{"id":12466,"date":"2025-05-04T09:34:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T14:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=12466"},"modified":"2025-05-04T10:44:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T15:44:01","slug":"jef-hickey-rip-rock-soldier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=12466","title":{"rendered":"Jef Hickey RIP ROCK SOLDIER"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Too Old To Rock, Too Young To Die<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greg Beato<\/a> March 11, 2004<\/strong> from LA WEEKLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I. The Load Out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>For most of his life, Jef Hickey has taken rock \u2019n\u2019 roll\u2019s loudest, dumbest, truest and most irresistible messages to heart, perfecting the art of life as a never-ending Kiss chorus. Sure, many people pledge themselves to sex, drugs and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, but few have done so with the self-destructive verve of the former Studio City resident. Three spiked rings decorate his dick like medals of valor. He\u2019s contracted gonorrhea (six times), crabs (four times), syphilis (three times) and herpes. For more than a decade and a half, with lab-rat consistency, Hickey carpet-bombed his cortex with enough pills to stock a hypochondriac\u2019s medicine cabinet. At 15, he established himself as Boston\u2019s hardest-working rock serf, unloading equipment for bands like Motorhead and Twisted Sister at almost every club in town. At 17, he lived a louder, crueler, dramatically less uplifting version of Cameron Crowe\u2019s rock \u2019n\u2019 roll heartwarmer Almost Famous<\/em>, joining Megadeth on tour as a roadie and discovering the thorny allure of hard drugs and anal sex with Canadian strippers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


But now he\u2019s 35 and just paroled from a three-year stint in a Sheridan, Oregon, federal prison where he shared an 8-by-12-foot cell with another inmate and a broken-tailed cat that never purred and constantly brawled with the prison\u2019s two other feline residents. Even if drug issues and parole restrictions weren\u2019t clouding his future employment prospects, well, the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll road life that seems like an adventure in your 20s can become a grind in your 30s. How do you grow old in rock \u2019n\u2019 roll when you\u2019re not actually a rock star? Jef Hickey hasn\u2019t really figured out an answer for that one yet, but he\u2019s going to find out soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Despite his advancing years, Jef Hickey continues to project a slouchy, fidgety, teenage charm. His civilian wardrobe consists of jeans and more than 700 concert T-shirts, all of them black. In prison, he cut his hair short and kept it its natural brown, but in the past it has been blue, magenta and various other neon hues. His pale skin blazes with color too: He\u2019s got a naked female werewolf tattooed on his right arm; his ex-wife as a vampire spread-eagled across his chest; a giant vagina with hammer-like pistons coming out of it on his left forearm. His deep-set green eyes change from messianic to catatonic, depending on the chemical weather inside his brain. The changes are less pronounced now that he\u2019s no longer doing drugs, but even completely sober, he\u2019s still a mercurial personality, full of amped-up enthusiasms one day, crashing hard the next. He\u2019s a disarmingly candid, funny, nonstop talker, and a fan of bold gestures. While in prison, Hickey had the word LIBERTINE<\/em> emblazoned across his stomach to remind himself of his former existence: the pinballing from groupie to stripper to hooker, the chronic prowl for pills and dope, his perpetual disdain for convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That tattoo is his 17th. He got his first one, a 4-inch blue spider on his neck, in 1984, when he was 15, the same year he started working for free at a Boston rock club called the Channel. By then, he was already a regular there, where he\u2019d camp out in the parking lot in the afternoons waiting for musicians to arrive so he could ask them for autographs. Then one day, a lazy roadie asked him if he wanted to help set up that evening\u2019s show. \u201cNext thing I know, I\u2019m unloading Motorhead\u2019s gear,\u201d says Hickey. \u201cAnd just when I think it can\u2019t get any better, someone hands me a backstage pass so I can stay and load the truck after the show. It was like someone handed me a skeleton key to the world of rock!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hickey liked that world much better than his day-to-day existence. At school, he was a
misfit \u2014 a good student who wore spiked belts and heavy metal T-shirts while his classmates favored suede moccasins and classic rock. In his own family, Hickey was something of an outsider too. Unlike his younger brother and sister, he was adopted, which, he says, \u201cleft me with latent abandonment issues I\u2019ve been dealing with for the last few decades.\u201d When he was 12, his adoptive parents divorced. Two years later, his adoptive mother remarried, and Hickey clashed with his new stepfather. \u201cI refused to wear a tuxedo at the wedding,\u201d he says. \u201cInstead, I wore a Judas Priest T-shirt. Things kind of went downhill from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


