They feed you this stuff every day on TV
and you think it's all different, don't you? All the time!
And it's always the same!
Jesus, I can't go on living like...
You know I'm born to lose
And gambling's for fools
But that's the way I like it, baby
I don't wanna live forever!
The sight of Cliff Richard surrounded by all them girls,
that's what it was.
Cliff Richard on Oh Boy! On the TV.
And before him even, Tommy Steele.
They were always surrounded by all these chicks
baying for their, like, manhood.
I thought, that's the job for me. And it was.
That Ampeg thing can go fuck for a start.
We had no musician friends.
They were all up their own arse - "look how good I am".
We weren't even seen as musicians. People thought we were wankers.
Now due to a heavy use of nasal decongestants
since I left the band, I mean, these clothes are all rented.
Look at my shoes.
The great thing about rock'n'roll in all its forms is the attitude.
And if you're coming from a place in the heart where it's genuine
and it's screaming of honesty, that's what makes rock'n'roll special.
Motorhead were the kings of that.
These guys were cool. At that time there were big divisions
between the punks and the metalheads.
But Motorhead broke down all those barriers
and all the kids thought Motorhead were the coolest.
Am I saying enough "fuckin's" now?
Hang on a minute. I'll eat that one later.
There's different things, you get a different peak and they change.
First you wanna be... Headline a tour instead of being support
and then you wanna be on the road with dressing rooms and...
You're all cunts, man.
Doing the interview without me, mate.
You're all cunts. I told you you should've signed it.
I don't care, man. Come and sit down, Philip.
- There he is. - Sorry I'm a bit late
- but I ran over two children. - Did ya?
The father was running alongside trying to get me autograph.
"Motorhead, man! My kids were run over by Philthy Animal!"
- Cigarette? - Yeah.
Originally Ace Of Spades was gonna be -
The rest was more or less the same but Lemmy wasn't happy -
he wanted it to be in E and that was based in A.
So then we went over to the E string and made it -
Same sort of tempo. It fits in the same framework.
I used to play the one-armed bandits a lot, so it was about that.
It was just another song.
- It could mean all things to all men. - Yeah, no doubt it does.
- A good song usually does. - It isn't a clever metaphor.
You know, it's like, it's just to see if you can do a word exercise
and get all this gambling motif into these three verses.
Read 'em and weep The dead man's hand again!
The dead man's hand, yeah, aces and eights.
So it's Wild Bill Hickock's fault.
When he got shot in the back of the head by a disgruntled rival.
It became known as the dead man's hand.
That's when it was? It was in the hand of a dead man.
- Before that it wasn't... - Just aces and eights before that.
He should've been called Wild Bill Hiccup.
Wild Bill Pot Luck.
He might have hiccupped and dodged the bullet.
- Like that. - Wild Bill Comeback?
Anyway, Wild Bill Hitchcock.
Or Wild Bill Eggcups.
Come on, for fuck's sake, how long can it take?
Ace Of Spades.
The spoons, you see? There's the spoons.
Don't you remember? The spoons?
- The tap-dancing. - It was... That was...
Was that Vic who did that? No, it was me, wasn't it?
Not me personally, no. I believe that Phil did.
I wasn't allowed into the studio.
I had to, you see, because the tap-dancer couldn't make it
so I had to do my own tap-dancing.
There was a tap-dancing bit in this one.
In the middle bit.
See? See what I mean? Sticks. Yeah.
They made me do terrible things.
The wooden trousers were the worst.
- With spikes inside. - Hinged at the knee but...
being in England and the damp weather they used to get rusty.
The termites drove me nuts, as well.
- There's a termite thing. - Yeah.
Tiny Termite found some wood He tasted it, he found it good
And that is why your Auntie May Fell through the kitchen floor today
I first met Lemmy at the Roundhouse in around '68.
I guess it was one of the Middle Earth all-nighters.
It was where you met most people in those days.
There were the, sort of, you know,
1500-2000 nucleus of what was going on there
and Lemmy was a permanent fixture.
I was in the Deviants and he was in Sam Gopal's Dream
and both taking massive amounts of amphetamines and gravitated to each other.
I was a terrible guitarist.
I was mediocrity squared.
I was bloody awful.
I got away with murder - turn it up, put a lot of fuzztone on it
and move your fingers very fast, you know.
But nobody was really fooled for long.
And then I got hold of a bass - I'd never played one before
and it was great, I went straight into it and then I ended up in Hawkwind.
Dick Mick, who played a ring modulator,
we called it an audio generator because we were so hip, you know.
