“Break my arms”: The diary entry that revealed David Crosby’s comical bid to keep Nikki Sixx sober
You’d be hard-pressed to find a rock band who don’t have a litany of drug-related stories to tell, but there surely aren’t many who can top the sheer amount that Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx would be able to recount.
Mötley Crüe weren’t exactly the most stable band, both in terms of their interpersonal dynamics and the members’ addictions and excesses, but that didn’t ever stand in the way of their rise to becoming one of the most successful metal bands in an era where the genre was going through a transitional period. Often derogatorily referred to as ‘hair metal’, their poppier take on the sound proved to be a commercial hit, and while some weren’t as thrilled with this mutation, their ascent continued throughout the 1980s.
That doesn’t mean that it was all plain sailing, and as mentioned, many members of the band struggled with substance abuse issues. Sixx, the band’s bassist and songwriter, entered something of a spiralling addiction to drugs and alcohol at the same time that the group were reaching the peak of their popularity, and in 1987, shortly after they had released their unsubtly titled Girls, Girls, Girls record, things were reaching a critical point.
However, rather than seeking help to prevent sinking lower into the abyss of addiction, he decided to shun the one person who attempted to offer him a helping hand with battling his demons, probably partially due to it coming from an unlikely source, and also due to the fact that it was given to him in an overwhelmingly threatening fashion.
Given how David Crosby was neither a fan of heavy metal, nor the person with the cleanest reputation when it came to drug abuse, the fact that he tried to make contact with Sixx to advise him not to get high is frankly bemusing, but according to a diary entry by the bassist, he arrived back at his hotel during a tour of the US to find that Crosby had left him a series of messages that didn’t mince their words.
“Checked my messages at home,” it read, “David Crosby called; he said he would break my arms if I was getting high. I guess I won’t be calling him back. My machine was completely full, so I just erased the rest of them without listening. There really isn’t anyone I wanna talk to anyway.”
While this dismissal of Crosby was probably warranted due to the violent nature of his threats, the fact that he wasn’t willing to heed his advice was not the most sensible thing he could have chosen to do. The diary entry continues in a despondent tone, with Sixx stating that even though the tour appeared to be a success, he couldn’t quite grasp the fact that it was perhaps the drugs and exhaustion that were getting him down.
“The band is tight as hell, everything is on autopilot musically, the crowds have been insane, all the shows have been sold out. You’d think I would be happy all the time,” he noted.