At Boston\u2019s rock clubs, however, Hickey felt completely at home. After that first Motorhead concert, he started taking the 45-minute train ride into the city three or four days a week to help bands set up their equipment in the afternoons and load it in their trucks again after they finished playing. Afterward, usually at 2 or 3 in the morning, he\u2019d walk to Boston\u2019s South Station, where the last evening train had already departed and the first morning one didn\u2019t leave until 5 a.m. \u201cI\u2019d sit in this vestibule with some of Boston\u2019s smelliest bums,\u201d Hickey recalls. \u201cI\u2019d be jacked up on adrenaline from the show, and scared shitless of getting mugged or beaten up, so I never slept. Sometimes I did my homework.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


It wasn\u2019t the easiest way to earn a little validation, but Hickey was hooked on the camaraderie he felt backstage and the feeling of being a necessary part of the thing he loved most in the world. \u201cI must have polished a million cymbals before I realized I hated to do it, and so did the drum tech \u2014 that\u2019s why he\u2019d find someone like me to do it for him,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I also knew that Lars\u2019 [Ulrich, Metallica\u2019s drummer] cymbals looked cool under the lights during \u2018Creeping Death\u2019 because I polished them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In January 1986, Megadeth\u2019s Dave Mustaine asked the 17-year-old Hickey if he wanted to work for the band on its U.S. tour. \u201cIt was my official excuse to quit high school,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cI left with the clothes on my back.\u201d Hickey washed the band\u2019s dirty laundry between shows. At night, he slept in its Ryder equipment truck, stretched out on speaker cabinets and cradling a shotgun across his chest, guarding against thieves. In the daytime, he went out and bought drugs for everyone. \u201cI was spending my 10 bucks per diem on food, so I couldn\u2019t buy any for myself,\u201d he says. \u201cBut sometimes, they\u2019d give me some table scraps, you know? That\u2019s how I discovered my love of speed and cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


After thousands of miles and dozens of shows, Megadeth\u2019s tour ended in Los Angeles. Hickey\u2019s classmates back in Massachusetts had just graduated. He was only a semester away from earning a diploma himself, but he saw no reason to pursue it. \u201cAfter that tour, I knew what I wanted to do with my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, how else was I gonna go to places like Japan and South America without shaving my head and putting on a uniform?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


II. Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll Animal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>Jef Hickey has three testicles, but the third one, he says, is physiologically negligible, a non-functioning half-lump of vein and tissue, good only for winning bar bets. So there must be some other explanation for his extreme ballsiness. \u201cWhen we used to run around together, it was like hanging out with a fucking monkey on crystal meth,\u201d says Colin Malone, the pudgy raconteur behind the popular public-access scuzzfest Colin\u2019s Sleazy Friends<\/em>. \u201cThe thing about Jef is that there was absolutely no fear. He never thought, \u2018If I do this, this bad thing could happen.\u2019 He always just thought, \u2018If I do this, I\u2019ll get high. If I do this, I\u2019ll have lots of fun.\u2019 And he always forgot there might be a third part, too, where he\u2019d have to pay for his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Fearless, obsessively persistent, quick on his feet and, perhaps most importantly, congenitally parched for approval and acceptance \u2014 it\u2019s almost as if Hickey had been genetically engineered for rock \u2019n\u2019 roll pit-crew work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cYou could be in Japan, Europe, wherever. Jef could go out empty-handed, and within an hour he\u2019d come back with a handful of something,\u201d says former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri. \u201cOne time we were on a plane, and he just went up to this stewardess and asked her if she had any drugs. I was like, \u2018Are you crazy?\u2019 But the next thing you know, the stewardess was having us sign her CDs and giving us pills and things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hickey pursued women with the same candor and enthusiasm, and with so many groupies in search of sticky backstage validation, there were plenty of women to choose from. Eventually, however, the algebra of excess began to undermine him. \u201cI started doing so much cocaine, my dick was completely useless,\u201d Hickey recalls. \u201cSo when girls would come around and say they were willing to do anything to meet the band, I just started throwing meat at them. That\u2019s what they had to do to earn their backstage pass. I\u2019d make them strip down and stand in the corner while we pelted them with the deli tray. After a while, it became like this daily event. \u201cAll the bands would stop sound check and gather round, just to watch me throw meat at some chick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, nudity, himself as the center of attention: Hickey liked that combination. But, content as he was with his peripheral role in the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll universe, he longed to make a bigger splash somehow. And yet how to do that? \u201cI knew early on I didn\u2019t have much musical talent,\u201d he admits. \u201cEven today, I know just enough basic chords to get through sound check.\u201d But Hickey did have a talent for writing, and in the early \u201990s, he started freelancing for publications like International Tattoo Art<\/em> and Sex, Tattoos & Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll<\/em>.And in 1995, when Hickey discovered a fledgling porn rag called New Rave<\/em>, he saw an opportunity to step up his adventures in flesh-based journalism. To get the publisher\u2019s attention, Hickey, who was on tour with Type O Negative at the time, started sending him pieces of the hotel rooms he was staying in. \u201cI sent him a doorknob, a drawer, towels, a toilet seat, a bad painting of a ship. That way, when I got to L.A., I\u2019d have a place to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The publisher of New Rave<\/em> started the magazine mostly because he needed a place to run ads for his extensive phone-sex operation. He had very little interest in the editorial end of New Rave<\/em>, and he liked Hickey\u2019s style. Thus, when Hickey took over the reins at New Rave<\/em>, he had the freedom to do pretty much whatever he wanted. His first move as editor: hiring East Village auteur Richard Kern to shoot Type O Negative\u2019s Peter Steele cavorting with two porn stars. His second: commissioning a treatise on vaginal odor from angry white malcontent Jim Goad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