He...
I met him because we shared a common enthusiasm for
shall we say, buck-you-up-oh.
Dick Mick used to go off drinking with Lemmy
and no doubt taking their powders they used to take a lot then
And he came along one day
and said he'd got this fantastic bass player for us
but he had no bass.
The bass player never showed up at three concerts, and this was one,
and left his bass in the van. Like, you know, "Please steal my gig."
So I stole it. Destiny, destiny, can't avoid it, that's for me.
I think it's just dumb luck.
I remember the one where we couldn't go on stage cos we all took LSD.
But we had to. We kept on saying, "We can't possibly go on yet."
We were all tripping all the time, so...
Somebody would go off into some jazz improvisation of his own every night.
We used to spike the entire audience,
we'd run out with, like, droppers, you know, and throw it in the crowd.
I was the last nutter, if you like.
I was the last one that did the wrong drugs.
I didn't do the designer drugs, I did street stuff, you know,
so I was massively unpopular for that.
Nik Turner, who was our saxophonist,
called a band meeting and said, "We've got to sort this out.
"Lemmy's always late for planes,
"he's always staying up late taking speed and all this.
"We've got to make a decision - I think we should get rid of him."
So we all had our vote and it was - six were in the band -
I think it was about four to two.
So that was it. A year later they tried to sack me.
I went and got three of their old ladies before they came back.
Before the tour I was already doing one of them so...
Well, it's only fair, isn't it, really?
They robbed me of my entire livelihood.
I took one night with their old lady. They weren't there so...
but the only time I ever had it in my life
was a complete telepathy with Dave Brock.
Yeah, a magic between us, and some of the best periods, actually,
with Lemmy in the band.
There's nobody better, you know. Nobody.
And I had a great time playing with Dave.
I would never have left the band in a thousand years,
if they hadn't fired me. So they probably did me a favor.
It got him on the road to forming Motorhead.
At the end of the day he fought through all the crap
and came out the other end.
I had to form my own band to stop getting fired.
I got fired out of the three bands before cos I wanted to be at the front.
There was a song I wrote for Hawkwind,
the last song I wrote for them, on the B-side of Kings Of Speed.
That was the American name for speed-freak, Motorhead,
so I mean...
I think Lemmy was probably, like, the first, quote, famous person
that I ever saw in the flesh when I first moved to London
when I was, like, I was just under 18.
You know, went up Portobello Road and ended up in Henneky's.
Lemmy was in there, always on the one-armed bandits.
He was just Lemmy and didn't really speak to anybody
and I thought he was a bit of an arsehole to be honest
because he didn't speak.
Has anybody been waiting on you hand and foot?
- Foot, a bit. - I fly off the handle at that.
- You haven't got a handle. - I never showed it to you.
There are parts of my body you haven't seen. Cos you daren't look.
- Handle. I hadn't thought of that. - Wanna see it?
It's more of a knob. On the back of my neck...
Oh, yeah.
I'm getting a little face tattooed on it.
It's too expensive to have it lanced off.
I'm having a dick tattooed on my dick, but bigger.
Good idea.
- I'm having an extra buttock drawn... - Drawn?
I only want it penciled in in case it doesn't work out.
I always got on well with him and he said he was a drummer.
I didn't know but he had a car.
"Phil, you've got a motor, ain't you?" "Yeah."
"Any chance of getting a lift off you back to Rockfield?"
Cos he'd been in Rockfield recording.
And he gave me a ride to Rockfield.
We got in the house and we slept and then we got up,
well, we didn't sleep - we got up off the floor and went outside
and he's stark naked outside.
And he said, "It's all right, I'm on drugs!"
All these houses were around, the curtains going.
On the way down there, you know, he said,
"Yeah, well, like, maybe you could have a play, like.
"We've been having problems with our drummer," - he didn't say what.
So this would be a good opportunity to,
sneakily, while his kit's still in the studio, you could audition.
And he hit everything in the kit within two beats.
And Larry said, "What a horrible little cunt. He's perfect."
We came back and then I, I don't know exactly when,
but I got a job through a Scottish friend of mine,
working as a laborer building a houseboat.
And Eddie was, like, the taskmaster.
Phil seemed like a nice guy, and we chatted.
When we were working together he told me about his drumming
and he really appealed to me as a bloke but he was a bit crazy.
Kind of arranged this, like, an audition/jam
for me Larry and Lemmy and Eddie to come down,
and for his own reasons Larry never turned up.
