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Mojo Nixon, the sassy musician, actor and radio DJ, died of “a cardiac event” on Wednesday, February 7, his family confirmed to Rolling Stone. She was 66 years old. Nixon was aboard the Outlaw Country Cruise, an annual musical cruise where he was a co-host and regular performer.
“August 2, 1957 – February 7, 2024 Mojo Nixon. How you live is how you should die. “Mojo Nixon was at full speed, wide open, hard as a rock, rampaging, corner on two wheels + on fire…” his family shared in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Passing in after a hot show, a furious night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.
“A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is fine…and that’s how he did it, Mojo left the building,” his family’s statement continued. “Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the back alley. May heaven help us all.”
Nixon enjoyed an extremely strange but unique career after he and his former partner, Skid Roper, made a rare breakthrough in 1987 with their novelty hit “Elvis Is Everywhere.” An unhinged slice of cowpunk/rockabilly pastiche that honored (and slightly skewered) the King of Rock and Roll’s die-hard fans, “Elvis Is Everywhere” and its charming low-budget video became an unexpected MTV staple.
Nixon and Roper recorded six albums together during the 1980s; After they split, Nixon embarked on his own career, releasing a slew of solo albums and a handful of collaborative LPs (including one with the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra). He also landed work as an actor and radio DJ, eventually becoming a regular presence on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel in the mid-2000s, where he was known as “The Afternoon Loon.”
“We are absolutely devastated,” said Jeff Cuellar, CEO of Sixthman, which organized the Outlaw Country Cruise. “Our thoughts and hearts are with Mojo’s family and the Outlaw community.”
Unsurprisingly, for an artist always willing to go as far as possible, Nixon was a deeply committed defender of freedom of expression and an opponent of censorship. He famously debated parental warnings on CDs with Pat Buchanan during a appearance on CNN Crossfire in the 1990s.
In an interview with Rolling Stone Last year, Nixon got to the core of his credo and said, “I firmly believe that you can make fun of anything as long as your joke is funny. And I also think you can say anything, as long as you’re willing to suffer the consequences. “We don’t need a thought police.”
Nixon was born Neill Kirby McMillan Jr. on August 2, 1957 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but grew up in Danville, Virginia. He Biography on his website he appropriately blurs the line between fact and fiction, but, generally speaking, he paints a portrait of a childhood captivated by music (he cites hearing Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” as the moment when “music demands your soul and Satan climbs up your butt”).
After graduating from college in the late ’70s, Nixon briefly moved to London to try to make it in the punk scene, before returning to the United States and settling in Denver. There, he played in a band called Zebra 123 that reportedly caught the attention of the Secret Service for playing a concert called “Assassination Ball” that featured a poster of the exploding heads of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
Eventually, Nixon moved to San Diego and met his “de-mentor” Country Dick Montana (of Beat Farmers). While on a cross-country bike trip, he had a revelation and came up with his stage name, Mojo Nixon, described as: “Mojo = Voodoo Nixon = Bad Politics.”
In 1983, Nixon and Roper got together and started making music, releasing their self-titled debut in 1985. The pair steadily gained a cult following thanks to their frequent tours and crazy songs like “Burn Down the Malls”, “Jesus at McDonald’s” , and “Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin” (about MTV VJ Martha Quinn).
His breakthrough with “Elvis Is Everywhere” (in 1987) Bo-Day-Shus!!!) not only earned Nixon and Roper a regular appearance on MTV, but also resulted in the network recruiting Nixon to film a bunch of promotional spots. They soon appeared in The Arsenio Hall show and getting Wynona Ryder to star in the video for “Debbie Gibson is pregnant with my two-headed love child.” (MTV refused to play it.)
After splitting from Roper, Nixon set out to record his solo debut in 1990, otisjoining Country Dick Montana and John Doe from X. His ambitions were big, as he said. Rolling Stone: “I wanted to have a band and I wanted to compete with the Replacements and the Blasters and Los Lobos.”
The album attracted a lot of attention and the song “Don Henley Must Die” reached number 20 on the modern rock charts. (The famously picky Henley even seemed to like it, performing it live with Nixon in 1992). But otisMomentum slowed after Nixon’s label, Enigma Records, went bankrupt.
Nixon kept busy with a variety of musical projects throughout the ’90s, while also branching out into other realms. His first acting role was in the 1989 Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, Big fireballs, in which he played drummer James Van Eaton; His other acting credits included the 1993 live-action film. Super Mario Bros. cinema and comedy Car 54, Where are you?. He later worked as a radio DJ in Cincinnati and San Diego, before landing his long-standing position at SiriusXM in the early 2000s.
Nixon was the honorary “captain” of the Team USA men’s doubles luge team at the 1998 Winter Olympics, recording a theme song, “Luge Team USA” under the nickname Arctic Evel Kneivels. The two lugers she backed, Chris Thorpe and Gordy Sheer, won the silver medal.
While hosting several SiriusXM shows became his main gig in the 2000s, Nixon occasionally returned to music, releasing an album of unreleased tracks. Whiskey Rebellionin 2009. A long-running documentary, The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo NixonIt finally premiered at SXSW 2022 before getting a wide release last year.
“People write me off as a novelty artist or like, ‘Oh, it’s a cartoon.’ And that’s okay,” Nixon said. Rolling Stone, distilling the essence and appeal of his work. “I don’t want to be taken seriously. “I am a cult artist.”