To publicize New Rave<\/em>, Hickey shipped thousands of complimentary copies to U.S. Army troops stationed in Bosnia. Closer to home, he sent free subscriptions to hundreds of churches across the country. Hickey loved his new life as grandstanding crotch Barnum. He had his own spacious office in New Rave<\/em>\u2019s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. He was getting a regular salary for penning cover stories like \u201cWonder Drug GHB: Ejaculate of the Gods?\u201d He was road-testing strippers and hookers on New Rave<\/em>\u2019s dime. He was still hanging out with rock stars, but instead of just schlepping their equipment around or scoring them drugs, he was pairing them with porn stars and persuading them to appear in his magazine. \u201cMarilyn Manson was totally down for it,\u201d Hickey remembers. \u201cHe wore fishnet stockings and duct tape, and posed for one picture with a silver vibrator sticking out of his ass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


A few months into his new gig, Hickey even started dating a celebrity of sorts, Sandra Margot, former cast member of Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling<\/em>, America\u2019s first all-female wrestling TV series, and, under the name Tyffany Million, star of Jailhouse Cock<\/em>, Beaverly Hillbillies<\/em>, Splatman<\/em>, and more than a hundred other hardcore porn videos. A sharp, ambitious blond, Margot was known for her voracious sexuality and her hard, tan body. Thousands of hours at the gym plus some extensive scalpel work had given her the figure of a bionic Barbie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


She and Hickey fell for each other at a party he\u2019d invited her to at a Hollywood bikini bar. \u201cHe asked me if I wanted a drink, and I said \u2018Sure,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cThen, out of nowhere, he puts his hand up my dress and, not even knowing me, sticks his finger in my asshole. I didn\u2019t even flinch, though, because I knew he was just trying to get a reaction out of me. And right there he said he knew I was his girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


