FIVE WIRE? Lizzie Grey ‘I could have been the fifth member of Motley Crue’

‘I COULD HAVE BEEN THE FIFTH MEMBER OF MOTLEY CRUE’
Metal Sludge exclusive: Spiders & Snakes singer Lizzie Grey was Nikki Sixx’s first guitar player, and all these years later, it’s hard for Grey not to wonder what might have been
By Gerry Gittelson
Metal Sludge Editor at Large

 

HOLLYWOOD — Lizzie Grey could spend a lifetime wondering about the what-ifs, and no one would blame him, considering he once shared the stage with a young Nikki Sixx in the band London and also collaborated with Blackie Lawless before WASP.

As the founding guitarist for London, Grey wrote the future Motley Crue classic “Public Enemy No. 1,” but little did he know that that would remain the highlight of his career more than three decades later.

Yet Greyhas never given up. He eventually formed Spiders & Snakes, and though the glitter-rock act has never enjoyed the success of Motley Crue nor WASP – or even early London, if we’re being honest – Spiders & Snakes has remained active through the years with a series of albums on a variety of minor labels.

In fact, Spiders & Snakes celebrates its 25^th year with a anniversary concert on Dec. 18 at the Whisky, and Grey deserves a round of applause for hanging in there despite battling Parkinson’s Disease, a serious illness that can often be fatal.

In this Metal Sludge exclusive, Grey takes us on a ride down memory lane, and with no reason to lie about a thing, he gives us a refreshingly honest account of exactly how things have gone down through the years.

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LONDON – Nikki  Sixx, Nigel Benjamin, Lizzie Grey and John St. John on keyboards

 

METAL SLUDGE: We just saw the “Inside Metal” documentary, and you’re in it – but only a voiceover. You were the one guy who was in the movie but didn’t have your face on camera. What happened?

LIZZIE GREY: I was sick, and it didn’t come together. I’m ill because of Parkinson’s Disease. It’s lousy, it sucks, and it’s not fun. 

SLUDGE: Yes, I’ve heard you’re not feeling well. This sounds serious.

Well, thank god my voice is still there, but I’m not playing guitar anymore. But my voice is still hangin’ in there, so I can sing.

SLUDGE: So take us way back. Take us to the time you first met Nikki Sixx and formed London.

I was in my early 20s. Nikki, who was going by his real name Frank Ferrano at the time, was jamming with Blackie Lawless and I in a band called Sister – this was before WASP – and Nikki and I hit it off right away. We had the same glitter-rock influences from the ‘70s, trying to keep glitter rock alive and well, and for whatever reason, Blackie decided that Nikki just wasn’t suitable for what he was doing – and I decided to stick with Nikki.

SLUDGE: Dumb move by Blackie Lawless looking back?

Well, I don’t know because Blackie eventually got his record deal with Capitol and got his platinum record, and for me it was a career-changer because we put together a new project, London, with Nigel Benjamin on vocals, and Nigel had just done a stint with Mott the Hoople.

SLUDGE: How good was London in those days?

We were good. We were doing kind of a Sweet/New York Dolls kind of thing.

SLUDGE: I love Sweet.

Yeah, me too. They were like our mentors. What happened was, Nikki and I, we would hang out at the old Starwood club, which was like the biggest club back then, and eventually one of the managers of the club, David Forest, he wanted to manage our band. That gave us a direct doorway into playing the Starwood once that happened, and soon were living the lifestyle, selling out two shows for 2,000 people, and it was just a wonderful time in my life.

For me, I was doing the dream. The only downfall was, Nigel had a really big ego, and he didn’t think much of Nikki or me as musicians – he had kind of big head from being in Mott the Hoople – so because of that, it was destined to fail. Eventually, Nigel quit because he had wanted to replace Nikki Sixx with Rudy Sarzo on bass, and I said no way. The appeal of the band was Nikki, but Nigel said either Nikki goes or he goes, so we let Nigel go, and then we couldn’t find another singer to step up to the plate.

Looking back now, I wish I would have just been the singer like I did eventually in Spiders & Snakes, but at the time, we looked and looked and couldn’t find anyone. We ended up going with this guy Michael White, who was doing a Led Zeppelin tribute band. We tried every which way, and nothing really worked. Eventually, Nikki wanted to go on his own, and we just couldn’t put the magic back together in London.

SLUDGE: Was “Public Enemy No. 1” in the London set back then?

Absolutely. Everybody loved that song.

So when Motley Crue put “Public Enemy No. 1” on their first album, did you get paid?

At first, “someone” forgot to put my name on the song, so I had to call Elektra Records and say, “Hey, you’re got a song of mine on Motley Crue’s record, and it’s copywritten.” And they were like, “OK, I guess we have to pay you for that.”

SLUDGE: With all the re-releases through the years, you must have earned a lot of money by now though, right?

I never thought of it on a financial level, but it is nice to get royalties. Just from the run-off of that song, I can tell how many zillions of dollars Nikki must be making.

SLUDGE: Would you say you’ve received $100,000 by now?

Nah, closer to $50,000, but still, that’s a lot. Motley Crue is a huge band. It’s hard to deny. They kind of pulled the brass ring after they made the switch from glam and glitter to being an ‘80s metal band.

