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Nikki Sixx and Matthew Trippe (What the conspiracy!)
37 Plays3 years ago
M informs Josh about a conspiracy theory involving Mötley Crüe...
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
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Transcript
Introduction and Setup
00:00:07
Speaker
As you can see, here we are in the office of an associate professor, watching them work. Work for an associate professor is an elaborate ritual where an item known as a keyboard is picked, causing ideas in the form of words to appear on what is called a screen. What? The associate professor has been spooked by something in their environment.
00:00:27
Speaker
Is this possibly a predatory journal trying to get the associate professor to submit work to it for no real gain? Josh, Josh, is that you? Josh, or the journal of shit-hot takes, is obviously nearby and seeking submissions. Josh, if you're spying on me to find out what this week's topic is, it's not working.
00:00:44
Speaker
The associate professor has been so spooked that they're closing their writing device down. But, if we look very carefully, we might be able to see a- God damn it, no, I can't see a thing. I've got a lot of questions, but the first is, how did you get to Juhai? Along with the follow-up, which is, how did you get into my office? You're ignoring the elephant in the room? I am. Yes, your first question, as in all situations, should be, why are you not wearing pants?
00:01:19
Speaker
The
Meet the Hosts: Josh and Dr. Denteth
00:01:20
Speaker
podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Dettith.
00:01:28
Speaker
not much of an elephant in the room. Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison in Auckland, New Zealand. They are Dr. M. Denteth in Zhuhai, China. And I don't know that we have a lot to say to you at the start of the episode this week. Do we have anything to say at the start of the episode this week? Only that last week we also had nothing to say and then spent five minutes not saying it.
00:01:50
Speaker
Hmm. Should we not not do that again? I would say. I'm not quite sure how the double negation is working there. So we should. That was more of a stutter than a double negation. We shouldn't spend five minutes pervericating. How much time should we spend pervericating? As
What the Conspiracy: An Unheard Story
00:02:07
Speaker
much time as it takes to say this is another what the conspiracy episode and this time you're going to be telling me about something I've never heard of.
00:02:14
Speaker
I'm telling you something about you've never heard of? I hope so. Good. And that's what I hope as well. Shall we move on? Yes.
00:02:34
Speaker
Okay,
Exploring Celebrity Doppelgangers
00:02:35
Speaker
so as Josh announced, this is a what the conspiracy episode, and it's my turn to ask Josh what the conspiracy, which means I need to ask him what the conspiracy, when the conspiracy, and also where the conspiracy. It's actually taken us this many episodes to realize that we can actually phrase that as- We could, yeah, that was, we should have been doing that from the beginning, honestly, goodness. Yeah, so tell me, first of all, what the conspiracy? Okay, what was your last one? I've forgotten now.
00:03:03
Speaker
It was the we've been all over the world really recently. So I'm struggling a little bit to narrow you down. But I'm going to go with I think I'm going to go with the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Mine was last time. So I just asked what we are the conspiracy of the Atlantic Ocean.
00:03:21
Speaker
We're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The time last Tuesday and the what, it's going to be about plankton. One of those plankton-based conspiracy theories that the message boards are aflame with.
00:03:40
Speaker
So last Tuesday's plankton-based conspiracy, I mean there are so many, I don't know where I would start with last Tuesday's plankton-based conspiracy theories, but unfortunately apart from the Atlantic, which might get you geographically somewhat close to where this conspiracy or alleged conspiracy said to have occurred,
00:03:59
Speaker
You're basically wrong on all counts, and thus you should hang your head in shame. So the where is the US for the most part. There will be a few references to non-US locales, but it's mostly a US-based conspiracy theory. The
The Nikki Sixx Replacement Theory
00:04:13
Speaker
when is all the way back in the distant, distant, dusty past of the 1980s.
00:04:25
Speaker
And the what? Well, it's a celebrity doppelganger conspiracy theory. Oh, I do like a celebrity doppelganger. Now, Josh, tell me about all the celebrity doppelganger or replacement conspiracy theories you know of. Oh, go on. Avril Lavigne was the more recent one, was then, of course, Melania Trump.
00:04:43
Speaker
Um, anytime she appeared in public wearing sunglasses, people were like, oh my God, it's, it's a, it's a security double. Um, who else? We had the, we've talked about the whole, uh, celebrities also being other celebrities with the Alex Jones, Jeff, no, Beau Bridges, uh,
00:05:02
Speaker
Oh, and also the comedian. Bill Hicks, yes, yes. Yeah, there are those ones. And I guess if you go all the way back to the Paul is Dead Beatles conspiracy theories, he was replaced with some sort of a doppelganger as well.
00:05:19
Speaker
Michael Jackson must be in there somewhere, but I'm assuming you've got a different one for me. So we're not going to talk about the Bob Dylan replacement hypothesis, although there are claims that Bob Dylan died in a car crash and the modern day Bob Dylan is in fact a pale replica of the classic Bob Dylan. Elvis, obviously. Elvis, of course, is famous. Shakira has also apparently been replaced numerous times during her career.
