Of all the albums Mötley Crüe have released during their 40-plus year career, 1989’s Dr Feelgood is arguably the most important one.
The band’s fourth full-length record, it found the LA band teaming up with hotshot Canadian producer Bob Rock, who beefed up their sound while retaining their pop edge. It was a fruitful union – Dr Feelgood became the first Mötley Crüe album to reach No.1 in the US.
But it was also crucial in another respect. After spending much of the previous decade strung out on booze and various substances, it was also the first album the band recorded sober, following an ultimatum from their manager, Doc McGhee, after bassist Nikki Sixx clinically died for several minutes following a heroin overdose.
Looking back on the making of the album in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, Sixx reveals how the band’s new gym-centric lifestyle and clear-headed state-of-mind fed into the album itself.
“Aerosmith [who were recording at Vancouver’s Little Mountain Studios at the same time as Mötley Crüe] would be in the gym too,” says Sixx. “Then we’d be outside, taking in nature, jump on our motorcycles, drive over to the studio. Be there by eleven-thirty or noon and be creative all day, and then go back to our apartment and listen to mix-down tapes, and rewrite lyrics.”
Sixx in particular was determined to bag that elusive No.1 spot, and Bob Rock was ready to push the band all the way.
“He’s pushing Vince [Neil, vocalist] to sing better,” says Sixx. “Nobody had done that before. He’s pushing Tommy [Lee, drummer] to change up the beat. He’s pushing Mick [Mars, guitarist]: ‘I want to re-do the guitars, double them, triple them, quadruple them…’ Bob focused on the little things. You do enough little things right and you make big change.”
Sixx didn’t escape the producer’s demands either. He recalls Rock telling him to “take a shot at rewriting the lyrics” to a new song Mick Mars had conjured up a thundering riff for.
“I had a little room that I’d go in and sit on the floor,” says Nikki. “No computer to pull information from, just books and magazines. I’d work on lyrics then come out and show Bob, who would be like: ‘I think you could do better.’ I’d go back in the room, come back out again. Bob would go: ‘You’re halfway there.’
“Eight times I rewrote that song. He kept saying: ‘More Springsteen! More Ian Hunter! You know how to do this. You’re a storyteller!’”
This parade-ground approach worked. The song that Rock was urging Sixx to rewrite would turn into album’s title track, Dr Feelgood, a pulsing anthem centred around the titular drug dealer and the coterie of low-lives that surrounded him – presumably drawn from the bassist’s own experiences.
Released in August 1989 as the first single from the new album, Dr Feelgood, reached No.6 in the US – still Mötley Crüe’s biggest hit. With a fire blazing under it, the album itself reached the top of the Billboard Chart soon after, giving the band their coveted No.1.
“It was a special experience, which then turned into a special album,” Sixx tells Classic Rock. “We learned something that we still apply today: ignore everything else, forget whatever’s going on outside the studio. You follow the creativity, and then magic moments happen.”
Read the full interview with Nikki Sixx in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, on sale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door.
