We all know Nikki Sixx is a killer bass player with creativity and crazy-good vision. After all, this is the guy who went from playing bass in Motley Crue to forming his own band, Sixx: A.M., and once again topping the rock charts. But, it might surprise fans that Sixx is dead-serious about his spirituality and family life.

“Everything on my calendar revolves around my family,” Sixx told the New York Post. “My father wasn’t there for me. My mom, bless her heart, I think she wanted to be but didn’t know how to be. So I went through a lot of turmoil around that. I know that I travel a lot, and am very busy, so I have to constantly put my kids to the top of that list and then work everything else around it.”

When asked to rattle off a list of “who Nikki Sixx is right now,” Nos. 1 through 5, Sixx replied, “Naturally the way the list works is: Spirituality, so if I’m centered and really in tune with more than myself — a higher power so to speak. Then my sobriety: I can’t stay sober if I don’t have some kind of spirituality. Then after that comes relationships, etc. But really those top three are the most important.”

What if he had to order them? “No. 1 is spirituality. No. 2 is sobriety. No. 3 is being a father. Nos. 4, 5 and 6 move around. They do. They move around.”

Always a prolific writer, Sixx also chatted about his passion for writing and the introspective nature of his work. “For me, writing is a way to vent and a way to work out stuff,” he said. “I’ve always believed that journal writing and diary writing is important to being centered as a person. I still write a journal. I’ve got to work it out on paper, sometimes before I work it out in my mind. I work it out and I’m always solving problems.”

Get in the running for Loudwire’s Sixx: A.M. prize package — featuring a digital copy of the ’7′ EP and physical copies of Sixx: A.M.’s latest album ‘This Is Gonna Hurt’ and bassist Nikki Sixx’s accompanying book by the same name — via this page.

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