00:05:42
Speaker
you're telling me her hips are lying about being Shakira. Well, I mean, someone's hips are lying, but are they Shakira's hips or are they someone else's hips? Exactly. So before we move on to this, Josh, I want you to give me the three top songs, you know, by Motley Crue. Motley Crue, oh God. I don't think I can name a single one. I'm sure if you told me some, I'd recognize them, but I'm not a Motley Crue person, I'm afraid.
00:06:10
Speaker
So if I asked you to give me the members of Motley Crue past and present, I would be even more stumped, I'm sorry. Well, this is going to be interesting. You're going to get schooled a little about Motley Crue in this episode because this is a celebrity doppelganger replacement claim about Nikki Sixx, the bassist, and sometimes discussed as being kind of the leading force of Motley Crue.
00:06:36
Speaker
So Motley Crue is currently made up of, although I think they actually officially retired from touring in 2016, but they're still kind of a live act in that they could reemerge from hibernation at any moment. The current membership of Motley Crue is Nikki Six, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Tommy Lee, with past members John Crombie. Oh, it's Tommy Lee. Is it his band? OK, right. Yeah, Randy Costello and Samantha Maloney.
00:07:04
Speaker
Now, when people talk about the membership of Motley Crowe past and present, one person they don't talk about is this guy by the name of Matthew Tripp. And Matthew Tripp replaced Mickey Six for a year back in 1983, a fact which is not talked about by anyone in Motley Crowe.
00:07:26
Speaker
Did you just say he replaced him for a year? Or replaced him? For a year. For a year, right. In 1983. Okay. So they had a, they, they, they, they, oh, they did doctor, sorry, I'm looking up their discography as we, as we speak as well. Doctor Feelgood. Doctor Feelgood. Oh yeah. That's one I've heard of. They did shout at the devil. Okay. Yeah.
00:07:49
Speaker
actually i don't know any of these songs anyway i always thought tommy he was a bit of a cock but um okay so tommy is a bit of a cock but he doesn't really he actually doesn't really feature much in the story at all the main characters we're going to hear about are nicky six mick mars and the two co-managers of motley crew at the time which are thaler and mcgee and mcgee actually ends up being a really interesting character for rationales we'll get to towards the end of this episode of
Tripp's Troubled Past and Alleged Role
00:08:16
Speaker
what the conspiracy. So the claim is that back in about 1982-1983 Nikki Six, whose real name is Frank Ferrana, was injured in a car accident and so Tripp was brought in due to his resemblance to Nikki Six to replace Nikki Six on tour for that year. So the bank story goes something like this. So Matthew Tripp was a bit of a troubled child
00:08:43
Speaker
He was brought up in a strongly Catholic family. As an adopted child, he had a lot of issues with his parents because he wanted to know more about who his biological parents were. To annoy his parents, he bought a book on Satanism. He didn't just buy a book on Satanism, though. He then started forging checks by his father and started donating money to the Church of Satan on his parents' behalf.
00:09:10
Speaker
which given that they were strident Roman Catholics is not the kind of thing you're meant to do. He was thrown out of the very expensive private school that he'd been sent to and then he was thrown out of the public school he was sent to afterwards because he broke into a rival's house and caused thousands of dollars of damage with a samurai sword. Sounds like a troubled individual.
00:09:39
Speaker
Well, such that he was sent to various medical centers and halfway houses to have his mental health assessed and eventually ran away to LA in the summer of 1982. I should point out he grew up in Florida. Florida might actually explain an awful lot of the psyche of Matthew Tripp here. Apologies to our listeners in Florida. I know we have at least one.
00:10:03
Speaker
So in 1983, having just arrived, well, having been in LA for about half a year, he's basically hanging around a whole bunch of bars. And one day at a bar called the Troubadour, he bumps into McMah's of Motley Crue fame. Now, Motley Crue isn't
00:10:23
Speaker
famous at this point. They're basically a band which is about to start having its really really big first hit with their first album which we'll talk about in just a moment. But Mick Mars has an issue because their bass guitarist Nikki Sixx has been injured in a car crash and they need a replacement immediately because they need someone to go on tour with them.
00:10:47
Speaker
So Matthew Tripp is bundled up into a car and they go together to meet Doug Thaler and Doc McGee, who were the band's co-managers at the time, and Tripp auditions for the role of bassist of Motley Crow.
00:11:04
Speaker
He auditions, he sits outside for half an hour or so, and eventually they call him back in and say, look, we've got a contract ready. We need you to sign it now. We're going on tour almost immediately. So he goes to sign the contract under his own name, at which point Doc McGee goes, no, no, you need to sign your name as Nikki Six.
00:11:28
Speaker
Right. Which, of course, is not the name of the real Nikki Sixx either. No, we will be coming back to this non-licatious stuff with Doc McGee's later career towards the end of this. Because as I say, Doc McGee actually probably
Rise and Fall: Tripp's Journey
00:11:43
Speaker
ends up being the second most interesting person in this story. So having got a bit of a bit of a Doctor Who sort of a James Bond situation going on, it's just
00:11:55
Speaker
Keep the character, but recast them. That is a major point of what we're going to talk about Doc McGee towards the end, because he's also involved in managing a band that does that now. We'll leave that to them. Can you guess which band Doc McGee manages now?
