In Hollywood, it’s important to be a good collaborator. By that I mean you often have to plaster on a smile at the conference table, while behind the scenes you’re part of a mass bitchfight for credit and payout. But it’s not always a simple tit-for-tat. Sure, you want your due (and paycheck), but sometimes it harms the product to have your ugly, worthless name in the credits. (Actually, those are the exact words used to rob me of producer points on Hot Tub Time Machine. Eat shit and die, Cusack.)

Conversely, it sometimes harms you to be attached nominally to a shameful shitfest like, say, Vince Neil’s autobiography. When I signed on to the project, it seemed like a piece of cake (I’d already written most of it anyway) and a good way to compete with awesome MS contributor Corey Mitchell (who even now is at work on Phil Anselmo’s forthcoming tome). But once the memoirs were set to go to print, it hit me: Vince Neil? This is a career-killer! What will the Suckalos think? Panic!! So, per my management, my contributions to Tequila, Turds, and Tattered Tank Tops (working title) were re-written and my name removed from the cover. (I also agreed to be compensated in Vicodin.)

The good news is that, judging from new excerpts, Vince’s team found a way to retain all the Anso-style vitriol and reckless name-calling. So my rep stays clean, but the metal community still profits from all the harsh, hidden truths of Motleydom. We all win! Here’s Neil (and me) on Nikki Sixx:

I don’t think Nikki has changed much over the years. He still likes to portray himself as the Messiah. Everything is his. Everything is his idea. In Nikki’s world, he has to be known as the thinker, or the creator; he needs to be seen as Mr. All-Important. Nikki Sixx, tortured soul. He just really likes to see his face in the paper. He likes the press buzz. He likes being that guy from the band with famous girlfriends.

Ouch! Neil and I also take aim at enemy of metal Sharon Osbourne:

It just really sickens me today to watch everybody fawning all over Sharon Osbourne. She’s a talent judge on TV and she has her own show and this and that. This is the most evil, shittiest woman I’ve ever met in my life. She would fucking have you killed if it was to her advantage. She’s just… it’s just… if people really knew.

Oh baby. That feels good. But we save some harsh barbs for arguably the most dangerous dick-biter of the bunch: Vince Neil.

You can’t sugarcoat your life. If you were an asshole, then you have to own up to it. I was an asshole. There’s a lot of things that I’ve done bad.

-ADF

Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil’s not-at-all-written-by-Anso-DF autobiography Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock’s Most Notorious Frontmen hits bookstores September 23.