The Heroin Diaries Read online

  I’ve realized something about Pete. His hair always looks so cool, with all weird pieces and extensions woven into it, but I’ve never seen him without a hat, or without a towel over his head when he gets outta the shower. It’s too perfect…is it even his own hair? I think it’s a fucking wig!

  NIKKI: I never did get my money back from Pete. After he vanished, I heard many stories of his adventures from people over the years. The last one I heard was that he’d been sent to jail after trying to rob a bank–on a bicycle. I have no idea if it is true, but it would be a very Pete thing to do.

  JANUARY 12TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 4 p.m.

  I’ve enrolled in a methadone program and I think it’s gonna go well. Davey told me he kicked a bad Persian habit this way, so I’m hopeful…so every morning at nine I’m down there, the rock star junkie in his blacked-out Corvette, lining up in my ski cap and sunglasses with all the others for my daily dose.

  I’m gonna kick this shit…I know I am. This has to work…I don’t know how I’m gonna tour like this if it doesn’t. I can do it…as long as I don’t chip too much.

  NIKKI: Most methadone programs last thirty days and are intended to wean addicts off heroin while keeping them away from dirty needles, HIV, dealers and the general paraphernalia of the drug world. I used to get my methadone dose then call on Jason for dope. Did it work? I was so strung out that I think I may have simply added methadone to my already impressive list of existing addictions.

  “Davey”–whose real name cannot be disclosed–is one of the biggest rock stars in the world. I can’t tell you his name…but I sure loved his music growing up…

  JANUARY 13TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 9 p.m.

  Today I phoned my sister. I have no idea why. We have nothing to say to each other…

  CECI COMER: My brother, Nikki, is seven years older than me and he is imprinted on my heart like my faith–which is strange but true, because he hasn’t always deserved to be. I’ve never understood it, but the feeling has never left me. But there have been plenty of times I’ve despised him too.

  When we were kids we would play together in El Paso. We made mudslides (he ripped his foot open), caught horny toads and snakes and shot Roman candles at each other on July 4 inside a cement mixer. One time Grandpa pulled a huge cactus thorn from his kneecap; another time Nikki sliced his finger on the pigpen so bad that it was hardly attached. It was just wobbling and shooting torrential downpours of blood. He even got struck by lightning in our doorway one day.

  Nikki became my hero when he saved me from a big rattlesnake–I thought I could pet it, but he ran and picked me up as it was about to strike. He used to keep snakes as pets. Once one of them killed and ate my quarter turtle–I wanted to kill that snake! Nikki still owes me for that.

  Then Mom and I moved to Washington and Nikki went to live with our grandparents. I think in Mom’s mind it was only ever temporary and Nikki would come to join us when the dust had settled, but he never did come to stay with us. I think maybe Nikki figured Mom loved me more than him but it wasn’t that–I was just younger and in her possession. And Mom tried to always have a room for Nikki in whatever house we lived in.

  After Nikki got famous we really drifted apart. He’d never contact us, apart from occasionally when he was coming to town. And the times that I did hear from him, he was such an ass. He’d ask me how things were, then when I’d tell him he would cut the conversation short or change the subject. He was rude, full of himself, he just crushed me so many times…he was an asshole.

  JANUARY 14TH 1987

  Van Nuys, 11:30 a.m.

  Last night, after Jason left, was madness…I’m not having him bring smack very often but my coke intake is up 1,000%. I was creeping around the house, listening to the voices, when I noticed all the platinum disks hanging on the walls, and suddenly I hated them. Why were they there? Mötley is about music and passion, not awards from a dumb industry that hates us and skims millions of dollars off us. So I went from room to room wrenching the disks off the walls and dumping them in the garage. Then I suddenly felt stupid…we earned those disks, we should be proud of them. So I put them all on the floor below where they used to hang.

  We’re back in the studio tomorrow.

