 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recently, acclaimed Sixx A.M. guitarist DJ Ashba (Beautiful Creatures and BulletBoys, among many others), always a man of many words and interesting stories, was kind enough to speak with us regarding, among many other things, the release of the group’s much-celebrated debut The Heroin Diaries…
Todd: At what point did you realize The Heroin Diaries were developing into something much more significant than just Nikki’s autobiography?
DJ Ashba: “I think the minute he brought in the diaries. They were just a bunch of scraps of paper at the time. Nikki and I had actually teamed up to start Funny Farm Studios. We were writing and producing for bands like Drowning Pool, Marion Raven, Trapt and all these other bands. One day, he just walked in with the diaries all in disarray. I took ‘em home and read them and was basically breaking down in tears. I couldn’t believe this was my friend. I couldn’t believe it. I had grown up a fan of Mötley Crüe and I just had no idea Nikki was going through what he was going through, ya know? To see it from a whole different perspective…it really touched me deeply to the point where I just picked up a guitar and just immediately started writing and writing. …(Producer) James (Michael) and Nikki had always talked about how cool it would be if it turned into a soundtrack to the book. And then, when I came into the picture, we actually made that happen then.”
Todd: Did you ultimately become involved with the actual assembling and editing of the material contained in the book or were your contributions strictly of a musical nature?
DJ: “No, Nikki did all of that with (Heroin Diaries co-author) Ian (Gittins). They put it all together and then Paul Brown came into the picture. Once Paul started doing the art for the book and started doing photo shoots with Nikki where his face was all peeling, it just kinda painted this vivid picture of this guy that we all called ‘Sikki’…and it made it easier to write the story, music wise, because it was kinda about a character…it made it easier on everyone. It was a really cool process, ya know? …I’ve always been a big fan of (legendary composer) Danny Elfman…one of my biggest goals is to get into writing movie scores, so I really enjoy writing and arranging like sixty piece orchestra parts. I really enjoy doing that type of stuff, so this album was the perfect opportunity to kinda let that shine a little bit, ya know? There were no limits or laws to follow. It was just like…how can we bring people into this world yet leave them with a positive message and give them some hope out there, ya know?”
Todd: So despite the book’s less than lighthearted subject matter, the main lyrical objective was to portray everything in a positive light?
DJ: “Yeah, because…the album wouldn’t be as interesting to listen to, I don’t think… It was really easy for us to wallow down in that world, ya know? So there was a point where we were like ‘We really want people to enjoy this album’. We wanted it to be universal enough where people can kind plug their own lives into certain songs or maybe help people through totally different situations. Maybe they didn’t do heroin, but maybe they have a relationship problem or maybe they have an eating disorder or whatever the case is. We wanted people to be able to plug those things into songs like “Accidents Can Happen”, (Sixx A.M.'s first single) “Life Is Beautiful” and things like that to where it gives people hope…while doing the book justice musically, ya know? That was a very important thing to us. …I like to call it ‘Music For Demented Minds’ (laughs).”
Todd: How did the writing process for the soundtrack progress? Did you write primarily as individuals or collectively as a group?
DJ: “…We mostly wrote together, ya know? There were a lot of times where Nikki would be on tour with Mötley and we’d be writing songs…I’d be at Funny Farm writing and arranging orchestra parts. But we were always writing together. Even if we weren’t together, we were on the phone holding acoustic guitars up to the phone, singing over the phones, ya know? I would fly out on tour and stay with Nikki for weeks on end while he was on a Mötley tour and then I’d fly back in record what we had demoed. …We just did whatever we had to do because we were just so inspired by having a soundtrack for the book. The story was so touching that we knew we had to get it out there.”
Todd: In hindsight, once the writing process began, was the chemistry between each of you instantaneous or was it something that developed slowly over time?
DJ: “…It’s one of those things with Nikki and James. I actually just left a writing session with them. We’re writing some stuff... It just amazing the minute we sit down together. We wrote three songs today. There’s something really magical when the three of us get in a room. …A lot of people that put bands together spend their whole lives searching and sometimes never finding what the three of us have found as songwriters and producers as a team. We know how special what we have found together is and we just won’t stray from that now, ya know? We sit down and just laugh about how easy it is to write songs together. So it’s really a cool, cool thing.”
Todd: How do you respond to those within the media that insist on referring to the soundtrack as a concept album or even a Rock Opera?
DJ: “You know, I don’t really put a label on it. I hear that it’s the new The Wall or a Rock Opera, but for me, what’s so great about it is that I’m proud of every song on there. They're really close to each one of us and I’m just happy knowing that no one has a favorite…meaning that everyone likes different songs, which is great, ya know? I’d rather have it that way than have everyone say ‘Yeah, “Life Is Beautiful” is the best song off that album and the rest is just okay’. When everyone has different favorites…that’s when you realize that you’ve made a really solid album, plugging their own lives into it and enjoying it as a whole piece of work.”