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh, band. Band, you say. I mean, this is a manager of a 1980s here metal band. What kind of band do you think that Doc McGee might be managing this day and age? Maroon 5. Interesting choice, completely wrong.
00:12:33
Speaker
So the new Nikki Six, aka Matthew Tripp, I don't know why I've just gone also known as, I mean actually known as, goes to live with Tommy Lee and starts the process of memorizing the real Nikki Six's life. So basically Matthew Tripp sits down and goes, look, I need to pretend to be Nikki Six. Who is Nikki Six? Nikki Six is the drug taking, heavy drinking Frank Farana.
00:13:00
Speaker
I'm now going to memorize this person's life so that I can pretend to be this person when being interviewed. So he is pretending to be Nikki Six, who of course is the alter ego of one Frank Ferrana. He is not meant to ever reveal that he is in fact Matthew Tripp and replacing Frank Ferrana. Now this story is a little bit confusing here because at this stage, according to Matthew Tripp, there was no chance of Frank Ferrana ever coming back
00:13:29
Speaker
to the band they really thought they had lost their basis for good so why exactly a band which hasn't made it big at this point needs to maintain the illusion of a basis being someone else I don't know but this is the story he tells
00:13:46
Speaker
Now, as they're getting ready to go on tour, they are also getting ready to record the album Shout with the Devil. It was actually not the name of the album was released because Tripp, being a satanist, suggests that they should change the name to the much more appropriate Shout at the Devil instead.
00:14:07
Speaker
He also claims that their pentagram was upside down, so he directed that they should adjust their imagery to make the pentagram look more satanically correct. And Tripp claims to have written songs like,
00:14:22
Speaker
and looks that kill so he's involved in not just touring with the band, playing bass guitar, he's also writing songs for the album that's going to make them big and famous and also is responsible for writing several songs on that.
00:14:38
Speaker
on that album. So Shelter the Devil gets released, it's a remarkable success despite the fact that it got terrible reviews at the time. So it's one of those classic cases of reviewers hated it and the public loved it to the point where Motley Crue gets to go on tour with Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osbourne for some reason
00:15:04
Speaker
cannot stand Matthew Tripp. He does not get on with Matthew Tripp at all. Specifically Matthew Tripp, not just the end as a whole. From the sounds of it, it was just Matthew Tripp that Ozzy Osbourne had no particular love for. And this led to Tripp trashing several hotel rooms on tour, which led him to being fired on the amazing date of April 1st.
00:15:33
Speaker
And yet it was no prank. No. So he thought it was a prank. And then when Doc McGee went, no, actually you are fired. You're causing issues. He gets let go and he gets let go in part because he's causing issues for the band, but also in part because Frank Farana has recovered from his injuries from the car crash and is able to return back to playing the role of Nikki Six. So they no longer need Matthew Tripp.
00:16:01
Speaker
they've got the original. So any questions thus far? Right, so you said a second ago that this is Matthew Tripp telling the story, so is this entirely his version of events so far? Yes, it is, yes. I can sense suspicion in your voice already.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, and the band denies this completely, do they? They say it's been Nikki Sixx has always been Nikki Sixx. Yes. Right. Okay. Well, I mean, yes, given the history you've painted, the picture you've painted of the sky with his history, I have doubts. I'll say that at this point.
00:16:39
Speaker
and you are allowed to have doubts. It is an unusual story. So Trip returns back home to Tampa in Florida and then starts a criminal spree. This leads to rumors that Nikki Sixx is in town and up to antics. Matthew Trip gets arrested. He's put into jail. He tries to get legal representation from the band, but the band is currently in Europe
00:17:08
Speaker
touring, and nothing basically happens. So Tripp spends some time in Chucky, Theatre of Pain, the follow-up album to Shout at the Devil, gets released about a year later, and Tripp claims he also was responsible for writing some of the songs on that album.
00:17:30
Speaker
at the request of Doc McGee after he's been let go of the band. So Doc McGee recognises that Matthew Tripp was responsible for some of the hits on the first album and us Tripp to contribute material to the new album whilst he's technically been fired.
Controversy and Claims for Royalties
00:17:48
Speaker
He's promised royalties by the band, but nothing happens.
00:17:55
Speaker
So he starts telling people about his time in 1983 slash 1984 where for one year he was the basis of Motley Crue. But given his time in prison and the fact he's now in rehab for drug use, no one really believes him. And yet the fact that we're hearing his story I assume means somebody listened to him at least.
00:18:22
Speaker
Well yes, so here's the interesting wrinkle in the story. So he gets out of rehab, he tries to clean himself up, and he hires a private investigator by the name of Jerry Oglesby. He gets a team together, even to the point of getting a manager for a resurgent musical career.
00:18:41
Speaker
And together, they shot the story of Matthew Tripp being Nikki Six for a year to the music magazine, Karang! Exclamation mark. Just due to... Yeah, it was actually a fairly big music publication. Was that a British magazine?
00:18:58
Speaker
I think it was a transatlantic population. I think that had offices both in the UK and the US. And I think we probably got the more British focused version of Karang. But I think it was one of those publications. It kind of existed on both sides of the pond, as our friends in the Northern Heppers. That just sounds like a really squeaky shopping truck.
