{"id":6490,"date":"2024-02-08T19:35:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T00:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=6490"},"modified":"2024-02-08T19:35:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T00:35:34","slug":"mojo-nixon-dies-while-on-country-music-cruise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/?p=6490","title":{"rendered":"Mojo Nixon, Dies While on Country Music Cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mojo Nixon and David Allan Coe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojo Nixon<\/a>, the alternative musician, actor and DJ, known for the 1987 novelty hit \u201cElvis Is Everywhere\u201d has died. He was 66.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nixon, whose real name is Neill Kirby McMillan Jr., was found dead today onboard the annual Outlaw Country Cruise, where he was regular presence both as a performer and co-host. He had performed just the night before \u2014 the photo above is from that performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause was cardiac event, according to his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAugust 2, 1957 \u2014 February 7, 2024 Mojo Nixon. How you live is how you should die. Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire\u2026,\u201d his family said in a\u00a0statement on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cPassing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire\u2026,\u201d eulogized his family. \u201cPassing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends. A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right\u2026 & that\u2019s just how he did it, Mojo has left the building. Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back. Heaven help us all.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cA cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right\u2026 & that\u2019s just how he did it, Mojo has left the building,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cSince Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back. Heaven help us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in North Carolina, raised in Virginia, schooled in Ohio, and after traveling to England, Nixon first started playing music in Denver in a punk band known as Zebra 123. \u201cA lot of people had the same idea simultaneously,\u201d Nixon said in an interview for the 2020 career-spanning boxed set, \u201cThe Mojo Manifesto.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m gonna take roots music and I\u2019m gonna infuse it with the energy and excitement of punk rock.\u201d As for his early band\u2019s music, Nixon said, \u201cIt was Jerry Lee Lewis on more speed. Not just speed, but more speed. A lot of things sounded like the Clash, but even faster and stupider.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Zebra 123 flamed out, Nixon moved south to San Diego, where Country Dick Montana\u2019s pre-Beat Farmers band, the Snuggle Bunnies \u201cadopted me as their pet,\u201d Nixon recalled. \u201cI was kind like their adult nephew.\u201d Soon he hooked up with Richard Banke, better known as Skid Roper, a multi-instrumentalist who favored a washboard. Together they won a Battle of the Bands contest and were crowned the Best New Band in San Diego. Their prize \u2013 three hours of studio time at Soundtrax Studio in San Diego. \u201cThey thought we\u2019d buy three more,\u201d Nixon recalled. \u201cbut oh no, we cut three songs, overdubbed and mixed them and we were done in three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo soon landed a contract with Los Angeles-based indie label Enigma records, which released their 1985 debut, \u201cMojo Nixon & Skid Roper.\u201d Nixon\u2019s breakthrough came with the 1987 album \u201cBo-Day-Shus!!!,\u201d which featured the opening track, \u201cElvis Is Everywhere.\u201d The song\u2019s video garnered play on MTV and earned him a spot performing on \u201cThe Arsenio Hall Show,\u201d where the crowd was given cardboard Elvis masks to wear during his performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore \u2018Elvis is Everywhere\u2019 there were just a lot of dudes at the Mojo show,\u201d Nixon said. \u201cIt\u2019s a sausage fest, and the women that are there are there in protest. \u2018Yes, I\u2019ll go and drive your drunk ass home if you go and watch this Jodie Foster movie with me.\u2019 But after \u2018Elvis Is Everywhere\u2019 actual women came on their own, not coerced by their drunk husbands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nixon went on to record several other albums, both as a solo artist and with other collaborators, including the Toadliquors and Jello Biafra. With his revved-up version of punky-rockabilly, he often skewered pop music figures in songs such as \u201cDon Henley Must Die,\u201d \u201cDebbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child\u201d and \u201cBring Me the Head of David Geffen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He veered into acting with 1989\u2019s Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, \u201cGreat Balls of Fire,\u201d in which he was cast as drummer James Van Eaton. He also scored parts in the 1993 live-action \u201cSuper Mario Bros.\u201d film and the and in a movie update of \u201cCar 54, Where Are You?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, he shifted his focus to radio with local gigs in Cincinnati and San Diego before landing a job with SiriusXM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nixon summed up his career thus: \u201cMojo Nixon wanted to be Richard Pryor. He\u2019s like Richard Pryor\u2019s stupid cousin if he was white and played in a rockabilly band. I\u2019d say things that simultaneously shocked people and spoke the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have that much talent, but what I do have is an enormous amount of enthusiasm,\u201d he continued. \u201cAs Mr. Rotten used to call it, \u2018An unlimited supply!!!’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mojo Nixon and David Allan Coe Mojo Nixon, the alternative musician, actor and DJ, known for the 1987 novelty hit \u201cElvis Is Everywhere\u201d has died. He was 66. Nixon, whose real name is Neill Kirby McMillan Jr., was found dead today onboard the annual Outlaw Country Cruise, where he was regular presence both as a… Read More »Mojo Nixon, Dies While on Country Music Cruise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6491,"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":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6490","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=6490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6493,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6490\/revisions\/6493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mkultramagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}