WCSX Classic Cuts : Kickstart My Heart
WCSX Classic Cuts
Motley Crue: “Kickstart My Heart”
The Hook: Heart-stopping talkbox guitar “stuff” from Mick Mars takes the place of a traditional solo at the end of Nikki Sixx’s song about about the time his heart actually stopped.
Year Released: 1989
Album: Dr. Feelgood
Writer: Nikki Sixx
Stats: The second single off Dr. Feelgood, following its Top 10 title track, “Kickstart…” peaked at number-27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number-18 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It was nominated for a Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy Award and its video for an MTV Video Music Award.
The Background: Crue bassist Nikki Sixx wrote the song about a now-legendary drug overdose, during which he was actually declared dead for two minutes only to be revived by a couple of shots of adrenaline in his heart.
Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars on recording “Kickstart My Heart.” OC:…Jesus Mars [laugh] :24
“When I was first playing it, it didn’t have any of the licks in, and I started putting a bunch of licks in it and stuff. Then I decided, ‘I don’t want to do a normal solo in this,’ so I did it with the talk box and at the end I just started playing all this stuff — all these solo things over the end of the song with the talk box. And I remember [producer] Bob Rock going, ‘Jesus, Mars’”
