Through The Eyes Of

Nikki's Party Part 1

Duff

It was a long and silent trip to Nikki Sixx's house in Van Nuys. The tension between Axl and Izzy was so thick you could cut it with a fucking knife. But Axl was right, Izzy didn't cause a scene or lose his cool. In fact he was eerily cool, especially for only getting two hits of smack a day. And to my surprise he wasn't fighting me on that. Maybe he was trying to tone it down to maybe win Axl back. But the poor guy can't even fucking look at him. But in Axl's defense, I can see he's hurting too. The difference between them was Axl's pain turned into this anger he unleashed whenever he felt like. The upside was that he released it. With Izzy he just held it in. It festered and he self medicated it. In truth, I'm more concerned with Izzy since he doesn't know how to vent and get it all out the way Axl does.

I've often wondered if venting would be good for Izzy. I had seen him venting on that club owner in Seattle. Man that was such a fucking shock! But Izzy is just so blasé about everything he does. He never gives himself much credit and just shrugs it off when we do. Izzy was sort of modest and not one to brag. Hell he wasn't much of one for telling you anything you didn't have to practically pry out of him. But in light of the recent Axl situation he was opening up a bit more to Slash and I. Warming up to us you might say.

And Axl. Axl dove head first into finding us a fucking manager. Obviously not a very easy feat. So in the meantime Axl became our un-official manager. But Axl was really putting in the work. He was also trying to land us our first real gig in LA as Guns N Roses that wasn't pay to play. It's like losing Izzy had made him just want to stay busy so he didn't have to think about him. I could see him struggling not the assess how high Izzy was. Fighting so so hard to pretend to no longer cared.

It was almost funny how completely like night and day Axl and Izzy were. Honestly I saw absolutely nothing they had in common except being from Indiana, a passion to be rock stars, and their love for one another. They had found a way to make something work for something like ten fucking years already. How is a fucking mystery. But then they both say things have changed between them. And I guess I can only surmise the reason behind that is Izzy's heroin addiction.

All that aside I'm eager to meet this Nikki Sixx. Sure I had heard all about him, read shit and stuff, but Slash made him seem pretty cool. And Steven didn't seem to disagree. They had met him when they were both like 15 when Nikki still played in London. Nikki Sixx was already someone of importance back then. Then he quit and started Motley Crue and fucking sky rocketed to success. I'm just thrilled to be going to an actual celebrity party. Now I too could say I had met someone who had made it. And Nikki was a bassist like me. But Nikki was the leader of his band. You didn't see many bass players who led the band. I was really looking forward to this shit.

I can hear Axl sighing next to me. He didn't want to come tonight because of Izzy. But like me, Axl wants to get his foot in any door he can. He knew meeting Nikki Sixx was an important step in the right direction. Izzy knew it too. Those two were the most determined pair I had ever seen, even at their worst. With them it was never 'If' we make it, it was 'When' we make it. And I knew they would, one fucking way or another. They had that determined mindset. And neither of them ever wanted to go back to Indiana. Axl was actually wanted by the fucking law there and Izzy found it to be too boring with too many corn fields and no clubs. Any place with that many cornfields couldn't have been very accepting of their relationship either.

"Holy shit are those fucking fans?" I hear Slash asking from the back seat and pointing over my shoulder to a mass of bodies outside of a cryptic iron gate.

"This has to be it," I say pulling up to a speaker box. I roll down the window of Izzy's car and Slash leans out of the window and presses a code in. We all watch as the gate begins to slide open and a few security guys keep the fans back as we pull up into the driveway.