For Margot, however, it took more convincing. That happened later that evening, when she, Hickey and Colin Malone retreated to a back room so the latter two could snort some cocaine. When Margot sat on Malone\u2019s lap and started kissing him, Hickey responded as if he were watching a scene from one of her videos. \u201cHe just whipped out his dick and started jerking off,\u201d says Margot. For an exhibitionistic porn star, it was more romantic than a bouquet of long-stemmed vibrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Together, the duo made Pam and Tommy seem as staid as a pair of plastic wedding-cake toppers. Shortly after their initial greeting they moved in together. For several months, they lived in tidy sin. \u201cJef liked to get really high on blow and then clean my house,\u201d says Margot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In 1996, they decided to go to Las Vegas and get married. The ceremony took place at the Graceland Wedding Chapel, with an obese Elvis impersonator on hand to bless their union. \u201cNormally, he sings songs, but we just gave him a bunch of fried chicken and Pepsi and asked him to eat really loudly,\u201d says Hickey. After exchanging vows, Margot tore off her top and the happy couple posed for their wedding photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Like many newlyweds, Hickey and Margot argued over money. Hickey says that his new bride no longer wanted to dance or do movies. She says that he\u2019s the one who wanted her to stop. Whichever was the case, she didn\u2019t think his salary was enough for both of them to live on. \u201cThat\u2019s when I started taking kickbacks at New Rave<\/em>,\u201d says Hickey. \u201cIt cost between $6,000 to $10,000 to put a full-page ad in the magazine. I\u2019d tell a video company to give me two grand in cash instead, and then I\u2019d tell my boss that we needed to give them the first ad free in order to get more.\u201d

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


But along with more money to spend on Margot, Hickey also had more money to spend on his other great loves \u2014 pills and cocaine. \u201cHe would mix all kinds of stuff and go up and down chemically,\u201d says Margot. \u201cAnd then he started constantly checking up on me, calling me 20 times a day from work. I\u2019d be at the grocery store, or out having coffee somewhere, and he\u2019d pop up out of nowhere and ask me what I was doing. If any other guys tried to talk with me, he\u2019d get all bent out of shape, and that really started to irritate me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Margot struck back by telling New Rave<\/em>\u2019s publisher about Hickey\u2019s ad-sales tricks, effectively ending his tenure there. \u201cIt was a terrible thing that I still regret,\u201d says Margot. \u201cBut I was so angry with him, because he was making my life a living hell.\u201d A few months later, on Valentine\u2019s Day, she served him with divorce papers. While she says the timing was unintentional, Hickey considered it the ultimate slap in the face. He didn\u2019t bother with a traditional pen-and-ink reply. \u201cI stuffed the papers in a Ziploc bag and shit all over them,\u201d he says. \u201cThen, I FedExed them back to her lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


III. Cock \u2019n\u2019 Roll<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>When you see sun-kissed kewpie dolls flashing their tits with trained-seal compliance on late-night Girls Gone Wild<\/em> commercials, you probably don\u2019t think about early-\u201980s girl-power icons the Go-Go\u2019s. But they actually played a critical role in drunken exhibitionism\u2019s metamorphosis from hand-held psychodrama to lucrative mass entertainment. In the midst of the band\u2019s Top 40 heyday, connoisseurs of strange video began trading a tape featuring a flaccid Go-Go\u2019s roadie named Dave who had the beat but not the boner: His vigorous but futile efforts to jerk himself off were accompanied