|
 No band in metal history has lived the rock and roll dream larger than Motley Crue. Since 1981, Motley Crue has sold millions of CD’s and inadvertently made a fashion statement with their extravagant clothes and sexy rock image. One member of Motley Crue that helped mold that rock and roll bad boy image is bassist Nikki Sixx. The savvy rock and roll business man has an unique rock and roll flair for style that is very hip, sheik, and at the same time very classy. It was only a matter of time before Sixx would want to start a career in the fashion industry.
On October 30, legendary bass player Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, along with Kelly Gray of the St. John clothing line, launched the male clothing line called Royal Underground. Royal Underground will feature a very upscale and classy line of male attire that targets the 20 - 40 year old male age bracket. The Royal Underground clothing line will be available at Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and select boutiques.
In this interview for GlamMetal.com TM, legendary bass player Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue discusses with much enthusiasm the launching of his new clothing line Royal Underground, and the Route Of All Evil Tour.
www.royalunderground.net www.nikkisixx.net
Nikki, Thank you so much for calling. It is a true honor to discuss Royal Underground with you. When is the Royal Underground Clothing line going to be made available to the retail stores? I heard that clothing would be in stores on October 30? Is that correct?
Yes, they are shipping October 25. Any day now, the Royal Underground is line is going to hit the stores it is amazing. I am so excited.
What kind of age bracket are you hoping to market the Royal Underground clothing line to?
Well you know that it is interesting because you do what you do from your heart. You don't really sit there and go, we are going to sell only to this age bracket. But at the same time, it is a fine line with a price point that reflects that the materials are a higher end, because we really have a higher end, which includes elaborate construction, elaborate leathers, and cashmere tops. Our jeans are phenomenal, the construction of them, the washes, and the designs are elaborate. So we don't belong on Melrose. We realize that we fit into a certain niche. Neiman Marcus has been extremely supportive, as well as Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Fredericks in Los Angeles. There is an age bracket that goes there that I wasn't necessarily aware of that skews as young as it does, and also surpasses the age limit that I thought would wear cool clothes. Let me give you an example. When we were at Neiman Marcus recently, they said the men's section on Friday or Saturday night in the store is visited by shoppers that are basically 21 to 40 years old. They are looking for cool, hip, and comfortable clothes. The men's market is growing faster than any other market there is right now. I think men are getting to the point, where they are comfortable accepting themselves a little bit outside the box, but at the same time, not wanting to be outside the box to the extent that it doesn’t really feel comfortable to walk down the street. For us as designers, Kelly and I are constantly using that strategy in men's wear.
I have noticed that men are really starting to take pride in what they wear. Whether it is work, or playing sports. The key is having the outfit be comfortable and easy to wear. What kind of clothes did growing up inspire you?
For me growing up in the seventies, we shopped in Thrift stores. We manipulated clothing, reconstructed it, whether it was different kinds of threads, different kind of fabrics, and we built our own clothing to make a statement. In the early Motley Crue days, we were wearing women's boots, because they were the only style that we thought was edgy enough to push the image that we wanted to push. Now with Royal Underground I have the opportunity to design clothing for that fits that criteria but is made specifically for men. It has been hard for us. I mean you can wear blues jeans and a tee shirt, or that is about it. Or you have to go up to suits.
Nikki, you have always had an amazing flair for clothes. The clothing that you have worn onstage in Motley Crue has a really strong fashion statement. In the Motley Crue videos, I can remember seeing the band in some very nice leather. How would you describe the Royal Underground line?
Kelly's history in the fashion world is phenomenal. When I first spoke to her I can remember her asking me some very direct, honest questions coming from a person, who has been in this her whole life. One of her questions was, "Is it your fantasy to create very cool clothes and do you want to push this?" Kelly is part of this huge corporation. We both had the same answer, if we are involved in it, it has to be cool! We like cool things. We don't sit there and say let's make a line that is rock star oriented. I dress the way I dress, Kelly dresses the way she dresses, we design the way we design based on what we like. It is unique to our own individual tastes. It is the mixing of lots of different ingredients, and being able to take her education and my raw way of looking at the same thing and coming up with something unique to this line.
