didn't do anything to me.'

Life goes along, and you start realizing that most of this is just conflict that you have inside you. I start to look at people, and I really start to go, 'I need to see who you are really deep inside.' I found that most of the people that I trust were the people that were like-minded in the fact that they were always outcasts. They were always misfits. They were always the supposedly misfortunate, and I would always go, 'aren't they fortunate,' and I'd relate to you. So through photography I was like, 'We are so much alike.' It also allowed me to soften my stand and not be like, 'Fuck you people.' I was realizing that I was becoming like the very people I didn't like, judgmental...That's what I learned in the process of my book was to just let go a little bit and trust.

NP: In the introduction, you talk about how your photography is an addiction. I have a theory about addictions, in that you don't really get rid of them, but you can replace one with another.

NS: Without a doubt.

NP: For you, is photography that new replacement addiction?

NS: I wouldn't call it a new addiction. I would say it's maybe one that's been in the closet that I haven't really shared with many people. It's very much like when Mtley Cre came out and everyone's like, 'Oh my god have you heard this new band?' Well, those guys in that band individually and collectively had been playing for years. It wasn't that we just one day picked up a guitar and we were this thing. I think that's the same with my photography. I've been doing it for years and getting better and better and better...

NP: The images, they're very accomplished and they have a very specific style too. It's a very cohesive collection of images.

NS: It's interesting you say that because one thing I felt is that it was not cohesive. I didn't realize how much photography I have. I thought I had about 10,000 images. I took a hard drive and I reformatted it because I have multiple hard drives backed up and I found 40,000 photos...I thought to myself, maybe I should have put more of a cohesive collection together. So I think it's very interesting that you say it's cohesive. That actually makes me feel good, so thank you.

NP: I think that's because you're seeing it from the inside. Looking from the outside in there's a really specific style, even in the way that you use lighting.

NS: I'm at Funny Farm right now, and my friend and someone I really look up to Paul Brown, a photographer is in the other warehouse. He rents an office over there. He always laughs when I use flash...It's so hard for me to want to use flash because it fills the frame so much that I find so little mystery in it. I'm looking for the mystery in the shadows. What I love about painters is a lot of times there's as much expression in the shadows as there is in the subject. A lot of times, especially some of the painters from the 1700s and back, their source of light was either sunlight or candlelight, maybe moonlight. It was so fucking moody. I'm always looking for that. I've got a collection of lights that I've bought from the 1940s through the late '70s. They're big hot lights and they weigh 150-200 pounds apiece. They're really a pain in the fucking ass. I'm always burning myself and breaking shit. They're very crude, and it seems to allow me to play in the shadows more.

NP: Your subjects definitely appear out of the shadows.

NS: Yeah, it feels more honest that way.

NP: When you're shooting, you seem to try and find a moment where there's some honesty behind your subjects eyes. I love the story where you talk about shooting at a brothel in Stuttgart. Only one of the prostitutes there would even agree to be photographed, and you deliberately ask her some painful questions so that she stops thinking about posing and starts to reflect on her life - and it's that moment that you want to capture.

NS: Yeah. It's kind of like putting your foot in a rattlesnake's pit. You know you're bound to get bit eventually, but for some reason I find it so intriguing to just keep pushing my foot in and pulling it out, in and out, in and out, in and out. Always fucking pushing it. Sometimes you get bit, but there's never an ill intention behind it.

NP: When you describe that moment you write about how you felt bad about asking those questions, but, at the same time, you knew what you needed to do to get the shot.

NS: Yeah...I would love that girl to see the book. Maybe someday she'll pick it up and see that little chapter on herself.

NP: Then she'll probably have very different feelings about that strange guy that came in and asked some strange and hard questions.

NS: Yeah, and wasn't interested in sex.

NP: You write about how you often go on forays to the worst parts of a town to find the kind of people that most of society likes to forget, and you describe the conversations that you've had, and the bonds you've forged.

NS: Yeah, that's the beautiful part of all this, I have so many personal experiences...I would watch people come to my studio. I won't name names, but they are people who are in the industry. They would be business people, right, [who are] not usually around creative people except for during the signing of contracts and such. They're associates and people that I work with...and they would recoil...I would watch them wanting to get closer and closer to the fire, but backing away...Finally, after an hour or two, people would be sitting in the lounge and hanging out and having a bite to eat. I was going through the photography and checking things, then all of a sudden I would see these people completely bonding and exchanging phone numbers. I was like, 'My job has been done here.' I'm like cupid from hell. Everyone is falling in love with each other, and it's all because we just broke down the wall and let them get close to each other. I kind of feel that's the magic part of the book.