I was in bed and the door goes, and I go to open it, and it's early
and there's Lemmy standing there with leather jacket and a bullet belt.
He handed 'em to me and said, "You got the job." And walked off.
Nobody wanted to sign Motorhead because they were scared of us
cos we looked like nutters.
And for them days the music was a bit raw.
The first time I heard Motorhead
was when I listened to a single I put out without hearing,
which was Louie Louie, and when I heard it I was horrified,
I thought it was the worst record I'd ever heard.
The biggest shock was that,
having put out a record that I thought was terrible,
it went straight in the charts at number 72.
I put the record out as a favor.
At the time of the first album,
they were dubbed the worst band in the world by the NME.
That made me think, "I must hear it, it must be brilliant."
They had a guy at Bronze Records who said, "If it gets in the top 75
"we can get you on Top Of The Pops."
They probably took Motorhead on Top Of The Pops
because they were available and unusual.
There was no other band like them. They were totally unique.
We had no money. I was helping Jimmy the roadie doing some work
and I was doing some painting to make a few quid.
And I had to say to these people,
"Do you mind if I stop and watch the telly, cos I'm on in a minute."
I wrote some stuff for the first album, then the second one
but by the third one he had his own lyrical chops together,
working out the Motorhead humor. He was working hard, man.
They went from Overkill, which did well, to Bomber,
and then we got to Ace Of Spades, so they were on a roll.
Ask me something, for fuck's sake.
Tell us about The Chase Is Better Than The Catch.
I didn't write it. Why should I tell you?
- He wrote it. - He was going on about it.
No, he wasn't, you were going on about it.
I asked him a question.
You started it, you invaded Poland!
Who mentioned it first? It was him.
Can we edit that out?
Ace Of Spades became a little bit more of a production album.
We went to Rockfield for rehearsals for two weeks.
We couldn't get Lemmy to rehearse.
Me and Phil would be in there all the time
and Lemmy would show up now and again cos he hated it.
He'd say, "Get a couple of things together
"and I'll come down and do the thing."
We'd drag him out of bed. He must have run out of speed.
We couldn't find a producer and they came up with Vic Maile.
Vic was great. Vic would just sit there dry.
We called him The Turtle cos he looked like a turtle.
And you'd do the best lick of your life and he'd go,
"Is that your best shot?" Like really...
Most bands need somebody who's not in the band
and who nobody in the band knows
to sit there and be an asshole. Yeah, they do.
No, Vic was...
He had a way of...
of getting stuff out of us, cos he was too small for us to have a pop at.
So in a way he used to use that against us.
So he could get us to do almost anything.
He was always excellent. God rest him.
You've adopted the Ace of Spades as your motif. Why?
Because it's bad luck. The Ace of Spades is bad luck, innit?
You see? So we figured if we used bad luck as a theme,
then it can't get any worse.
Ace Of Spades, how could anybody forget that?
Even if they didn't like the song, it's just a good title, we thought.
So once we'd all agreed on the title we were thinking,
"Well, how can we portray it?"
I think I suggested it,
why don't we try doing the album sleeve in sepia,
sort of brown and white, you know,
and have gunfighters at a card table with dead man's hand or whatever.
And we thought, no.
And then thought, how about just dressing up as cowboys?
And Eddie said, "I wanna be Clint Eastwood with a poncho!"
Phil had this thing about Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks.
Lemmy was - although he never admitted it -
but I always thought he was dressed as Maverick.
Our manager had been talking about,
"Well, boys, you'll be going to America next year."
"Really? Great!" Our manager said, "Doug,
"why don't you fly us out to the desert, let's do that album shot.
"We'll have to go to America and find a desert."
"No, Phil, we won't actually."
Because he knew someone in High Wycombe
who lived near a sandstone quarry.
The picture was more like a Texas rock band than a UK rock band.
This was actually photographed in a sandstone quarry
in Barnet just outside London. And that sky is real.
The sky was airbrushed in
because it was very gray and cloudy on that day.
Of course everybody says, "Man, where did you do that?"
And when you say Barnet people laugh.
We couldn't go wrong that year.
I think we were on every poll ... In every muslc paper.
I only got beat to the sex idol top by David Coverdale.
Sex idol, you know? Wrong guy.
I thought Lemmy was trying to, in many ways, kill you with his music.
It's like an assault. A major operation.
With a good anesthetist.
Isolate the hammer.
- Isolating, sir. - Take it away.
Take her down to 50 feet.
Take it away, Eric, the orchestra leader.