Todd: Was there ever any doubt that James would serve as the soundtrack’s primary, if not sole, vocalist?
DJ: “Absolutely not. Actually, James and Nikki, before I even came along, had started to work on a couple of songs. James had started to write on his own, I think, and Nikki heard it and got involved with him. I had worked with James as a producer before. He’s produced songs that I’ve written for other artists, but I never knew the guy could sing. He’s such an amazing singer, but he’s also so humble and down-to-earth that he’s not one to pat himself on the back and say ‘Hey, check out this new song…that’s me singin’’. I never even knew the guy sang. I worked with him for a couple of years and had no clue. Nikki brought in the song…the demo of “Dead Man’s Ballet”…and I was like ‘Who the fuck is singing on that?’ and he was like ‘That’s James’ and I was like ‘Holy shit!’. So I think from the minute I heard his voice, there was just never any question, ya know? I think if anyone else would have sang on it, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did. He sings with so much emotion, he was really able to vocally bring this thing to a reality, ya know? …He was really able to give people the emotion that Nikki was going through at that time, I think.”
Todd: Do you feel James’s work with Pop-orientated artists like Hillary Duff and Deana Carter had an impact on the soundtrack’s general tonality?
DJ: “…Well, I think that’s why the three of us work so well together. We’re all very much melody freaks. We know how to write a hit song. We know what sounds good to us without fooling ourselves. We’ll be the first ones to say something is a piece of shit, ya know? (laughs) But at the same time, we’re really hard on ourselves and each other, but that’s another thing that makes us such a great writing team. I think that all of the stuff that I’ve done in the past and all the things that Michael and Nikki have done…it’s all just help with this great collaboration process, for sure.”
Todd: What are the group’s current touring plans?
DJ: “Well…nothing’s definite, even though we all want to really bad. I know the band would love nothing more than to bring the book to life on stage, but if we do it, we definitely want to go out the right way and bring the big, full-on show and really show people. We don’t wanna half-ass anything because it’s all just too close to us. So if we do it, we just have to do it right, ya know? Only time will tell…if the demand out there for us is great, then we probably won’t be able to pass that up, so… I would love nothing more than to tour, though.”
Todd: Overall, how would you describe your time as a member of Beautiful Creatures? What ultimately prompted your departure from the group?
DJ: “…I think it was just the timing. I don’t think the timing was right for us. …I wrote the music to that album (Beautiful Creature’s 2001 self-titled debut)…and I always believed we were years ahead of our time in a sense because the industry wasn’t ready for us. Like when the band Jet came out, they just blew up, but that was like two or three years after our album had came out. If we had come out three years later, I think we’d be looking at a totally different situation. I was just really frustrated. …Growing up, Van Halen was always my favorite band and they were signed to Warner Brothers. I was always like ‘Man that would just be the best label to land on’. Then, when (Beautiful Creatures/Bang Tango frontman) Joe (Lesté) and I put that band together, we did land a deal with Warner Brothers, which was a really cool thing. We went out and toured with Kiss and OzzFest and did really well as far as blowin’ up a little baby band. I had really just put my heart and soul into that thing…every little piece of me. I had absolutely no doubt it was gonna be the next biggest thing in the world. But then, when Tom Wally took over Warner Brothers, for whatever reason, he just kinda stopped the press on the band, ya know? I personally think Tom’s a great businessman and I’m sure he had his reasons for doing it at the time, but I just didn’t understand. …It was hard, but I just had to go with it. …But at the same time, it was like ‘Wow, I’m playing in front of sixty thousand people, I’m signed to Warner Brothers and I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t give us a fair shot’. So I could never sit there and go ‘Poor me, poor me’, because I’ve always been really thankful to have done what we did do with that band.”
Todd: Any chance you solo album Addiction To The Friction will ever be properly re-released?
DJ: “I don’t know, I don’t know. (laughs) I’m surprised you even know about it. I actually did another instrumental album after that called Sunny Side Up, believe it or not. It was kinda funny. It was great, though. You know that ‘Dueling Banjos’ song? I did a remake of that on there. I never released that. I have probably, oh my God, like three hundred and fifty songs that I have written that haven’t been released, ya know? So I just have a big library of stuff…”
Select Discography
The Heroin Diaries (2007) ***
Beautiful Creatures (2001) **
Addiction To The Friction (1996) *
* as a solo artist
** as a member of Beautiful Creatures
*** as a member of Sixx A.M.