00:19:24
Speaker
trolley over the radio. That's really actually quite disconcerting. It's always about expecting Anna to hove interview, pushing a shopping trolley through your office. That'll get edited out.
00:19:42
Speaker
So yeah, so they shot the story to Karang and Karang published it. So the story broke on March the 12th in 1988, which is kind of at the height of Motley Crue's fame. Although that's kind of an odd sentence to make because Motley Crue was one of those bands that had an initial surgeon to fame in the 1980s.
00:20:04
Speaker
And then they were kind of rediscovered in the 90s and 2000s, and kind of had a new resurgence of fame. So they've kind of, they've waxed and waned. They've never been unpopular, but they've had moments of extreme popularity over the years, although I shouldn't point out. And then Tom Billy married Pamela Anderson, and there was all the all the all the celebrity business with them and what have you. Yeah.
00:20:27
Speaker
See, the only thing I care about, Pamela Anderson, is the brilliant film, Barb Wire, which is just a remake of Casablanca. It's kind of astounding, it's almost a shot for shot remake of Casablanca. But in the future with... Yeah, and Timur Morrison.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, I really should rewatch barbed wire. It's been a while. So yeah, so I was about to point out, 1980s fame though, that's, you know, that's the really, really excessive fame. Let
Scandals and Legal Woes in 1988
00:20:57
Speaker
me tell you about a few of the things that happened in 1988 when Motley Crue were at the height of their fame. This is one of those things, me turning 12 years old, because that happened in 1998. I wasn't aware that it affected Motley Crue, but it may have.
00:21:11
Speaker
Well, I mean, that might have been the thing that stopped Nikki Sixx's heart, although it's more likely to be the case that he took enough heroin for his heart to literally stop. And it was one of the things that happened in 1988 to Motley Crowe. And this was basically the point where Nikki Sixx was going,
00:21:31
Speaker
I should probably give up the drugs. This is probably not good for me at all. Vince Neil, who was this singer, had the shadow of a vehicular manslaughter conviction hanging over him after a drunken car crash which killed his passenger, Hanoi Rocks drummer, Razzle.
00:21:50
Speaker
Mick Miles was suffering from a debilitating form of arthritis that was slowly fusing his spine, and the ban had recently left Japan in disgrace after a bottle of whisky was hurled at a passenger's head on a bullet tram, which also caused them to cancel their European tour.
00:22:11
Speaker
because formally there was too much snow on the roof of the planned London venue. That was the excuse they used for cancelling the tour outright. We think the roof is going to collapse because it snowed too much. It was actually cancelled because the management of the band were concerned that due to the excessive drug and alcohol use by band members,
00:22:33
Speaker
If they went to Europe, several of the band members would die due to drug overdoses or alcohol poisoning. Apparently they could not be controlled at all. What goes on tour stays on tour, especially if you're dead.
00:22:50
Speaker
What goes on tour comes back in a coffin, it sounds like in this particular case. I keep saying we'll talk more about this at the end of the episode. Even their manager, Doc McGee, was about to get in a whole load of trouble because McGee was about to plead guilty to being part of a gang that had smuggled in
00:23:14
Speaker
29,000 pounds of marijuana into South Carolina. Being co-manager of Motley Crue wasn't making him enough money. He decided that running a criminal syndicate for smuggling drugs into the American South was also a really good idea. So this is the state of Motley Crue when the story breaks in 1988.
00:23:44
Speaker
So yeah, as we say, Matthew Tripp and Jerry Oglesby shops the story to Karang. The people at Karang find the story somewhat plausible. And the rationale behind the plausibility of, sorry, the rationale as to why they found the story plausible was that the dossier of information that was provided to Karang
00:24:07
Speaker
contained an awful lot of photos, some of which were not photos in kind of public archives, they appeared to be photos that had been taken on tour, and they showed that the physique of Nikki Sixx changes
00:24:24
Speaker
in 1983 and then changes again sometime in 1984. Niki-6 eye color appears to change during this time. So I believe that Frank Ferreira had blue eyes and Matthew Tripp had green eyes. I actually might be getting that round the wrong way. And so people notice the eye color seems to be either so slightly different in different shots.
00:24:50
Speaker
Now, the people occurring were aware that this was not necessarily proof positive that Matthew Tripp's story was correct. So they published the story more of that of a wronged man, rather than a factual account of, did you know that 96 was replaced for one year by this guy called Matthew Tripp? And in part, it was because there was difficulties back in 1988
00:25:15
Speaker
for doing fact checking. They couldn't just go to Wikipedia to find out what the real names of band members were. That kind of information wasn't freely available at the time. And it was actually quite difficult to get details about where bands were at particular points in time. So Trip would allege that an event occurred on tour at a particular place or a particular time.
00:25:38
Speaker
And the people at Karang were going, well, we literally can't check that because we don't have any archival material to tell us where the band was. And we probably can't go to Motley Crue and go, by the way, someone's claiming that he replaced Niki Six as bassist back in 1983. Could you tell us which venues did you play on March 12th, 1983? Really help our story to verify this particular clan.