Switch on the throbnogulars.
- Eff off, pal! - Are you getting all this?
Phone Lemmy a cab. He's leaving.
Listen.
Why leave in a huff when you can leave in a minute and a huff?
- You had some nice lines. - Of course.
All right, get it right this time, Vic.
- OK. - Dick? Oh, Vic.
Vic the VapoRub.
All right.
This segment is now over.
I'm sure you're all pleased to hear that.
If you line up in the foyer we'll try and get you all a glass of Kia-Ora
and possibly a sweet or two. But don't bank on it because we're fucking mean.
There was no easy gig, no easy anything with Motorhead.
Everything was full-on.
Everything was full-on and stressed to the max.
No, we all hated each other.
Don't forget, we'd been on the road for the past three years, nonstop.
In the van on top of the equipment.
We didn't breathe oxygen, we breathed Lemmy's feet and farts.
Phil and Eddie were fighting every night. Fisticuffs, you know.
In Glasgow once I was playing the one-armed bandit
and they came out sideways from behind this wall
where they'd been, like...
They rolled into the elevator and it went up.
Phil, when you have an argument with him
after a certain point, you would stop, and Phil starts lashing out.
I find it very similar to... Stop that or I'm gonna nut you.
Shouting doesn't get anywhere anymore.
"Oh, fuck off."
We had a few bundles, but they were good bundles.
Punch each other a couple of times and then laugh about it.
I'm a fucking artist! Sensitive as shit!
I'm hungry! For fuck's sake. Oh, thanks a lot, man.
We always had a lot of fights and arguments
but all the great love stories do, don't they?
I used to say at the time
if you can't smack your best friend in the mouth
and let it all be forgotten about the next day then who can you?
I'm a little teddy bear, I don't swear
Shit bugger arsehole, I don't care
Motorhead was a unique experience. Totally over the top.
You're fools. You're all fools. You're all stark raving mad.
I'm the only one that's normal around here.
Don't you agree? Yes.
I played a whole English tour
with the drumstick gaffered to my right hand because I'd broke...
It was the second time I'd broken it from punching somebody.
Phil did the whole tour with the stick gaffered to his hand.
They lived in a squat in Notting Hill
and somebody's done something outside his squat.
Phil's gone out, and instead of thinking, he's just punched the guy
and smashed all his hand up.
This was Thursday night, Friday was the first show.
It wasn't that painful. It's quite amazing that when you...
I mean, it hurt like fuck all day long and all night
but, like, when you get on stage
the only thing that I was concerned about
was the Gaffer tape breaking.
Some nights he never took it off.
I've got this second head growing on my neck.
It's actually my knob. Can you see that?
- That's... - Nobody knows...
- It's a calcium deposit. ...whence it came.
No, the doctors told me it's a calcium deposit
because when I broke my neck...
How that happens I don't know. Spare calcium.
Drinking too much milk.
No, that's only if you pour it down your trousers.
Him and this huge Irish kid were playing who can lift each other the highest.
- Irish kid won. - I didn't get him off the ground.
And then it was his turn, and he picked me up, like cradle style
and then lifted me up to here, and then he went -
I remember it clearly, he went like that, in one movement
and then had me as if he was lifting weights above his head
and of course, as his arms got straight he went...
And I felt it as well, and he just fell back.
I now was instantly sober, you know, like, "Oh, dear, this is not right."
"Tour's cancelled, chaps. He's broke his neck."
"Gaffer-tape it. Come on, Phil."
But when you're young and full of vigor and strength, whatever,
- you can get over shit like that. - Stop whingeing about...
When I got to Motorhead
I'd been on the road with Uriah Heep for ten years.
And jailbait really means something on the road.
It is a problem. Lemmy's writing about a situation
that is of concern to them and other people.
Just one look, baby, all I need
My decision made with lightning speed
I don't even wanna know your name
I'm just happy, do you feel the same?
Turn it down cos they wanna hear us. That's the whole point.
- All right. - I was just saying
that's a good sound Eddie had on that guitar.
- Yeah, he always had a good sound. - Yeah.
Jailbait - this was a rare one for us cos it's in G.
We did try and get away, cos A and E are the keys you get stuck in.
We had to do something in another key. So we did Jailbait.
I was trying to think of ways I could play double kick drums every time
but Lemmy used to - "No, it doesn't fit there!"
- And I was, like, "Well, why not?" - And do it anyway.
"How about this bit?" "All right."
I think if you want to talk underrated, I mean, Phil is...
totally underrated.