by onscreen commentary from Belinda Carlisle and Kathy Valentine, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cEverybody had heard about the Go-Go\u2019s tape, and everybody wanted to make their own version of it,\u201d says Hickey. Thus, spectacles like Hickey\u2019s backstage deli-tray toss and whatever other scenes of groupie exploitation they could immortalize were captured on videotape. \u201cWe\u2019d do a new one for almost every show. Sometimes, it\u2019d just be 45 minutes of me begging some girl to show me her tits,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cSometimes, there\u2019d be more.\u201d When Hickey first started making such tapes in the late \u201980s, he didn\u2019t see their commercial possibilities. But while casting around for a new source of income after his New Rave<\/em> gig ended, Hickey started thinking about the old tapes he used to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cIt just seemed like the next logical step after New Rave<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cWe put rock stars and porn stars together in photos, so why not video too?\u201d Hickey convinced a company called Notorious Productions to give him $2,000 to produce a video, and together with a former colleague from New Rave<\/em>, Toby Dammit, he created Tales From the Road: Crew Sluts<\/em>. They brought a handful of porn stars to Ozzfest, and using Biohazard\u2019s tour bus as their main location, staged dramatic re-enactments of tawdry groupie sex. \u201cThe guys in Biohazard didn\u2019t want to be in it, though, and neither did Sepultura or Slayer,\u201d Hickey says. Instead, he conducted interviews with a couple of roadies to give the proceedings a touch of authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Released in 1997, the tape sold poorly, and the company that bankrolled it showed no interest in a follow-up. Still, Hickey felt his concept had potential, so he pitched it to a 22-year-old porn director named Matt Zane. An aspiring musician with an interest in Morrisonesque shamanics and Satanic self-determination, Zane was considered a maverick for incorporating piercing, techno music and various other youth-culture trappings into the staid, almost fetishistically conventional world of porn videos. \u201cI told him I could introduce him to rock stars,\u201d says Hickey. \u201cHe was skeptical at first, but after he realized I really could hook him up with these people, he ran with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Zane hired Hickey to work as Zane Entertainment\u2019s publicist, and together they started work on a series of \u201ccockumentaries\u201d called Backstage Sluts<\/em>. Their timing could not have been more perfect. By 1997, retrogressively male, cartoonishly rebellious, nu-metal and rap-rock was fast replacing Lilith Fair and indie-rock sensitivity with caveman-like dick swinging. What better way for its practitioners to express their hardcore bona fides than by aligning themselves with hardcore porn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Outside half of Motley Crue, no one had ever mixed rock \u2019n\u2019 roll with hardcore porn in the commercially available form that Backstage Sluts<\/em> did. In between scuzzy, no-holes-barred sex scenes, Backstage Sluts<\/em> featured scuzzy, no-holds-barred interviews with Insane Clown Posse, Limp Bizkit\u2019s Fred Durst and Wes Borland, the ladies of Nashville Pussy, Sugar Ray\u2019s Mark McGrath, and Korn\u2019s Jonathan Davis, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The porn industry didn\u2019t think much of the results, but thanks to the growing popularity of the musicians featured, mainstream media outlets like Spin<\/em>, Rolling Stone<\/em>, MTV and even the BBC took notice. VH-1 was particularly enamored of rock-and-porn cross-pollination, devoting several specials to the trend. For a while there, Zane was showing up on the channel even more often than Lenny Kravitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