00:26:06
Speaker
So they admitted at the time, this is actually mostly the admission of John Hossam, who was the main writer of the story, that they couldn't fact-check some of these claims, but they found the story plausible enough
00:26:21
Speaker
that they were willing to go to print and a issue which caused issue, forgive the pun, with Motley Crue, who were not very happy that there was a story in a popular music magazine that alleged that Nikki Sixx wasn't Nikki Sixx for at least one year. Yeah, I meant to ask before whether or not it was the case that Nikki Sixx had been in a car accident or not, but then I guess if
00:26:49
Speaker
If he'd received medical treatment or whatever, it would have been under his real name. And so that would probably be something that would have been difficult to verify as well. Do we know? So it does seem that Frank Ferrano was in a car accident at some point. It just isn't quite clear that we know exactly when the date of that car accident was. Now,
00:27:11
Speaker
At the same time the Karang story gets published, Trip and Oglesby file a lawsuit and a lawsuit against not Motley Crue but Doc McGee. So
The Lawsuit Against Doc McGee
00:27:28
Speaker
basically they sue Doc McGee over the contract
00:27:32
Speaker
that Doc McGee forced Matthew Tripp to sign, on the argument being that if Matthew Tripp had been allowed to sign the contract under his own name, this would not be up for dispute, so they sue McGee. The case is thrown out after the deposition, so the case goes absolutely nowhere. Is that because they weren't able to produce this contract or... So the reason why the
00:28:02
Speaker
Case gets thrown out, turns out to be a technicality. So, August B and Tripp are suing in Florida. The contract was signed in California. The statute of limitations for contracts in California is two years, while the statute of limitations for contracts in Florida is four.
00:28:25
Speaker
It turns out that if they'd filed the suit in California, they would have got nowhere because the contract is too old. And basically Motley Crue's management went, well, actually, the jurisdiction for this particular event should be occurring in California. The statute of limitations has run out there. There is no case to answer. And the judge went,
00:28:46
Speaker
Yep. Well, actually that appears to be factually correct. So we don't need to test this hypothesis in court at all. The statute of limitations applies here. There is no case to answer. So on one level you might go, the case was thrown out. That sounds pretty bad, but it was thrown out on a technicality. No one ever got their day in court. Right. Was that the end of it or is there more to come?
00:29:10
Speaker
Well, we should probably talk. So at this stage, how plausible do you think this theory is? Well, it's certainly plausible. Once again, the guy's history of erratic behaviour.
00:29:22
Speaker
does cast perhaps a little bit of doubt on it, but I mean, it certainly doesn't seem impossible, certainly doesn't seem completely unthinkable. I mean, as you say, it would be a little bit weird if they thought the original Nikki Six was out for good. Why would they feel the need for deception? Why not just say he's been replaced? But yeah, it's not unthinkable that such a thing could have happened, I suppose.
00:29:48
Speaker
Well, let's talk about the evidence for the hypothesis there. So one of the reasons why people like the publishers of Karang found the story plausible was that Tripp seemed to know stories about Motley Crow.
00:30:03
Speaker
that were not public knowledge until much, much later. So there was a 2006 book called The Dirt, which is a kind of big history of Motley Crow. And this book was the revelation of a whole bunch of stories which Tripp seemed to know about in advance in 1988. So he knew a story about Vince Neil, for example, punching out a Marine at the Troubadour well before anyone else knew about it. So
00:30:31
Speaker
If Trip knew about it, Trip had to have either witnessed it or heard it firsthand from someone who was there because it was not public knowledge at the time. He knew odd facts like McMar's favorite, ice cream, flavor, and probably more interesting. He knew the name of the directors of music videos. Now, back in the 1980s,
00:30:57
Speaker
music video directors weren't kind of the famous people we associate with them. Now, they were simply, you know, jobbing for hire directors. And so knowing information like that was actually kind of unusual, because they were usually people who worked for for a day and moved on trip knowing about these things was kind of the kind of thing that people were. How would you know this unless you were spending time with the band?
00:31:25
Speaker
There were questions about A, where he got all the photos of and B, some of those photos really did seem to show.
00:31:35
Speaker
Nikki Sixx was a very different physique in 1983 compared to 1982 and 1984. Although, of course, we've talked an awful lot about photos and physiques on this podcast, haven't we? Yeah, yeah, it is. It is quite surprising what lighting can do and what different focal length on lenses and what have you can do. And it's very easy to be
00:31:59
Speaker
selective as well and sort of pick out the one where it's only like I was saying before about the Melania Trump stuff people would would point at a photo from one of her appearances one of her public appearances with Trump and say look that's obviously not her but then that was an official press photo of which there were dozens if not hundreds more and you know it's only that one that they've seized on because it was it was showing them what they wanted to see so yeah it's
00:32:28
Speaker
It's not proof positive. Probably more interesting, both Trip and Nikki Six have exactly the same tatters. And what's interesting is that they're very ornate tatters, and we know the story of where Nikki Six got them from. Matthew Trip
00:32:50
Speaker
if the rest of his life story is correct as someone who never earned large sums of money, never had any particular wealth. In fact, he has expensive looking matching tattoos to Nikki Six. If he wasn't masquerading as Nikki Six for a year, there was a very big question of where did you get the tattoos and probably more importantly, how did you afford to get the tattoos?