There's Keith Moon, then there's him.
And both are completely off the charts.
I was down at the local record store,
and he put on Motorhead,
and Phil Taylor's double bass drums just fucking tore my head off.
I haven't played with anybody, apart from a little jamming, for years.
One for you. And one for you.
You've just seen - you sit him down in front of this monster kit
and there he is. "Why ain't you working?"
Thank you, asshole. Sorry, I didn't say that!
Just a slip of the tongue.
I believe that if you don't go on the road you're not a band.
So I think everybody has to prove it, you know.
Even him. Even when he's... He's not really asleep.
He's just interrupting without seeming to interrupt.
See, I caught him. He'll give that up now.
I just dreamt that I was in a studio doing an interview.
- No. - Fucking hell, it's all coming true!
The whole feeling of a Motorhead show from the stage is power.
It communicates.
You say it's a kind of Reichian thing, you know...
If you believe in the orgone theory there's a really good loop going on.
They have always blown my head off
that three people could make that amount of sound
and have a sound that big.
We were on tour in America with Ozzy Osbourne
and we came back and did a show at Port Vale football ground.
They could hear it 12 miles as the crow files.
At that time Audio Lease put in
the biggest audio system that had ever been assembled in the UK.
It was, like, 135,000 watts.
When they fired it they took out the local substation - it blew up.
We were drawing so much electricity.
Eddie was soundchecking and a guy rang up from four miles away
saying he couldn't hear his TV.
Yeah, it was a massive PA.
I remember Angus Young saying,
"There's only one band louder than us and that's Motorhead."
Yes, Jailbait, a song about the younger female members of our entourage
who sometimes would come across like nothing on earth
and other times would not.
The main lyrical content was to discourage the males...
To have anything to do with...
To keep them away from the audience we took them all backstage.
To steer the young boys clear of committing any offences.
- To... - Stay out of jail.
Cramp their style, so to speak.
And revivitate ours.
I wrote a song about wanking, but Lemmy wouldn't sing it.
We thought of ourselves as a good time rock'n'roll band.
We weren't trying to get a message across
apart from have a good time, get pissed, get stoned and fuck a chick. That'll do.
When I started with the band,
- you had to be in the same... - Frame of mind.
...as them, where you went...
and drink that, and go to your position, we'll be there in a minute.
- It used to depend on... - We were smashed all the time.
Yes.
There's nothing more scary than a naked guy with a sword and a hard-on.
(We Are) The Road Crew, I wrote in ten minutes.
They went for a break and Vic was still buttering his crispbread,
and I said, "All right, I've done it."
"What?" And then I sang it.
(We Are) The Road Crew is written about how it was.
First time I met Lemmy I was 15 and didn't know what to say.
"Did you really used to be a roadie for Hendrix?"
And he went, "God!
"The next person who asks me that, I'm gonna smack 'em!"
I roadied for a couple of years.
Yeah, Hendrix, and earlier I did a few shows with The Nice.
We went to Europe. We'd been told by the locals in the venue
that there was this gang of so-called Teddy Boys going around Hamburg
just gatecrashing venues, kicking the shit out of punters and leaving.
Sure enough, about 70 or 80 of these so-called Teddy Boys
burst in through the front doors and started picking on the punters.
All the crew and all the band jumped off the stage and took these guys on.
I'm beating the shit out of some guy with a mic stand
when Fast Eddie comes flying by me, literally, like Superman.
He's on a downward slope, and I thought, "Shit, he's in trouble."
I can see the one I want
but he's getting away and he's got this bottle.
So I've launched myself - you know, we're fucking mad -
so I've flown past, and as I'm going through the air I'm thinking,
"Fuck, I hope I can get his head and land on him."
Fortunately it all went to plan,
I got his head and pushed him on the floor and fell on him.
We walked back in, got a standing ovation from the audience,
band went back on and everybody loved it.
We didn't go looking for trouble. We never ever did.
We were actually quite a bunch of nice blokes.
My parents used to come to the shows, Lemmy's parents, Phil's parents.
My mum used to love Lemmy and Phil.
She loved them!
You know, which you wouldn't think, but they're nice people.
I don't remember the backwards lines.
They were laid down the same time as the carpets.
With backwards guitar, would you believe?
It was his Indian phase.
- It was a very mystical time for us. - Yes.
- Especially Edward. - At one point I fall over.
I think I've fallen over here.
He fell flat on his back.
Yeah, I'm on my back at this time.
That's why it's making all the noise, cos if you don't switch off...