Are you handling the male aspect of the clothing line, and is Kelly handling the women's line?
We have not at this point launched the women's line. There are some things on the horizon that we are taking about. Right now the focus is men. We have been very careful, how many stores that we open our first season. We could have been pigs. We could have gone out there and said we want every single store and went for the mass media slash. But instead, we decided to grow the company, in a sense that we really knew what we were doing. Everybody makes mistakes, whether it is a rock band or new clothing company, you make mistakes. But we didn't want to make mistakes to the extent where we disappoint retail. We have 13 Neiman Marcus stores and about the same for Bloomingdale's. I know that number will grow significantly in season two. After we have been in this for a year, we would have known every single aspect of what works and what doesn’t work for Royal Underground. You have to realize that you are talking to two people that are not doing this for money. We want to have a successful business. We have some of the best people in the fashion industry that work with us. This venture wasn't to do this to make money. We are doing this because we have a passion for it. In the end, just like with Motley Crue, I have been very lucky to have a very financially successful career, which allows you the freedom to do whatever you want to do. I think that with Royal Underground, it is the same passion for both of us. We are not doing this to make 25 million the first year. If we wanted to do that, we could have jammed this thing down the throats of the masses. We want to be doing this for years and years. The St. John clothing line has been in business since 1964. That is amazing to be in business that long. You are taking to two people, who are into big time commitments and growing something. This is a long-term goal; building something that we are passionate about. We love it!
Nikki, in my opinion, you have always been the business mind behind the success of Motley Crue. I really like your strategy in comparing the marketing of the new Royal Underground line with the early days of getting started with Motley Crue. You have had a 25-year commitment to rock and roll, and I can see that you are also putting all of your energy into the new Royal Underground line, to make it a success. This is something that you really believe in, and it must be so exciting for you to see this dream come into fruition. How involved were you in the designing of the Royal Underground clothing line?
We are both really involved all the way down to the thread, and color. We like to joke and say that we have a fashion marriage. We will bicker over, a very mynute thing. Sometimes, we will be in the factory, and you can just see all the other people standing around shaking their head going. "They are fighting over a ribbon!?" Kelly would say that is too big, and I would say it is too small. But you know what? We loved it. It is like with the band, we will fight. Sometimes in Motley Crue, I will say is it a C or C Minor? Eventually someone goes, who gives a fuck! Let's just rock! It is the same with the fashion industry. The people say,” Guys, no one will even know what the hell you guys fought about." When you love something enough to go head to toe over it, you know that it is going to come out really good.
You have done such a great job marketing Motley Crue. The band has remained one of the top metal bands for over 25 years. What have you learned from your business dealings with Motley Crue to help with the marketing of your new Royal Underground line?
The Royal Underground line is all across the country. We have been going to different stores. We get to the retail stores, we go in, and we walk the stores. We talk to the sales people. We ask them, what is working and not working and why they feel that our clothing line is valid. We asked them, where do you see us? They say we see you sitting in there with Dolce. There is a very similar thing that we did with Motley Crue. We used to do record in-stores. We used to really love that because, we would be in the city where we would be doing in stores, and the record company would say to us, ”they want you to release a song like Toto for radio.” We would say, ”Dude you don't know what you are talking about. Kids in the street, they are looking for fuckin shit to rip their ass off." We confirmed where we were as artists. Sometimes you need that instant feedback. You can get that off the Internet now. But sometimes it gets a bit misconstrued. When we were a young band, and we would get out there face to face with people, it helped to confirm what we were doing, what we were passionate about and what was real. We are finding that now when we walk into the retail stores, they say, "We can't wait for your stuff. It is going to be perfect." The managers at the retail stores are telling us, that they are excited about it, and that is how we know that Kelly and I are doing the right thing.
It must be so exciting to hear the retails stores speak so highly of your new line. I can see the comparison of being in a band, doing the in-stores, and having to sell your fashion line to the stores. It is all how you present yourself, and what you have to offer to the public. If you believe in yourself, you are halfway there to a successful career. How did you meet Kelly Gray? How did Royal Underground transpire?