SLUDGE: Tell me more about Nikki Sixx’s personality. What was he like back then?

That whole era was an insane time in our lives. We were drunk all the time, either Jack Daniels or Bacardi. We were basically living the lifestyle even though we had no platinum records yet.

SLUDGE: Did you have young girls supporting you, the whole deal?

Of course. Everything you can imagine from the book “Dirt,” it was all true. It didn’t make a difference whether we were signed yet.

SLUDGE: Did Nikki drive? What kind of car did he have?

He always had a nasty, broken-down car. I think he had a Chevy Vega, and I had a Ford Pinto, the two high-end vehicles at the time (laughs). It was pretty pathetic. But we needed cars ‘cause we lived in the Valley in North Hollywood and needed to drive to Hollywood. Nikki and I were soul mates for a long time, and once he left the project, that was a difficult time.

SLUDGE: Were you treated as a VIP at all Motley Crue events?

Actually, we kind of lost our friendship because people kept trying to make something out of it, our splitting up, like “Oh, you let Nikki Sixx slip through your fingers, and now he’s a huge rock star.” People have asked me why I didn’t just play rhythm guitar for Motley Crue, which is something I probably could have done at the time, but my ego was too big.

SLUDGE: A five-piece like Def Leppard.

Yeah, I could have been the fifth member of Motley Crue, but I was like: “I won’t do that. He already walked away from me.” But a five-piece, it was actually quite possible at the time.

SLUDGE: What about the other guys in Motley Crue? Were you friendly with them?

Yeah, actually Vince Neil and Tommy Lee, down the line they were more friendly to me than Nikki Sixx. In their formative years with Motley Crue, to them Nikki was all-powerful.

SLUDGE: Well, that’s because he wrote all the songs – the lyrics and the music.

Yeah I guess.

SLUDGE: With “Public Enemy No. 1,” who wrote the lyrics?

I wrote the lyrics. “Public Enemy No. 1” was 99 percent Lizzie Gray, and one percent Nikki Sixx. But that’s not how it ended up on paper. It was 50-50, not 99-1. But 99 percent of nothing isn’t worth much, you know what I mean?

SLUDGE: So what happened with London then?

Ironically, we tried to Blackie Lawless back until eventually I moved on. I hooked up with Leslie Knauer in this new pop band, but that didn’t work out.

SLUDGE: Oh, Leslie from Precious Metal?

Yeah, it was called Roxy Roller.

SLUDGE: Ah, you named the band after the Nick Gilder song. I love Nick Gilder.

Yeah, I’m a big Nick Gilder fan, too. It’s all foggy now, just various bands like St. Valentine, and that band included Desi Rexx, who went on to be in D’Molls.

SLUDGE: He was a talented guy.

Yeah, he was, a nice guy, too. We got along OK. I was just searching for the right pieces, and all these bands were like interim projects. It was the ‘80s, but I was still trying to put the pieces back on the ‘70s, and it just wasn’t going to happen. Then I formed Ultra Pop, which we changed to Spiders & Snakes, and I just kind of forgot about London and all those bands and decided to do the singing myself, and that was a new era for me. I was happy, really happy with our success, kind of like a weird ‘70s vibe like T-Rex, and I was carrying the torch for that. Still, the ‘80s metal thing was huge, so we thought the name Ultra Pop was too confusing.

SLUDGE: You’ve done nine Spiders & Snakes albums, and on some of them you’ve worked with producer Kim Fowley.

Yeah, Kim was kind of the father of Hollywood, and I just had to work with him. When I was a little kid, I would see him at Sugar Shack in the Valley, and he was like this icon, this Hollywood rock and roll icon. He was always an entertaining guy to hang out with.

SLUDGE: Kim Fowley, he’s not feeling to well either, these days. It’s too bad about your health, Lizzie. I hope you feel better soon.

As it stands, there is no cure for this stupid crap. It sucks. The most difficult thing for me is I can’t play guitar anymore, because that’s been my life, but for whatever reason, like I said, I still have my voice. I just have to exercise the crap out of my body to stay ahead of this thing. It’s not fatal, I’ll be around a while, my doctor says. I’ve just got to fight this thing. This disease affects different people in different ways.

SLUDGE: Well, hang in there, Lizzie. I know you’ve got a show coming up Dec. 18.

Yeah, it’s the band’s 25^th anniversary celebration.

SLUDGE: Oh, one last thing about Nikki Sixx. When is the last time you saw him?

I saw him at the Rainbow like 10 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago, and he was sort of removed. I guess a lot of rumors got spread about who is not getting along with who, and he just didn’t have time for all that. But when he was forming Brides of Destruction, I was talking with him on the phone pretty regularly actually, and I was hoping to maybe be in that band.

SLUDGE: Oh, so you have been in regular contact, then. You’re still friends?

Yeah, the Brides of Destruction thing didn’t happen. I guess it’s like that when one guy gets famous and the other guy never gets the brass ring, but I do still consider him my friend. I have no problems with Nikki Sixx. I wish him the best.

Spiders & Snakes @ WebSite – Facebook – iTunes – Amazon

 

Gerry Gittelson can be reached at gspot@metalsludge.tv

Cover Photo of Nikki Sixx and Lizzie Grey c (1980) Ace Steele

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