And Jef Hickey? He was showing up on VH-1 about as often as Alan Greenspan, which is to say, never. And nowhere else in the media, either. \u201cBasically, Matt fucked me, and I was so fucking high, I let him,\u201d charges Hickey. Zane, however, shrugs off such indictments. \u201cThe point I always made to Jef was that if you watch the first two Backstage Sluts<\/em> movies, the opening credits say: \u2018Directed by Matt Zane and Jef Hickey.\u2019 If the media wanted to interview me rather than him, could I help that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


While the savvy Zane released his band Society 1\u2019s first album, rented a mansion off Sunset Boulevard and hobnobbed with rock stars, even throwing a bachelor party for Jonathan Davis, Hickey felt cut off from the success of the thing that he\u2019d largely created. Backstage Sluts<\/em> was poised to become a long-running, reality-porn franchise: a raunchier, hardcore precursor to the Girls Gone Wild<\/em> series. Zane was making hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tapes, but Hickey\u2019s salary as Zane\u2019s publicist was his only financial reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Eventually, he quit Zane Entertainment. \u201cI had this crazy idea that he should buy me out for a thousand dollars, so he did,\u201d he says. \u201cEveryone told me, \u2018You\u2019re an idiot for selling out that cheap.\u2019 But the truth was I wasn\u2019t getting a percentage of the sales anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hickey promptly spent the $1,000 on drugs. For many years, he had preferred pills and powder over needles, but now he was shooting up heroin on a regular basis. With money scarce and his habit growing increasingly expensive, he moved into an underground, dungeonlike storage space in the back yard of a porno-loving dentist\u2019s house in 1998. \u201cThere weren\u2019t any bathrooms in it, so I had to piss in a bottle because I was always too high to leave my room,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cAfter a while, I realized my addiction had taken over, and I needed to get away from Los Angeles. When I got an offer from the band Quicksand to go on tour with them, I took it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Quicksand\u2019s offer was only slightly more lucrative than the $10 a day that Megadeth had paid him in 1986. \u201cI got one month\u2019s rent and $15 a day,\u201d Hickey says. But that gig led to a job with Buckcherry, and then a series of other gigs as well. In early 2000, Hickey got a call from the Motorhead roadie who 15 years earlier asked him to help unload the band\u2019s equipment at the Channel. He was recovering from surgery, and wanted to know if Hickey was interested in replacing him as Lemmy\u2019s bass tech for the band\u2019s upcoming tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cOf course I wanted to replace him,\u201d says Hickey. \u201cI was fucking psyched. I mean, 15 years ago, I was happy just having Lemmy sign my record. And now I\u2019m going to be teching for him for a whole tour \u2014 it was like the coup de gr\u00e2ce.\u201d In an article that had appeared in Sex, Tattoos & Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll <\/em>in 1994, Hickey had fantasized that Lemmy was his real father. \u201cIn my eyes and ears, Lord Lemmy is louder than Evel Knievel, stronger than Gorilla Monsoon and smarter than Mr. Wizard,\u201d he rhapsodized. Now, as the tour started up, he was working for him every night, keeping his bass in good repair and making sure he had a lit cigarette and a glass of Maker\u2019s Mark and Coke waiting at the end of every show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In Canada, however, a customs agent threatened their nightly routine, refusing Hickey entry because of a prior conviction. As everyone else in the entourage moved onward into British Columbia, Hickey had no option but to retreat to a nearby motel. Twice over the next 24 hours he tried to make it through customs, but he was thwarted both times. Finally, he decided to simply walk across the border illegally. \u201cIt was only a hundred feet away from my motel room,\u201d he explains. \u201cI could look out my window and see the Canadian license plates on cars that were parked across the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Crossing through a playground, then over a 1-foot ditch, Hickey ventured into Canada. Unfortunately, Vancouver, the site for that night\u2019s show, was still more than 20 miles away, and Hickey had no money left. \u201cI just started walking,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cAfter a couple hours, I found a cab that was willing to take me the rest of the way on the promise that I\u2019d pay when we got there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Impressed by Hickey\u2019s long march in the name of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, Lord Lemmy rewarded his loyal charge with a big lump of speed. Then, he says, Motorhead\u2019s guitarist Phil Campbell offered him a hamburger. \u201cI was starving because I hadn\u2019t eaten for a long time, so I said, \u2018Sure,\u2019\u201d Hickey says. \u201cAnd because my nose was so torn up from all the speed I\u2019d just snorted, I couldn\u2019t smell.\u201d He could taste it, though, and high as he was, it only took him one bite to realize that Campbell hadn\u2019t given him a hamburger at all, but rather a patty of shit stuck between a bun. \u201cThat was my appreciation for being so dedicated to the band,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cA shit sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hickey says Campbell\u2019s prank didn\u2019t really bother him. \u201cI mean, that was just Phil Campbell being Phil Campbell, you know? The guy\u2019s twisted. Really twisted. He\u2019s English. He sticks Sharpies up his ass to sign autographs. He sells ass art at the merch booth.\u201d Even so, Hickey\u2019s ex-girlfriend, Rachell Burns, believes the incident hurt him much more than he\u2019s willing to admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cHe would have done anything for those guys, and they literally shit on him,\u201d she says. \u201cAfter all the dealing, all the pimping he\u2019d done for them, that\u2019s what he was worth? It broke his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