00:33:15
Speaker
And how did you get them so close to his, what could you have used for reference? It's
Church of Satan Involvement
00:33:24
Speaker
not like the modern era where we can get a high definition photo downloaded from the internet and go copy that tattoo. You'd be going to magazine scans of photos and taking a pixelated image going, can you make that look much better than the image I've provided you with?
00:33:44
Speaker
Another interesting factor here. So Matthew Tripp, as mentioned before, was a Satanist. So he was a member of the Church of Satan. He was also a member of the Temple of Set, which was a fairly exclusive offshoot of the Church of Satan, which was run by Michael Aquino to be
00:34:06
Speaker
belong to the Temple of Set, you kind of had to be A, a celebrity, and B, have some degree of disposable income. And Alkino, whose name I am completely mispronouncing here, confirmed that Tripp joined the Temple of Set sometime about 1982-1983,
00:34:30
Speaker
and confirmed much of Tripp's story about his time being in Motley Crow because it's the time that he meets Tripp and asks him to join the temple. Okay well that's something then, that's corroboration I suppose because up until now it's been
00:34:47
Speaker
basically Tripp's word, and I guess the word of his manager who has an interest in talking up the sordid history of his client. I mean, if you can't trust a Satanist, who can you trust? Well, no, exactly. Is the Church of Satanist that actual Anton LaVey's crowd?
00:35:03
Speaker
yeah yeah so this is not satanism in the sense of believing in our lord satan and the lord of the dark lucifer morning star etc etc this is basically a form of libertarianism which really really likes goat statues and and triggering the
00:35:23
Speaker
not triggering the libs, triggering the conservatives, I think seem to be precisely. And frankly, even though I don't like libertarians to actually quite like the way the Church of Satan is always triggering those conservative Christians over in the US, I find it delightful. So now
00:35:43
Speaker
now enters into our story a new character, Roger Hemant. Roger Hemant? Roger Hemant. So Roger Hemant hears the story about Nikki Six slash Matthew Tripp sometime in 1987. So this is before the Krang story breaks.
00:36:00
Speaker
Like Mick Mars, Roger Hammond has just lost a bass guitarist and needs a replacement. Apparently in LA, there are bass guitarist accidents happening all the time. So he asked Tripp to join his band called Circor. Now, because of the fame of Matthew Tripp and the claim that he was in the 86 for a year, they decide to rebrand the band as Sixpack.
00:36:29
Speaker
and they record a three-track demo in Tampa, which does well enough with studio reps to call for a tour.
00:36:39
Speaker
And then Tripp basically ruins things for everyone because he starts acting up, he starts trashing expensive guitars, he trashes hotel rooms, he appears in the recording studio drunk, basically he's acting like a rock star and causing issue for a new band as they're trying to get themselves ready.
00:37:02
Speaker
Crucially, according to him, and he also seems to have forgotten how to play the songs, he claims to have written for Muttley Crue. He has to be taught the songs he said he originally wrote. So I mean, it sounds like there could be room for sort of a middle ground here where maybe his story isn't 100% true, but he was some sort of a groupie who hung around with them enough to have been quite
00:37:32
Speaker
to have some intimate knowledge of them, but wasn't actually in the band like he's claiming to other people.
00:37:41
Speaker
Now that is a hypothesis that several people have put forward, that actually the best way to explain all of this story is that Tripp was a groupie with Motley Crow, which would explain why he's got tattoos which match that of Frank Ferrana, would also explain why he knows all sorts of background details about the band and the like. The only wrinkle here comes from Roger Hammond, and I quote from
00:38:07
Speaker
an interview he did with Paul Miles on the website Chronological Crew. Hammond claims, I don't know whether or not anything he said was true, but I had seen copyright forms processed by the Library of Congress that had every member of Motley Crew's full real name, aka name and social security number, with the exception of Nikki Six. All it said was Nikki Six and gave a social security number
00:38:33
Speaker
which I swear to God was the same number on Matthew John Tripp's Social Security card which I was holding in my other hand. Okay and again the name thing. So yeah I kind of don't know what to believe at this stage to be honest. Well let me give you some evidence against the hypothesis. So the first problem is Doc McGhee meeting Tripp.
00:38:59
Speaker
So Matthew Tripp claims that he meets Doc McGee in 1983 and auditions to be on tour just before Shelter the Devil is released. The problem is, Doc McGee did not become the band's co-manager until after that album was released. So McGee and Tripp cannot have met at that time.
00:39:22
Speaker
So that's a little bit of a wrinkle. In fact, Doc McGee has always denied ever meeting Matthew Tripp. I should point out Matthew Tripp is dead, Doc McGee is not. So Doc McGee is getting to have the last word here, but he's always denied ever meeting Tripp. And indeed, according to Tripp's story, they can't admit at the time that Tripp claims they met when he became Nicky Six.