  BOB MICHAELS: Nikki is a very driven individual. Sometimes he’d put drugs on the back burner for a while for cars, or seventeen-foot trucks, but it got to the point where nothing else mattered but getting high. He went from being fun to never being happy unless he was totally wasted. He used to check his mailbox seven times a day, but it wasn’t the mail he was after…it was the drugs that the dealers used to leave there for him. He’d go to the mailbox, then to the bathroom and come out a much more comfortable person.

  * * *

  Insanity runs deep in the company that I keep Insanity runs deep in everyone but me My padded walls you call my eyes My dreams that you call my lies Around my wrists my shackles lay Razor blades and cocaine to pass the time away

  * * *

  JANUARY 15TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 8:30 p.m.

  Today we were back in the studio, writing for the new album. I rode in on my Harley feeling all jittery and decided to stop for a small fix…went in Denny’s on Gower and Sunset (always the classy guy!). I didn’t have a spoon, so I bought a bottle of Pepsi, threw the bottle away, kept the cap and went in their bathroom to shoot up. The shitter was disgusting–black rings and shit stains around the bowl and the unclever graffiti all over the walls…

  I sat on my motorcycle helmet on the floor and filled the cap with water from the toilet. I dunno why I didn’t fill it from the sink, like any sane person would. I put the bottle cap on the toilet seat in the piss and stains, and poured coke in it. I drew it up in the syringe, washed it out in the shit water, put a little china white in the cap and cooked it, burning my fingers. I had no cottons, so I just drew it up and shot up.

  The studio was fine after that…I just felt dead.

  DOUG THALER: I co-managed Mötley Crüe together with Doc McGhee for many years, and when I first started Nikki was a pain in the ass. He just had a knee-jerk reaction against us as authority figures and never understood we were trying to help him. I used to go to band meetings with my stomach tied in knots.

  One day I just snapped and said to him, “You can’t be an asshole all your life.” I offered that in the future I’d present ideas and strategies to him before the rest of the band, and he liked that. After that we got along a lot better: I’d like to think he saw me as some sort of elder brother, or even a mentor.

  One side effect of Nikki’s control-freak nature was that, whenever Mötley was in the studio, he wanted to be there every single minute of the night and day. On Girls Girls Girls, he was a lot more removed from the process. He often wasn’t there at all, and when he did come in, he was in no shape to do anything–he would just be making no sense. That’s when I started to realize how ill he was.

  JANUARY 16TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 10:10 p.m.

  Last night was a bad one. When I rode into the studio this afternoon I knew I was still high, and the others seemed shocked at the state I was in. I started showing them a new song but Tommy interrupted and asked me, Dude, what’s on your hand?

  He’d seen my track marks, so I told him that I’d met a chick a few days ago and pulled an all-nighter, done a little shooting up…coke…Tommy just looked at me as if to say, That was no party. He could see my hands were one big scab. I’m looking at them now, as I write…all my veins have collapsed.

  But Tommy never said anything. Nobody ever does. The guys aren’t exactly angels themselves so it would just be the pot calling the kettle black…Mötley doesn’t like confrontation and they don’t like to cross me. So I taught them the new song and everything was OK.

  TOMMY LEE: Nikki was turning up to the studio for the Girls Girls Girls sessions in a bit of a fucking mess. I guess we were all a bit of a mess, but Nikki definitely went that one step further than the rest of
us. He’d show up really late, he and I would chase the dragon in the bathroom, then we’d go back into the studio to try to work. I think it’s fair to say our focus was on the drugs and not on the music.

  VINCE NEIL: I knew Nikki had a drug problem right back when we were doing Shout at the Devil. We all had drug problems, at our own levels, but Nikki’s just seemed more amplified than anybody else’s. But he never got in trouble for it–if anything happened, it was taken care of right away. Our management always just smoothed everything over because Nikki was writing songs and making money for everybody. Why would they want to throw a stone in the wheel and stop the money machine from turning?

