The Moment Sixx:A.M. Became a Band

In the beginning, Sixx:A.M. was a passion project for Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. It was an outlet which worked well for him to be able to record a companion soundtrack for his memoir, The Heroin Diaries, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller.

But the unexpected happened as the musical component took off as well. The lead single from The Heroin Diaries soundtrack, “Life is Beautiful,” became a Top 5 smash at rock radio. It kicked off a string of eleven similarly successful tracks that followed. The group, also featuring vocalist James Michael and guitarist DJ Ashba, went on to release a total of five albums before entering a period of inactivity and eventually announcing a hiatus in 2021.

Now, they’re revisiting the last chapter of their work together with the arrival of Prayers for the Damned & Blessed, which is being made available (June 6) on collector’s vinyl and also streaming platforms. It brings together the two albums that they put out in 2016, Prayers for the Damned and Prayers for the Blessed, adding some additional bonus tracks to round out the set.

READ MORE: Sixx:A.M. Details ‘Prayers for the Damned & Blessed’ Deluxe Set

“We knew it from the outset that we were going to do two records,” James Michael tells UCR now in an interview you can listen to on the UCR Podcast.  “It was something that we had talked to the label about, and they liked the idea. We felt it was kind of a bold move. So when we started writing songs, we literally were writing songs for two albums. [But] we’d write a song, and then we’d kind of have to determine, is this going to be on Blessed, or is this going to be on Damned? Where does this fit into the storyline?”

“So that was fun, but we knew from the very beginning that it was going to be two and it was quite a daunting task, because we were also touring at the time. That was a lot of music for us to have to write,” he admits. “I think about halfway through it, we were like, ‘What have we gotten ourselves into? You know, maybe we bit off more than we can chew.’ But in the end we just put one foot in front of the other, and kept on writing songs until we felt that we had the right collection of songs, and we felt that there was kind of an arc to it.”

Watch Sixx:A.M.’s ‘We Will Not Go Quietly’ Video

For Michael, the arrival of the two albums marked an important transitional moment. “We were a touring band at that point. When we were writing songs, we had a much clearer idea of how these songs were going to translate live, and we would make adjustments based on what we thought was going to work well live,” he says now. “On the first three records, we really didn’t have that. We had done some touring, but those were much more just studio conceptual albums. I feel like Blessed and Damned really did reflect a band that had figured out what it was like to be on the road. By then, we had really admitted to ourselves that we were a band [and] that we were a touring band, so it was a different experience.”

What’s Next for Sixx:A.M.?

In the present day, Michael says he’s largely retired and doing “very little music,” though he has recently launched a podcast where he talks in-depth about his experiences in the industry. He’s also teaching at a local performing arts school in Northern Island, where he lives these days. The singer and producer says he’s “very happy” that the two albums are finally available together as a duo, but any future activity for Sixx:A.M. is a murky vision, hearing him talk about how things came to an initial conclusion. “We never really talked about it, but I think that we knew [these two albums were] going to be the period at the end of the sentence,” he says. “We were so exhausted from just writing and producing and recording and then getting out and touring and coming back and finding any free moment to get back in the studio, just to try to get these two albums done. It nearly killed me and, and I think it nearly killed all of us, in a way. I think at the end of that, we just thought, you know, I don’t think that we’re going to do this again.”

Listen to Sixx:A.M.’s ‘Prayers for the Damned’

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