00:39:49
Speaker
and I see I'm stammering there, that's actually appropriate because Matthew Tripp had a noticeable stammer and used the technique that many of us with speech disfluency engage in, where you elongate sounds to get words out. Mickey Six and we've got an awful lot of recordings of him, not just now, but also in the crucial time period of 1983 to 1984,
00:40:13
Speaker
does not have any noticeable stammer or any evidence of speech disfluency. Okay, so now the different physique eye colour thingy is starting to look less compelling.
00:40:30
Speaker
Now Tripp claimed that as he was masquerading as Nikki Six and thus pretending to be Frank Ferrana, he was stoned a lot of the time and being stoned made his stammer go away. Now, people will also be aware that when I drink, I'm actually less likely to suffer from speech disfluency. So that is possible that that's the case.
00:40:55
Speaker
Tripp also dressed very differently from the incredibly stylish Nikki Sixx. So people point out that Nikki Sixx is always dressed to the nines, whilst Tripp seemed to have no fashion sense whatsoever, although I don't actually know whether that's evidence against the story or not, because presumably when he was Nikki Sixx, he was being dressed to play that part, as opposed to having to continue to dress that way afterwards.
00:41:22
Speaker
Now it is true that Nikki Sixx injured his shoulder in a car accident, but that seems to have happened well after the time that Tripp says he started playing Nikki Sixx. So according to Nikki Sixx, that car accident occurs in June 1983, which is after the band had been on tour with Kiss, a tour that Tripp claims he was Nikki Sixx on. Okay, I mean, yeah.
00:41:50
Speaker
And I said I don't know what to believe before and I kind of still don't. Also, and this might be a deciding factor here, when Matthew Tripp approaches Oglesby, his private investigator, with the story, the initial version of the story is that he didn't replace Nikki Six.
Doubts and Private Investigations
00:42:13
Speaker
Nikki Six replaced him.
00:42:19
Speaker
Okay, well, that's kind of a different scenario then, entirely. Yeah. But he does... A scenario that Oglesby did not believe for a second. So Tripp had to change his story again, and that persuaded Oglesby that maybe Tripp was being hyperbolic, but maybe there was something more to the story nonetheless.
00:42:43
Speaker
Okay, well, is there more? This sounds like we're reaching our conclusion.
00:42:50
Speaker
I mean the only other thing, so along with the fact he changed his story to Oglesby, he also at one stage claimed that he was ditched by the band because he got arrested and served some time in prison for a robbery he claims he was set up for. It was of course actually conflicts with the other story he told that basically because of the problems between him and Ozzy Osbourne in the trash hotel rooms he was let go. So
00:43:16
Speaker
he had two not necessarily contradicting stories about why he was released from the band. Okay yeah I mean as you tell the story it sounds to me like someone who's maybe a bit of a fantasist who was close enough to the band to get a bunch of you know to know a bunch of stuff that the the ordinary person on the street might not know
00:43:42
Speaker
but who has invented a story that's put him in a more prominent position than he actually was. That's my take on it. But yeah, like I say, there seems to be plenty of evidence in either direction.
00:43:57
Speaker
So now, now let's talk a little bit about Doc McGay.
CIA Theories and Band Management
00:44:01
Speaker
Because Doc McGay is kind of, is a little wrinkle in this story. Now we've, I don't think we've actually talked about this. Did you ever listen to the podcast Winds of Change? Nope.
00:44:13
Speaker
So Winter Change, the podcast that basically covers over a period of time the story of the song Winter Change by the scorpions and whether or not it was part of an elaborate American plot to bring liberty to the communist parts of the communist bloc of Eastern and Western Europe. So one of the storylines in Winter Change was that the scorpions were basically either set up
00:44:42
Speaker
or working for the CIA to produce pro-capitalist, anti-communist propaganda to bring about the fall of the Berlin Wall, even though we all know David Hasselhoff is the real reason why the Berlin Wall fell. Doc McGee appears in the story because
00:45:04
Speaker
As mentioned previously, Doc McGee is involved in a massive drug smuggling claim. And yet, for some reason, he gets a very, very modest sentence. I believe it was house arrest for about six months, as opposed to a decade or so in prison, which has always raised a lot of questions. Indeed, what are the things he did after
00:45:34
Speaker
he was basically serving his time. Was he set up a very elaborate bunch of here metallists, including the scorpions, to go over to places like Russia and Eastern Europe to perform concerts?