And I think I do a recovery. Yeah, I've got back up again.
Remember that hamster he used to have with him all the time?
- Not all the time. - Well, it only got to two years old.
Poor little fucker. That was part of his sound.
A wah-wah pedal and a hamster in the other box.
Two wah-wah pedals - one was real,
one had this hamster inside it with a little microphone
and every time you trod on that the hamster would go...
like that. That's how he got his sound.
Isolate the overhead underhang and the parabolic flange dapperies.
The one next to the flap-doodles?
Technical talk. You wouldn't understand. You can edit that bit out.
- You know, don't you? - No.
Hang on a minute. That was just a...
A three-count. Two, three, four...
Three on the high-hat.
All right.
They went to America and toured quite a few times
but it's always been hard for Motorhead in America, selling records.
The one thing they did do is they inspired a generation of musicians.
They were the fastest, the loudest, the meanest,
hardest rock'n'roll band on the planet.
So all these kids in their bedrooms in California in particular were going,
"We want to outdo Motorhead."
It's one of those rare, rare records where every song is great.
And so it is the blueprint, in some way, for a lot of the speed metal,
a lot of the thrash metal,
a lot of those bands that came out in the mid-'80s and stuff like that
that fused punk and metal roots with down to earth attitude.
I named one of my first bands Road Crew after (We Are) The Road Crew
and I remember playing it in one of the first incarnations
of what would later become Guns'N'Roses.
I was with Steve Adler and Duff McKagan and we played that song.
Eagle had a tear in his eye,
he said, "Nobody's done anything like that before."
- It was our song. - He's written a song about us.
- You big softie. - Yeah, well...
- Underneath the facade aren't we all? - Yeah.
They were a good crew and proud of how good they were
and I would've put them up against any crew in the world.
Pretty tight considering we haven't played it together for 20 years.
Road crews always get up to a lot more than you think.
And they're always at the gig before you.
You get there and find yourself kissing a chick,
and they say, "How do I taste?"
Fucking bastards.
Already gave 'em a blow job in the afternoon.
What do you think it's about?
I mean, have some imagination.
Love me like a reptile. Come on, you know.
Is one qualification for working for the BBC to be completely stupid?
What is it about then?
I don't know. I never worked it out.
Love Me Like A Reptile.
Women don't like the title much.
Say to a woman, love me like a reptile, they go, "What the fuck's that?"
False start, see.
Motorhead wasn't a straightforward outfit to play with
because with Lemmy's bass playing being the way it was
it made it slightly different than all the other bands at the time
because there was no real bass guitar, it was like a bass rhythm.
There was really a period, I guess, from when I met him
and before, through most of the '70s
where it wasn't wild nights, just a wild continuum.
The speed was always out on the table. A big pile on the table.
When you're young and partying and playing and it's all full-on,
you don't expect to live that long.
You don't want to die but you think this can't possibly go on for too long.
The fact that it has, you know, defies all, you know, everything.
The fact that we're all still here. Lemmy more than anyone.
He's been doing it longer than the rest of us.
He's still going, you notice that? As he lives and breathes.
I think he'd probably burn out more if he stopped.
He should write a book called How To Survive Rock'n'Roll
because he's the only guy, except for Keith Richards,
who's probably done everything and lived through it all.
There were times when I think he's possibly the child of aliens.
They say after the bomb there'll be rats, roaches, you know,
Lemmy, Keith and Courtney Love.
What can you do about it?
They will be the future of the human race. See what they spawn.
They don't know. He's a reptile, what can I tell you?
What is your wildest story since you've been on the road?
Christ, I don't know. A lot I don't remember cos of the acid, you know.
Really?
You never had a girl come up on stage
with a guitar and, I don't know, show her boobs?
Larry got a blow job while he was playing once.
- Really? - Yeah.
- That's impressive. - I thought it was.
- Where was this? - I was impressed.
He is a genuine rebel.
You know, he's like a crusader. Massive strength.
I mean, in his presence you can feel it.
But he's got to be careful because Lemmy really is now a legend.
I hope he continues but he's got to take it easy.
He's got to not be pushed
cos he'll conk out eventually, which'll be a real shame.
I want a drink, yeah, immediately.
I want several drinks. I want to drink until I can't stand anymore.
- There, darling. - Thank you, blossom. Is there any ice?
Ace Of Spades has got the advantage of a killer title track.
Since then every sub-David Lynch movie driving through the desert,
you've got Ace Of Spades in the background and it's perfect!
