Bob Rock is one of the biggest and most famous record producers alive. His Wikipedia list of bands he’s produced is a who’s who of rock:
“Rock is well known as a producer for heavy metal bands such as Metallica and Mötley Crüe. He has also worked with Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Blue Murder, the Moffatts, Cher, the Cult, David Lee Roth, Skid Row, Veruca Salt, Nina Gordon, the Offspring, 311, Our Lady Peace, the Tragically Hip, the Tea Party, Lostprophets, American Hi-Fi, Simple Plan, Tonic, Nelly Furtado, Jann Arden, and Ron Sexsmith.”
And its his work with Motley Crue that’s in the news right now. He was a guest on Chris Jericho’s podcast Talk Is Jericho when the talk turned to the Crue. That’s when Bob told what he called “a funny story” about Nikki.
When Bob was called in to produce the Crue’s Dr. Feelgood album Rock says Nikki told him:
“He goes, ‘I don’t think I ever played on any of the MÖTLEY CRÜE records. I think somebody came in at night and replaced all my parts.’ He says, ‘So I don’t really know how to play bass.’ And I said, ‘Too bad. You’re playing bass on it.’ So I worked with him through Dr. Feelgood, did a lot of edits and made him play every note.
“But when we did The Dirt, I went to see him and we started working on the demos. He picked up the bass and started playing, and I said, ‘Woah, woah, woah. What’s going on here?’ He had been taking bass lessons for five years. All of a sudden he’s an amazing bass player. And I think that’s so cool, in that point of his career, he wanted to be better. You know what I mean? I admire that.”
Hear the full interview on Jericho’s website here. Bob starts talking about Nikki at the 42:10 mark if you just want to hear this part.
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