00:45:49
Speaker
And certain conspiracy theorists of a particular stripe have always maintained that Doc McGee was basically acting for the CIA, that he made a deal to avoid a prison sentence by serving his country, by spreading capitalism to Russia and Eastern Europe, which would then fit in quite nicely with the idea that as he's kind of managing the scorpions at that time,
00:46:17
Speaker
Winds of Change kind of fits into that particular story. But
Conclusion and Reflections
00:46:23
Speaker
also, Doc McGee is the current manager of the band Kiss. And Kiss, famously, is a band where A
00:46:32
Speaker
everyone dresses up and plays a role and b it's one of the few bands where everyone is known by their stage persona and people have been replaced so that band members either they die or they retire but that's never announced because the character maintains themselves and not just that there've also been situations where people have come back
00:46:56
Speaker
to play the same characters, they leave the band, get replaced and then they come back and take over that character again. So Doc McGee has a history of managing a band where people pretend to be who they aren't and only go by their non-deplume rather than by their real name. Kind of like the Wiggles or the Sugar Babes, although they didn't actually say they were the same people were they, they just had a complete
00:47:25
Speaker
uh revolving revolving which is ironic given that one of their one of the sugar babes most fabulous songs is about in a spin it was about spinning things around and indeed the the sugar babes ended up actually doing the whole ship of thesius thing didn't they because the entire lineup was replaced and then the three original members of the sugar babes started a new band but couldn't call themselves the sugar babes even though they were the original sugar babes
00:47:55
Speaker
It was very confusing. Mmm. Mmm. Best, best ship of Theseus example, uh, before WandaVision came along, actually. Well, you know, philosophers have got to find more recent examples. We can't just rely on things from 3000 years ago. Well, exactly. Anyway, so, so, so Kiss was the band that I failed to guess before. Yes. Right. Yeah. So I thought, I thought you were going for something. A normally long tongue. Right. Well, I mean, that's,
00:48:23
Speaker
If you'd told me last week when we were talking about topics that you were going to speak to me about Motley Crue for nearly an hour, I probably wouldn't have been interested, and yet quite an interesting story involving Motley Crue.
00:48:39
Speaker
Indeed. So yes, there you go, the Motley Crue story of the Nikki Sixx who wasn't. And we can put that as a question because either it was because it may not have been the the Nikki Sixx who wasn't, or maybe it was the Nikki Sixx who wasn't. Yes, so very good. My only regret is that when you started talking about Slerophy Doppelgangers, I didn't use the opportunity to talk about the 1996 film Doppelganger starring Drew Barrymore.
00:49:05
Speaker
which to this day has the most bizarre ending of any film I've ever seen. God, it's been a while since I've watched that. It has, yeah. I hunted down the ending on YouTube, which was available just as a clip, just that section of the film, just to convince myself I hadn't dreamed it. But if you haven't seen listeners, the film Doppelganger, featuring Drew Barrymore,
00:49:32
Speaker
I want to say worth a watch, I don't know if that's true, but it's an experience you will not forget in a hurry. You'll think you will, you think you will up until about 20 minutes before the end, and then
00:49:45
Speaker
Then it takes a swerve, is all I'll say. Yes, I'd actually forgotten the ending to Doppelganger, but now it's flashing back and goes, oh, that's right. It really is very bizarre. Anyway, well, a kudos to you on another thoroughly satisfying What the Conspiracy episode.
00:50:06
Speaker
So that may be the end of this, but of course we have a bonus episode to go and record now for our beloved patrons, where we have a few things to talk about, a few sort of current events. We've had wackiness going on, COVID related wackiness with Jacinda Ardern being heckled in Northland by someone of slightly dubious pedigree. QAnon business, apart from the wackiness, what was the big meeting?
00:50:35
Speaker
the big event in the states recently that the QAnon people were all enthusing about. There was going to be something in Dallas from... Yeah, so they've been getting up, there's got some QAnon stuff going on in Dallas, but some sort of QAnon-y stuff apparently going on in New Zealand.
00:50:52
Speaker
that involves the Italians. And then a little bit more, talk about the Pandora papers. We must have mentioned the Pandora papers. We did a whole episode on the Panama ones, but yeah, there's an interesting development on the Pandora papers that ties into some of the some of the sort of art world hobby lobby
00:51:18
Speaker
aren't fraud stuff that we've talked about before. So if you'd like to hear about all of those, maybe in the patron bonus episode, I will actually describe what happens specifically in the end of the movie Doppelganger. For those of you who don't want to look it up by yourselves, maybe that can be our incentive for anyone who isn't currently a patron, but is a bit of teetering on the edge.
00:51:40
Speaker
Anyway, if you are a patron teetering on the edge of anything really, first of all, get yourself in a slightly safer and more stable position. Second of all, go to patreon.com and look for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy and sign yourselves up. On the other hand, if you're quite happy where you are, precarious or otherwise, that's fine because you listen to our podcast and you're our audience and that's just peachy. Peachy?
00:52:06
Speaker
So I don't think we have anything more to say. Do we have anything more to say? We do not. I think it's time to close out with a classic Motley Crue quote. I don't actually know. He's the one who called him Dr Feel Good. He's the one who makes you feel alright. I don't even know. It's a song that I have heard of
00:52:30
Speaker
And that's the best I can give at this point. Well, I'm off to stop my heart with a very large amount of heroin. Excellent. And goodbye. I mean, I should, Mothi Crew must have said goodbye at some stage. There we go. That can be my quote. Goodbye.
00:52:44
Speaker
Imagine, though, if they're a band that has never said goodbye. Mmm. To give them an era of rock-rock style mystique, I suppose, but... Mmm. Goodbye. Toodles! You've been listening to Podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, hosted by Josh Addison and M. Denter. If you'd like to help support us, please find details of our pledge drive at either Patreon or Podbean. If you'd like to get in contact with us, email us at podcastconspiracy at gmail.com.