Nikki's biography

Nikki was born Frank Carlton Serafino Ferrana (some sources say Ferrano) on December 11, 1958, 7.11AM in San Jose, CA. "I was early as I could be", Nikki said in The Dirt. "And even back then, still up from the night before." He was abandoned by his father at an early age, and raised by his mother Deana Haight, who was a singer in Frank Sinatra's band at one point. They moved around the country a lot and when Nikki was four, his mother remarried. They moved to Mexico when he was six, the best time of his childhood. Not long after that, they joined Nikkis grandparents Tom and Nona Reese in Idaho. That's where he got his first phonograph, a plastic toy that played singles.

A year later they all moved to El Paso, Texas. And just when he got comfortable there, they moved again. This time to Anthony, New Mexico. But that didn't last long either, and after a year they moved back to El Paso again. There he started stealing books and clothes from peoples lockers at school. Moving up to the general store where hed steal candy. "Revenge, self-hate, and boredom had opened up the path to juvenile delinquency for me", Nikki explains in The Dirt.

He moved with his grandparents to Twin Falls in Idaho, where he listened to the radio a lot. When he heard Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean, he lost his mind. "I found it", he thought. "This is what I've been looking for."

But because of all the trouble he was causing, his grandparents sent him back to his mother in Seattle. There he had to take two buses to school and to kill time during the half hour wait for the second bus, hed stop by an instrument store called West Music. He also befriended a rocker named Rick Van Zant, who played in a band and needed a bassist.

So one afternoon Nikki walked in to West Music with an empty guitar case. He asked for a work application and while the guy turned around to get one, Nikki stuck a guitar in his case and closed it. He waited for the guy to return with the application, said thank you and walked off.

With the bass he went to Rick, to show him his instrument. "That's a guitar, you fucking idiot", Rick said. Nikki didn't know what to say, so he lied: "I know, I'll play bass on the guitar." Instead he sold it and bought a Rickenbacker bass with a white pick guard. He couldn't play anything, but started to practise real hard.

He jammed with several bands in Seattle, but didn't find what he was looking for. The stealing got worse, the drinking got worse and every day he had arguments with his mother. So his mother put him on a Greyhound bus, back to his grandparents.

He didn't cause any trouble there. But when he met his aunt Sharon's new husband Don Zimmerman, he got a new idea. Zimmerman was a record executive in Los Angeles and began sending him cassettes and rock magazines. Then he saw that everything cool happened in LA, while he was stuck in Idaho. Time to move again.

This time he moved to LA on his own. After several odd jobs at a record store, liquor store and even selling by phone, he joined a band named London. He also legally changed his name to Nikki Sixx in 1980. He met after he left London and started jamming with Greg Leon from Suite 19. They formed a band together, but Nikki threw out Greg. After some other guitarists, they found Mick through an ad in The Recycler. Tommy knew a great singer in Rockandi named Vince and Mötley Crüe was born.

They took the Sunset Strip by storm. After issuing their debut album, Too Fast for Love, the same year on their own independent label (Leathur Records), the Crüe was signed to Elektra, who promptly remixed and reissued their debut a year later. Due to such subsequent hit releases as 1983's Shout at the Devil (the band's finest hour), 1985's Theatre of Pain, and 1987's Girls, Girls, Girls, Mötley Crüe became one of the world's most popular hard rock/heavy metal bands and spawned countless imitators.

Despite all the success, Sixx's personal life was spiralling out of control, as he seemed to have a death wish with hard drugs, overdosing several times during this period (he was even pronounced dead by paramedics after one ordeal, but was lucky enough to be revived with adrenaline shots). The whole group cleaned up their act in time for 1989's Dr. Feelgood, their most popular release yet, while Sixx lent his songwriting skills to other rockers' albums (Lita Ford's Lita, Steve Jones' Fire Gasoline, Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid). Vince Neil surprisingly left the band at the peak of their popularity in early 1992, with the band soldiering on with replacement John Corabi. The new Crüe stiffed on the charts with only a single album, 1993's self-titled release, and Neil was welcomed back to the fold by the late '90s, resulting in their reunion album in 1997, Generation Swine.

Nikki has also found his name in the tabloid papers due to marriages to two different celebrity models/TV actresses, Brandi Brandt and as well as being arrested along with Tommy Lee for instigating a riot while on stage in 1997, and for the strangest one of all: when Matthew Tripepe claimed that he was the real Nikki Sixx, and that the former-Frank Ferrana was an imposter.

Besides his Mötley Crüe duties, Sixx also has a side project dubbed 58, issuing their debut album in 2000, Diet for a New America. In 2003 he released an album with his Brides of Destruction: Here Come The Brides. After Nikki left the band in 2005, the Brides split up after their second album Runaway Brides.

Nikki was married to Donna D'Errico. He has three kids from his marriage to Brandi: Gunner, Decker and Storm. Donna's got a son named Rhyan and together they have daughter: Frankie Jean. In 2007 they announced their divorce.

In December 2004 all four original members of Mötley Crüe announced a reunion. The band's first single is If I Die Tomorrow. A tour is scheduled for 2005 and will last throughout that year.