Actually, I met Kelly through Tommy. Kelly and Tommy met at an event in Aspen. They became friends. They are both extremely hyper, extremely high energy, they are like two peas in a pod. She was hanging out with Tommy, and she would see me walking the hallway backstage. She told Tommy, she wanted to meet me. The first time we met, she was nervous, and she called me Mr. Sixx. For some reason, Tommy had told me for some reason I make her nervous. I didn't correct her, when she said Mr. Sixx. She called me that for six weeks. You are talking about a girl, who runs a $400 million company, and some little punky bass player that is letting her call him Mr. Sixx. Tommy thought it was the funniest thing on the planet. In the end, Tommy told me about her history in the fashion business. I knew somewhat of St. John's. What happened was, she went on my website, and I designed some clothes to be sold for charity. She had bought some of it, and I didn't know it. So after the tour was over, it was a very rocky time, my wife filed for divorce, I had moved out, I was getting settled. All of a sudden, I get a call from Kelly. She said, "Hey do you want to have lunch." I bought some of your stuff off of your website. It is actually designed really cool. I think there is a place on the market for something like that." As the lunch went on, we decided that day to go out and shop the market. We both decided if there was going to be a new men's line, it was going to have to be comfortable. We had so much in common, with the passion of what the new men's line would look like. We sat down, and shortly after designed the first full season. Here we are. We are already two seasons ahead, and getting ready to finalize fall one and go into Fall two. We have four seasons a year. We travel around the world together developing these individual lines that all sort of speak to each other, and are unique enough to keep it exciting. We are quite excited. We are proud parents of our new baby Royal Underground.
Nikki, I wish you the Best of Luck with Royal Underground. I have seen some of the clothing apparel online, and I really like the styles. I think you have designed a line that makes you look good, but at the same time is comfortable to wear. Let's discuss Motley Crue. The band is currently on the Route of All Evil Tour with Aerosmith. Due to the overwhelming success of the tour, they have been adding more concert dates to the current leg of the tour. I recently saw the tour perform in Boston. One of the greatest aspects of the tour that I noticed is the different age difference between the audience that goes to see Motley Crue and Aerosmith. Now at the show in Boston, there were a lot of families there. The parents had brought their children, and they were seeing Motley Crue for the first time. There was a whole new audience of Motley Crue fans at the Boston show. How did the tour transpire? The Route of All Evil Tour features two legendary bands Aerosmith and Motley Crue.
You know there were a few reasons that Motley Crue and Aerosmith wanted to tour together. One reason was, we both knew that we had some similar audiences, but we also knew we also had different audiences. One of the greatest things was hearing from Aerosmith’s management company that Aerosmith would like to tour with us. Not only do they respect us, but the fact that we have a way younger audience than them. They would like that audience to see them. They are one of the greatest rock and roll bands that there is. Our response to that was,” That’s phenomenal." You guys have an audience that doesn’t come see us as much, because Aerosmith is ten years older than us. So their die-hard fans are older than any audience we have. So it is so interesting to see teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties, all at one concert. The last time I have seen that was at The Rolling Stones, when we opened for them. I will honestly say that was the Rolling Stones audience that was there that night, and not the Motley Crue audience. I know we had fans there, but we were playing with the greatest band in the world.
Would you say that Aerosmith and Motley Crue is the perfect concert bill? It doesn’t get much better than this.
I think it is exciting. I do think it is the perfect combination. The tour just got extended into Canada. Next year we are going to take a break. I know there was talk of wanting to extend it into Europe and making it Worldwide. We have been on the road for 15, or 16 months now. It is time to go home. Tommy is going to do the Super Nova thing. I am working on Royal Underground. It is a big priority for me. I am launching my Heroine Diaries book. There is going to be a soundtrack to that book. To be honest with you, I just want to sleep in my own bed for a while.
Nikki, it has been an amazingly long tour. It is so great to see the greatest metal band of all time, Motley Crue perform again. Again, I want to wish you the Best of Luck with Royal Underground. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to discuss the Route of All Evil Tour and the launching of Royal Underground.
I want to thank you for being so supportive; I do want to say that. We will see you in November.
|
|