NS: You know, when I asked my daughter to write something for my book and she wrote that little piece on the back, it blew my mind. Did you see the little piece on the back of the book?

NP: I actually didn't read the back cover. I'm just turning to it now. Normally back covers are just a marketing synopsis, so I didn't even think to read it.

NS: With me, there's not a dot in the book that I haven't looked at or made sure there's a message or something in it. There's not one inch of the book that hasn't been touched by me on one level or another. That was so important, to put that much into it. If people are going to hold it in their hand and live with it, put it next to their bed stand and walk around with it and tell people about it, you have to really - you can't just throw it together.

NP: I can tell, with the layout and your choice of fonts, every page is a work of art - even the pages between the photography.

NS: Isn't it amazing. The paper, we worked with Paul on that. Paul found this letterpress collection from a bible from the 1800s, that's what our font is. It's fucking amazing.

NP: It seems too that even the process of writing the book was very therapeutic for you.

NS: Yeah, it feels like I've given birth. I feel really relieved. It's so nice to talk about it with people who have it in their hand. I did an interview before your interview and the person obviously either didn't A) understand, or B) didn't have it, or C) didn't understand. Because they were asking me about Charlie Sheen, and Vince wrote a book and he said a bunch of nasty stuff about me. I said, "Did you like the way I described my sister in the book through the photography? You're asking me about Charlie Sheen and I'm telling you my sister was institutionalized. I'm sharing that with you. I mean I feel a little insulted but I guess that you have a purpose."

NP: That story was so moving to me, the fact that you wanted to reach out but you left it too late. You read that, and it reminds you not to put things off.

NS: The great thing about writing is that if you can be honest, which I learned to do through journaling because no one is supposed to read your journals and your diaries - and if you're smart you don't write a book about them like I did. You just let it all hang out, so to speak, and then you learn from your own mistakes. Isn't that what we're here to do? To learn from our own mistakes. How exciting when somebody can write a book and show you their mistakes, and how they learned from it.

I'm spiritual. I don't believe in organized religion, that's my belief, but I was reading a book on Buddhism. What's really interesting is that Buddhists will tell you their part in failure every single time. It's so satisfying. You go, 'That's your part in why it didn't work.' Then they show you what did work, how to make it work. They're not holier than thou. That's what I like about the feeling of writing. Wow, I was speeding. I got pulled over. I got a ticket. I told the cop to fuck off. He threw me in jail. Note to self: Next time you're going to speed at least don't tell the cop to fuck off. I just think that's the kind of stuff people can go, 'You know, I think I'm not going to speed in my life.'

NP: In the chapters where you chronicle the breakdown of your relationship with Kat Von Dthat Buddhist perspective definitely comes across.

NS: I think in the end it's so easy to pull the trigger, and so satisfying not [to]. Sometimes if you really wait long enough, they'll pull the trigger on themselves. That's one of my greatest joys in life is really people that have done the wrong thing, usually put their own toe in the trigger and you get to sit back and get no blood on your hands. It's like karma is a bitch, ain't it? Life has that way of working itself out if you let life work itself out.

I know I've put my own toe in the fucking trigger enough times because someone's got to pay the fucking devil at some point. Nothing's for free. So when you fuck up, you've got to take responsibility or you've got to pay the fucking devil. It's just a matter of time if I think I'm getting away with something. You never get away with anything. Ever. So that's kind of like my part in the book. It's saying, 'Hey, here's my part in the story.' On a million levels, whether it was my teenage years, my young adult years which are also adolescent, or, some of my years where I'm maturing and becoming a father and still trying to contain myself - you know - as much as possible.

I have a hard time walking a straight line sometimes. I'm the first one to tell you. I really feel good that I don't flip off the cops anymore when they drive past me. I used to do this thing when the cops would drive past me and I would be in my car and I would like flip them off. My friend would always go, 'Why do you do that?' I'd go, 'I don't know, I just feel like fuck them.' I don't do that anymore - but every now and then I do...

This Is Gonna Hurt was released by William Morrow (a division of HarperCollins) on April 12, 2011. A companion Sixx:A.M. album, which shares the books name, is imminent. Visit SixxAMMusic.com for more information.