Every musician needed to stand out on the Sunset Strip.
Although Motley Crue may have been there in the early days of hair metal, Nikki Sixx needed to do more than put on makeup. He wanted to be a star, and he knew Frank Ferrana wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
Before he got The Crue started, Sixx was determined to change his family name saying (5:03),
“I was named after my father and I changed that. Because I’m not going to create myself in the shadow of you because you weren’t there for me. So I’m gonna create my own man.”
Although Sixx had Nikki when he came to LA, his original plan was to name himself after his band London saying,
“I was Nikki London from London, ’cause all my favorite bands were from London, and I wasn’t a big thinker. But I figured I don’t want to be Nikki London of London.”
While Sixx was looking for another cool surname, he had a different number in mind at the beginning saying,
“I was going to change my name to Nikki Nine. But there was this girl, we were sharing a bed together, and she had a boyfriend named Nikki Six, so I said, ‘Not only am I gonna steal his girlfriend, I’m gonna steal his name.’ It was a joke that turned out pretty cool. Isn’t that weird?”
From the start, Sixx was adamant that this wasn’t supposed to be a stage name saying,
“My idea for the band I wanted was four superstars. My belief wasn’t to create characters like KISS but to be more like the Beatles where they just were like that.”
While Motley made their millions back in the day, chances are Sixx didn’t split the royalties with the guy he jacked his name from.
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