Nikki Sixx: “Eddie Vedder tries to pretend to be some guy in the ’90s”

Just when the virtual beef between Eddie Vedder and Mötley Crüe seemed over, Nikki Sixx returned to the subject by accusing Eddie Vedder of hypocrisy.

On January 31, Eddie Vedder was interviewed by The New York Times Magazine and, speaking about the ‘80 metal scene, expressed his dislike for Mötley Crüe. A few days later, on February 5, Mötley Crüe bassist and co-founder Nikki Sixx took to his Twitter to reply to Vedder’s comments: “Made me laugh today reading how much the singer in Pearl Jam hated Mötley Crüe. Now considering that they’re one of the most boring bands in history it’s kind of a compliment, isn’t it?”.

A day later Pearl Jam’s official profile tweeted a short video of an animated crowd at one of their shows, with an ironic caption (“We love our bored fans”). Also on February 6, during a show with the Earthlings in Newark, talking about Chad Smith, the drummer of his band, Vedder appeared to make another jab at Mötley Crüe: “That drum kit — that silver, beautiful machine that he is the engine of — does not need to elevate or rotate to do its job. Let me just point that out,” not so subtly ridiculing the well-known acrobatics performances of Mötley Crüe’s drummer, Tommy Lee.

Stone Gossard, on his part, has instead acknowledged the importance of the Los Angeles band and heavy metal in general during his formative years, in an interview with the Fan First podcast on February 14: “Jeff and Mike and I loved hard rock, like went through it all. I bought the first Mötley Crüe Leathür records. I thought it was, at the time, it was punk-like. It had the same — it’s like Motörhead. There were things about it that I was discovering about British hard rock at that time, that also felt rebellious or against the norm or something that made me interested in it. And I always liked heavy — Sabbath and Zeppelin. And then like N.W.A and moving into industrial sort of heavy.”

Since then it seemed that the back and forth triggered by Vedder’s words had come to an end, but instead…

Interviewed on March 7 by Paulo Baron and music critic Regis Tadeu, Nikki Sixx has rekindled the controversy by pondering why Vedder even decided to take a “swipe” at his band in the first place, while adding that he’s a “successful guy.”
“You take a swipe at my band; I’ll take a swipe at your band,” he said. “You try to hurt my family, which is my band; I will try to hurt you. That’s not something to be proud about.”

Sixx then added: “Listen, let’s face it: the guy [Vedder] flies around in private jets; he lives in a mansion in a gated community; he sells out stadiums; and then he dresses at the thrift store and tries to pretend [to be] some guy in the ’90s. Don’t take a swipe at my band, dude. I mean, I’m at least being honest.”

The video of the interview with Nikki Sixx is available below