  TIM LUZZI: I was Nikki’s bass technician for many years, including during the recording of the Girls Girls Girls album. I first started working for him when they made Too Fast for Love and remember that on my first day, Nikki came into the studio with a black eye, having spent the night in a police cell. That pretty much set the tone for what was to follow.

  JANUARY 17TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, midnight

  Today I went into the studio and everyone was staring at me and asking what happened to me yesterday. Apparently I just vanished…went to the bathroom and never came back. Between me and you, I guess I was in a bit of a blackout.

  So I started teaching them a new song. I gave Vince the lyrics and showed Mick the guitar riff. They said nothing and started playing…they were good…they got it right away. Then halfway through the song I realized they knew it already. I’d already shown them the song…yesterday.

  I didn’t say anything. Of course, neither did they…what could they say? It was a very uncomfortable feeling…I think we all realized right there that this isn’t what it used to be. The drugs are running the show and we’re all scared to death. I’m sure they called Doug and Doc after I left. I expect a call any day. They must know I am going insane.

  MICK MARS: When we were making Girls Girls Girls, Nikki would ride down to the studio on his motorcycle, come in, look at the place, say “OK, we’re done” and then everybody would go home. That was pretty much the way it was. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing: it was pretty horrible. The only good thing, from my point of view, was that it made him much less of a control freak than usual.

  DOC McGHEE: As a manager I used to be very close to Nikki, but while Mötley was doing Girls Girls Girls he was just Out There. We saw he had a problem and I realized he was coming apart, unraveling, but it was a crazy period. We didn’t talk as much as before because he was just never there…when you’re a heroin addict, you just gravitate towards the few people that you do the drug with. Everybody else just stays away. I knew what the problem was and I hoped it was just something that Nikki was going through, but heroin isn’t something that you just go through. It’s the worst drug in the world.

  JANUARY 18TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 11:40 p.m.

  I don’t know if this album we’re making is any good. I don’t know if I even like it…and if I don’t like it, who will?

  I have to pull it together. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to go to rehab again…but I’m at a loss for how to get off…

  NIKKI: It amazes me now that nobody from Mötley said anything to me about the state I was in. I was writing some pretty lame songs, and nobody dared tell me they sucked. Were they scared to challenge me? Looking back, I don’t blame them.

  ROSS HALFIN: I don’t think people were scared of Nikki–they just didn’t care. He was their paycheck and they didn’t give a shit if he was falling to bits as long as he got up there onstage. Back then was an anything goes sort of time. Doc was doing drugs, so was Doug, everyone was. The only person as bad as Nikki was Tommy, and even he wasn’t doing heroin–he was just snorting coke and drinking. Without Nikki, Doc wouldn’t have been making money, nor would Doug, Vince, the road crew, the record company, anybody…so they all ignored Nikki’s condition and said he was fine. He was the Emperor and it was the Emperor’s new clothes.

  JANUARY 19TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, 8:30 p.m.

  Some days I’m King Kong with a bass guitar. Today Mick wanted to modulate a guitar line, and I just yelled at him, Fuck you, that’s lame! Mick looked at me like I’d crapped in his amp but he never said anything…he never does. He’s too kind, unlike me. I make myself sick. I can be such a pompous asshole sometimes.

  I feel shitty when I do stuff like that but I know I’m overcompensating because right now I’m the weak link in the studio. But I shouldn’t take it out on the band.

  MICK MARS: Nikki and I have had a love-hate relationship ever since we met in a liquor store before we even formed Mötley Crüe. I went to buy some tequila and he asked me who I liked and I said, “Jeff Beck and Be Bop Deluxe,” and he said, “Fuck you, I like Aerosmith and Kiss.” So we hated each other from the start. But when he started taking heroin, it really pissed me off. The first time I ever saw him take it was when we were rehearsing the Theatre of Pain tour, and I was that angry that I called our management and told them. I told Nikki way back then not to mess with heroin, but he never listened to me. He never did.