IV. True Romance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>Long before they\u2019d ever met, Rachell Burns had been a fan of the articles Hickey used to write for Sex, Tattoos & Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll<\/em>. \u201cHis sense of what life should be like is so distorted, and yet he makes it real,\u201d she says. Inspired in part by his writings, Burns became a tattoo artist herself. Years later, the pair met when a friend of Hickey introduced them. \u201cHe said he knew this chick who could do some tattoo work for me for free,\u201d says Hickey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Burns was in town for a convention, staying in a suite at the Safari Inn in Burbank. \u201cWhen I went over there I said, \u2018Do you have any idea where you\u2019re staying?\u2019\u201d Hickey remembers, referring to the motel\u2019s role in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s lovers-on-the-lam screenwriting debut, True Romance<\/em>. Burns, it turns out, had chosen to stay at the Safari because True Romance<\/em> was her favorite movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Further bonding took place as Burns tattooed a flaming pentagram on Hickey\u2019s right elbow. It helped, no doubt, that Burns was a tall, sultry beauty, right out of a Tarantino movie. Tattooed on the knuckles of her right hand were the letters T, U, C and N. Tattooed on the knuckles of her left hand were the letter R, E, U and T. When she laced her fingers together, the message \u201cTRUE CUNT\u201d appears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The pair moved in together in late 2000, but over time Burns began to realize how discouraged Hickey had become, how he\u2019d lost much of the high-voltage spirit that had animated the old articles that she\u2019d found so inspiring. \u201cAfter keeping company with so many hot players for so long, I think he was really frustrated,\u201d she says. \u201cHe wanted to make more of himself, but at the same time, it was like he had relegated himself to doing grunt work as a crew guy. He was really miserable, and I think he was really wanting to wind his life down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Never one for nuance, Hickey kept his works in a coffin-shaped box beneath the leopard-print loveseat in his living room. Dozens of plastic and ceramic skulls helped contribute to the room\u2019s living-dead vibe, as did Hickey\u2019s collection of World War II morphine kits, rare DEA task-force patches, and other drug-related memorabilia that he\u2019d acquired via Ebay. Gold records from Pantera and Type O Negative, framed backstage passes and an autographed poster of Jenna Jameson added notes of celebrity, while black candles and the tranquilizing flicker of MTV2 provided the only illumination. \u201cI had this white Ikea blanket that he\u2019d wrap himself in, like a shroud,\u201d remembers Burns. \u201cThere was blood all over it, from him spiking himself. He was really gaunt, and he\u2019d rise up in his shroud and start screaming at me, with his eyes all red and his hair sticking to his face. It was like coming home to a corpse in a tomb.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Between nodding out to Mudvayne videos, the corpse was also FedExing packages of methamphetamine to Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2000, following his stint with Motorhead, Hickey had been touring with the band Downset when he ran into a stripper he knew in the nation\u2019s capital. She wanted to buy some meth, and when Hickey found out how much she was paying for it there, he told her it was much cheaper in California. \u201cShe asked me if I could introduce her to my dealer,\u201d he remembers. \u201cAnd I did what any junkie does in that situation \u2014 I gave her the hookup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hickey was also hoping to get some free heroin for making the referral. What he hadn\u2019t expected was his dealer\u2019s insistence that he stay involved indefinitely. \u201cHis supplier didn\u2019t want to deal directly with anybody because he thought it was too risky, so he coerced Jef into being the go-between,\u201d says Joanne Hepworth, a Washington, D.C., attorney who would eventually serve as Hickey\u2019s court-appointed defender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


After arresting one of the D.C. dealers, DEA agents uncovered Hickey\u2019s involvement. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that hard to figure out,\u201d says Hepworth. \u201cHe was using his real name on some of the packages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


On October 24, 2001, nearly a dozen law enforcement officials paid him an unannounced midnight visit. \u201cThey were really nice guys,\u201d says Hickey in retrospect. \u201cThey were asking me questions about Marilyn Manson, stuff like that. One guy was a really big fan of my ex-wife\u2019s movies.\u201d After rummaging through his things for an hour, looking for more evidence of his involvement in the meth ring, they handcuffed him and took him away. A few days later, at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, he was outfitted with prison khakis and given the choice of shipping his street clothes home or donating them to charity. Somewhere in the Midwest a needy redneck now has his very own vintage \u201cReign in Blood\u201d Slayer T-shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


V. Story of His Life<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>Upon his release from prison this week, Hickey headed toward a halfway house in El Monte. He\u2019s planning to obtain drug counseling through a nonprofit organization called Musician\u2019s Assistance Program, but beyond that, his future is uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWhen you leave here, they give you a plane ticket and an apple. Then you have 11 hours to check into your halfway house and start over,\u201d Hickey says. \u201cEvery time I was just about to grab the ring in the past, I kicked myself in the nuts. But I also keep coming back, so I know I\u2019m going to do something. And I know I\u2019m going to do something different and great. I just want to leave a stain on pop culture somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


To this end, he\u2019s currently writing a novel about two wide-eyed ing\u00e9nues who move to L.A. in search of fame and adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cIt\u2019s a fun story about drugs, porn, rock, sex, revenge and attempted suicide,\u201d Hickey exclaims. \u201cBut no one dies, no one gets sick, no one really gets hurt. I think people would love to read a story like that, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too Old To Rock, Too Young To Die Greg Beato March 11, 2004 from LA WEEKLY I. The Load Out For most of his life, Jef Hickey has taken rock \u2019n\u2019 roll\u2019s loudest, dumbest, truest and most irresistible messages to heart, perfecting the art of life as a never-ending Kiss chorus. Sure, many people pledge… Read More »Jef Hickey RIP ROCK SOLDIER<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"[\"content\",\"tags\",\"comments\"]","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary-of-a-damned-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12466"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12481,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466\/revisions\/12481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}