Kerrang! Cover Story - Sleazy Livin' 1986

Kerrang! interviewed Nikki Sixx in February 1986, discussing the band's expanding international platform and Theatre of Pain’s shift in sound. Sixx pushed back on critics who accused the band of going soft:

"What do you want us to do? Do like Ted Nugent and record 'Cat Scratch Fever' 8000 times? We played the piano on Heavy Metal cuts like 'Knock 'Em Dead.' People say they don't hear it because they don't know it's there. There's fucking grand piano all the way through it! And fucking horns, synthesizer, harmonicas – so we take a song like 'Home Sweet Home' and put piano at the beginning and it's all 'oh that's it! They're not Heavy Metal anymore!' But we never were Heavy Metal. We were always like, sleazy." Photos: Ross Halfin

Magazine, 8.5 x 12 inches, 1986

From the Collection of Nikki Sixx