"We all change, we have different interests," he said, adding that the band have "ridden that wave pretty good, just letting it be real"
By Poppy Burton 1st December 2025
Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, 2024. CREDIT: Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images
Nikki Sixx has lamented the fact that ageing rockers insist on acting as though they’re “still 25”, saying it’s not “cool” for fans to see.
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The bassist and founding member of Mötley Crüe recently reflected on the band’s four-and-a-half-decade career while speaking to WTHR-TV’s Dustin Grove, and said their embrace of change was a pivotal element of their success.
Advertisement“Life changes, man. It’s cool that it changes,” he said (via Blabbermouth). “The thing that I don’t like is when I see artists that are still trying to act 25, and they’re 65. I don’t think that’s cool for the fans.”
“Evolution is evolution. We all age, we all change, we have different interests, and Mötley Crüe seems to have ridden that wave pretty good, just letting it be real.”
That being said, they’ve continued to make headlines in recent years for questionable hygiene practices, much like they did in their debauched heyday.
For instance, last year, Tommy Lee‘s wife revealed that the drummer isn’t a fan of regular showers and takes roughly one a week – an admission that followed the band showing up to a gig in Los Angeles by being dumped out of a garbage truck.
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Lee’s approach to cleanliness isn’t the first time a Mötley Crüe member has been in the headlines for avoiding showers. In 2008, Jon Holmes shared – as part of his Rock Star Babylon book, which chronicled wild stories featuring rock stars – that Lee and Sixx once held a contest to see who could go the longest without showering or cleaning up and still being able to seduce groupies.
Per Holmes, according to Page Six, they were able to go “two months” without showering before a groupie finally threw up on Sixx during a sexual act.
Last year, Sixx and new Crüe guitarist John 5 sat down with NME, where Sixx shared his thoughts on the huge success of The Dirt biopic, as well as the hit 2022 series Pam & Tommy, which saw the band exposed to a new generation of fans decades after they first formed.
“For us, the only constant in our career has been that we constantly change and that comes with hills and valleys,” he explained at the time. “We’ve ridden it out over 43 years, and sometimes we’re not cool, sometimes we’re the coolest band, sometimes we can’t even get a phone call back.
Advertisement“We’re just living in our own little bubble and doing what we want to do. Obviously, it feels great when people really love what you’re doing, but I don’t necessarily think we’ve ever thought that we should do something to be liked or for the public reception. We do what we do, we’re passionate about it, and we hope that people like it.
“Also, if they don’t, we get that, we understand it. It’s just part of our creative process.”
He touched on what t was like for the band – once famed for their controversial, hedonistic image – to be now sharing music in a new landscape that involves a different level of public scrutiny.
“I don’t really feel that I have any connection to trying to sell myself as something that people want, I just use social media the same way that I’ve used interviews since 1981. I speak from my heart and talk about what I’m actually doing in my life.”
In other Mötley Crüe news, a safe famously stolen from Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson that once held their sex tape inside has sold at auction for over $2,000.