I don't know how anybody can like a song that long, you know?
There's obviously new stuff coming out all over the place,
all they want to hear is Ace Of bloody Spades.
I would play it now. If I had it here I would play it now.
I would play it again and again. Like Paranoid.
You know, they're just icon records.
It is a real slap in the face, I suppose.
Yet at the same time a very commercial song.
And one of those songs that really...
On the Best Rock Anthems In The World Ever! Compilation, it's track one.
It's become almost a bit of a classic
which is something I could've only dreamed of
when I was learning to play in my living room.
When I was playing along with records at 14,
I could've only dreamed of having a classic.
It's important stuff. It's absolutely strong, urban, powerful music
that gets people up on a Saturday night and sends them out...
ready to face what comes next, and God knows we all need that.
In my opinion at the time,
as a fan I thought they were the greatest band on the planet. Still do.
It's one of those records that stand out as being...
you know, you got your record collection,
and in there somewhere is your Motorhead Ace Of Spades record.
For a period of time that line-up was famous.
The band still go on, they're still famous simply because Lemmy's still there.
Philip and Mickey are very good.
But If Lemmy was to decide, "Right, don't wanna do it anymore,"
that's the end of Motorhead. You know?
But I don't think that'll ever happen because Lem's the same as us,
he'll probably die on the road.
It's an attitude, it's a statement. A way of life.
You put Motorhead on the back of your jacket or on your t-shirt
and it says something about who you are,
what your view on life is, and that's an attitude,
much more than a relationship between a band and its fans.
It's a lifestyle.
I've tried to jam with people who were putting bands together
but it was like I always got the feeling...
"Fucking hell... I did this before."
It might sound clichéd and you may not believe me
but I just can't bring myself to play if I'm just going through the motions.
I'd rather not play.
For all the millions of pounds people have made out of this business
I would rather have Ace Of Spades than a million quid in the bank.
Because Ace Of Spades will be here after I'm gone
and it's a classic. You don't get classics every day.
The three of us should be grateful for that.
I'm not ashamed of anything we've done yet.
Cos having a career like this in what is essentially an artistic medium
and selling your ass for money,
which is very easy to do, you know.
Several people tried to make us do it
and I'm not interested in it.
If I have to die and be on my death bed regretting decisions I've made,
I'm not interested in that.
I wanna die completely satisfied that I did the best I could.
You know what I mean?
And I think selling your heart is real prostitution.
I think that's it...
Yeah? Well, we don't, do we, Lem?
I do. I'm going to the strip joint.
I'm going to watch naked women now
and I don't care if you like it or not.
I've told you, it'll lead you nowhere.
Going to strip joints, taking your clothes off.
I'm not looking for it to lead me anywhere!
- Take advantage of you. - Who are?
Those men looking at your body.
- I stopped dancing ages ago. - No, I don't care.
You said you would but I know different.
- I only dance with... - I know different.
...a full quilted housecoat on now.
- So attractive. - That's not what PC Rodriguez said.
- He retired 20 years ago. - That's why he can tell me now.
Yo!
Pretty tight since we haven't played it with each other for 20 years.
I can't imagine him doing anything else.
Imagine Lemmy going for a job.
"What have you been doing for the past... all your life?"
There's no pretence with Lemmy.
The fans would have seen through him by now.
What you see is what you get.
- That's the appeal. - He is Lemmy.
- He is, yeah. - The whole package.
Do I remember interviewing Lemmy?
God, yeah, I remember falling down stairs
outside the White House in Great Portland Street
after a significant amount of alcohol had been consumed
and doing an interview.
I remember falling out of his apartment in Los Angeles
after a bottle of Jack Daniels was consumed prior to the interview.
God knows what it sounded like.
Most of it I probably cut out and played music.
Do I remember interviewing Lemmy? Oh yes.
I remember interviewing Lemmy.
And I enjoyed every second of it. He's a very articulate man.
He's a highly skilled, highly intelligent man.
He was an icon to me.
I hang out with him every so often.
I just run into him places
and he's just one of those kind of guys that's...
honest and sincere and...
doesn't put on any airs or anything, he just is himself.
Very cordial, very cool, likes to have a drink.
I love drinking with him. And that can be any hour of the day or night.
In this business, he's one of the genuine guys out there.
No mess, no fuss.
I often look at Lemmy and think that there is no logical reason
for him to have to made it this far,
given the lifestyle that he leads.
Which is, you know...
it's nonstop.
But you sit back and think about it and it suddenly makes sense -
here is a guy who simply lives his life and enjoys his life
and does what he does.
