Nikki Sixx On Mötley Crüe Digital Avatars: ‘When The Time Is Right’

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx recently spoke with Janne Innanfors on Sweden’s Rockklassiker radio station. The discussion turned to Kiss‘ announcement about using digital avatars, developed by the ABBA Voyage team, to keep the band performing “forever.”

Sixx shared his own perspective on this idea, saying: “I love technology. I think as long as it’s coming from an artist that says, ‘I have something I wanna do and this technology is gonna help.’ Like with video ‘Dogs Of War’. When I think of our first video, I don’t know how much… The video maybe cost a thousand dollars. There was no MTV at the time, so it was, like, how can we shoot a video that when they talk about us on the news when we tour…? [We] used to have a lot of local news stations that would promote artists coming through town — comedians, country, rock, whatever — so we wanted to have a calling card. And we were lighting me on fire on stage at the time and Mick [MarsMötley Crüe guitarist] puked up some blood. And it was just, like, ‘F**k it. Let’s just throw everything in there.’ And that was what we did to get fans to see what we wanna be represented as. The same as ‘Dogs Of War’.”

Nikki continued: “I don’t know what the future holds. We did some stuff with holograms years ago before the technology was really fleshed out. At some point, we’re not gonna be here anymore. I mean, not to be a Debbie Downer, but it’s just not gonna happen. And how great for your band, or whatever it is that you do, to be able to go forward for generations and generations. So I think when the time is right, put us in a coffin and fire up those avatars.”

Motley Crue Dogs Of War Music Video

Mötley Crüe kicked off their new chapter with Nashville’s Big Machine Records by releasing their single “Dogs Of War” on April 26th. This track, along with two others, was recorded over a year ago with their longtime producer Bob Rock. Among these recordings is a reimagining of the Beastie Boys‘ classic “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)”.

Sixx discussed Mötley Crüe’s upcoming activities in a recent interview with “Metal XS” on Riff X.

“We’re just playing festivals, and that takes us into October,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “We don’t have any plans next year yet. I know there’s some conversations about stuff. I mean, we have a few singles [already recorded], so I don’t see us [recording any new music right now]… We’re not gonna be around.

“I live in Wyoming and Vince [Neil] lives in Tennessee, two guys in California, so I don’t… I don’t actually see a reason right now to go in the studio, ’cause we’ve got two more singles [recorded and ready] to [release],” Nikki continued. “And I always wanna be sure that if we go in the studio, we have a reason or we have something we’re really inspired by, but it’s a lot of scheduling, and we tour and we have families. For me specifically, I have a five-year-old daughter, and I really wanna be with her as much as possible. So when the time came to go do these demos of these three songs and then go in the studio with [producer] Bob Rock, it was like a perfect time. And that time will happen again, but there’s no rush.”

On the possibility of returning to Europe in 2025, Nikki offered: “We’re in ’24, and we don’t really know what ’25 looks like, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something fun to do and make sure that we’re there for the fans. I mean, we just did Europe, so I don’t see going back there for a second. But we love it over there. We had such a great time in Europe this last time. We got to spend two months over there, which is a long time. But what was nice about that is once we got over there, we got unjetlagged and the schedule wasn’t so tight. And I had my family with me. I was able to be with the band and play concerts, but also experienced Europe, all over Europe. So that was a really good time.

“I’m enjoying this pace of working,” he added. “I really enjoy it. I don’t feel burnt out. In the past, artists, we get burnt out, ’cause, you, you tour so much. And I’m really enjoying where we’re at. We make music when we feel it. We do shows when we feel it.”