  JANUARY 21ST, 1987

  Van Nuys, 11 a.m.

  Vanity called last night and asked me to come over and play. I had nothing else to do so I figured, Why not? As soon as she opened the door, I could see from her eyes she hadn’t slept for days…she looked at me like a scared little cartoon character.

  She started showing me some of her “art” as we freebased, then I noticed a huge bouquet of flowers in the corner of the room.

  There must have been 24 dozen roses. I asked her who they were from and she wouldn’t say, so I read the card…

  I am so pissed. She may be fucking insane, but she’s my girl! If I see that dwarf, I’ll kick his ass!

  NIKKI: Vanity’s “art” was crazy shit. She would get these huge boards and spray-paint them white, then stick nuts and bolts all over them. There would be a little Santa Claus she called a “gift from God” and there was always a devil in there somewhere. She’d be telling me to talk to Jesus, but I didn’t feel we had much to say to each other.

  As for the flowers, I found out from her sister that they weren’t from Prince! She’d sent them to herself to fuck with my head. Let’s give her credit: she always found plenty of ways to do that.

  EVANGELIST DENISE MATTHEWS: I had more addictions than just cocaine. I have been sober now for thirteen years but the root of my problems went much deeper. There was the bitterness, envy, strife, hatred, emulations, judgmental thoughts, selfishness and the enslavement of fornication. There was the money, the fame, the fortune, the drugs and paraphernalia which naturally brought upon the demonic, the psychic and all of the witchcraft…not to mention the foul, perverted tongue and the bondage of idolatries. My iniquity was as a catastrophic snowball rolling down a ski slope collecting ugly. I definitely needed some saving.

  DOC McGHEE: Nikki was into Vanity, but I think a lot of that was because she had come out of the whole thing of dating Prince. Rock stars are star-fuckers–Nikki might just as easily have grabbed Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies! Frankly, Vanity was not very attractive around that time. She was out of it an awful lot and she looked a real mess. Let’s just say that when you are strung out, personal hygiene is one of the first things to go.

  JANUARY 24TH, 1987

  Van Nuys, Midnight

  We had a day off from the studio so Tommy came around. Heather is away, filming on location. So we chilled out and watched MTV, and I made myself wait 30 minutes before I told Tommy I had some dope. It’s not cool to look too eager.

  Tommy asked me to shoot him up in the same place he always does…the rose tattoo in the crook of his arm, the spot that nobody can see. If Heather knew he was around here shooting smack with me, she would be gone. She’d be history.

  I love Tommy–he’s the brother I never had. He loves me enough to come here and take a holiday in my hell…but then he goes. And I’m still here.

 
NIKKI: Tommy, my partner in crime and fellow Toxic Twin, would visit me on Valley Vista Boulevard every now and then. Sometimes we’d shoot up heroin, but Tommy was smarter than me: he never got hooked. He always said that heroin scared him because it was “just too good.” He had his little packages of syringes over at his and Heather Locklear’s mansion, but it was cocaine only.

  TOMMY LEE: As soon as I took smack with Nikki, I realized how easily I could get addicted. I knew if I fucked with it big-time, it would either kill me or send me into a huge downward spiral of chasing some fucking fantasy. If I had taken it to a dark place, I just wouldn’t have got out: I knew how much I loved it, and how careful I had to be. I always did heroin with a little bit of fear, and I guess you don’t enjoy it as much if you’re fearful of it. Whenever I visited Nikki, I would hang with him and get fucked up for a day or two, then I’d tell myself, “OK, let’s get back to Heather–this is dark as fuck.”

  2:55 a.m.

  One could say that I’ve been having a 10cc love affair…my mistress is so seductive. She sneaks, she lies–in fact, she will lie dormant, if that’s what’s needed to seduce me from my lifetime commitment (my music). Some could say I’m married to my music. Others…fuck them…

  Is this a crisis or a needed creative outlet?