Doesn't think too far ahead, doesn't look too far back,
doesn't get stressed out due to that.
And suddenly it makes wonderful sense.
He's a stress-free, hard-living rock-'n'-roller.
He was born to be there. Of course he's still alive.
Does it make sense for how he's lived his life over the years? No.
But psychologically it makes perfect sense.
There are times when I think he's possibly the child of aliens.
He has been doing this now, to my knowledge,
living almost exactly the same way from 1969.
What is that? That's...
I mean, that's 45 years? 35 years?
It's just been going on so long.
If I'd kept up that lifestyle, I'd be dead. And so would most people.
I have no idea how he keeps on doing it.
No idea whatsoever.
It seems like a physical impossibility. But he does it, you know?
He's got a strong constitution. That's what he says.
Yeah, very.
And of course he's got his daily tonic that he takes.
- What, the bourbon? - Well, that as well.
And everything else, yeah.
Last year when I was talking to him,
he was saying, "Have you given up drinking, Kim?"
I went, "No."
He goes, "Cos all these people that give up things just drop down dead."
And it's true, actually. I think that's his secret.
Because he just carries on.
He says all these people that give up this that and the other,
a year down the line, there's something wrong with them.
Your body goes into shock, probably.
Lemmy's body would go into shock.
- His philosophy is keep going. - It's preserving him.
You spend an evening with Lemmy
and he'll easily drink his way through a bottle of Jack.
Most people would either be on the floor or probably dead.
I think the thing about Lemmy is that he has built up this incredible resistance
but he also knows his own limits.
He doesn't just go bananas every night.
It's a sort of... I think he reaches a plateau
of Lemmytude, if you will,
and he just knows how to get there in a measured way.
Whereas a number of people have fallen by the wayside over the years,
he's one of those guys who does everything that's bad for you
but he knows how to control it.
I think a lot of doctors would like to know that one.
I don't know. I think it's the spirit of the mind.
He's a very, very strong... He's got very strong character.
I think he'll always do what he wants to do.
There aren't many people like him around. I've got a lot of respect for Lemmy.
Lem makes the best of what he got. He's honest with it
and he believes in what he does.
He's given me a few bits of advice since I've known him. Very good advice.
Never die ashamed. Don't be ashamed of what you've done.
And kind of be honest in a funny kind of way.
But he stands up for what he believes in and he'll say what he means.
You know where you are with Lem.
I respect... He's my mate. I don't see him as Lemmy from Motorhead.
Although I respect what he does. But we're good friends
and I respect him as a person, he does me, and we get on great.
But yeah, he's a worthwhile guy.
The young Lemmy.
I got on wonderfully well. I used to share a room with him on tours.
There's so many stories I could tell.
Yeah, I like Lemmy, he's a great character.
Yeah, we both were pretty loud.
I'm a bit deaf in my right ear because I used to have a big stack.
So...
Probably Lemmy's a bit deaf, I should imagine, by now.
You must know. Did you shout at him when you interviewed him?
He ought to come out the other end of it Sir Lemmy Kilminster.
I mean, Elton John and Cliff Richard and blah blah blah,
why not Lemmy for Christ's sakes?
He's existed as long as these people, he's as good as these people,
as determined, he's as British as these people,
and he's made a lot of money for this country down the line
and brought us a lot of respect in the arena within which he's functioned.
American bands really respect him.
They respect what he does musically
and what he's achieved as a man.
I think he ought to be recognized.
Go on, Elizabeth, get one out the drawer, give it to Lemmy, dear.
In a sense, he's almost a martyr, in a way,
because he stops at nothing and does his thing
and pulls no punches.
No matter what happens, he's always remained Lemmy.
The message that Lemmy has always given people is,
"Get off your fat arse and do something.
"Don't lose sight of your dream. Go for it."
It's a very profound message,
if you just take it out of everything else, the noise, the excitement,
it's a profound message, and it's damn true.
Don't deviate. Go for it.
Whatever you do - lawyer, curate, whatever -
don't deviate, keep going.
Lemmy said something interesting to me recently
with regards to Ace Of Spades
and regards to, actually, this program.
I said, "It must be quite something to be doing a program about this record,
"it must be really exciting."
He said, "It's nice, but remember,
"people's perception of something is always different to your reality of it."
And it's an interesting take.
People...
It basically explains a lot about Lem.
The perception of Lemmy
has always been a little different to who this guy is.
We go back to this bad-ass, nasty dude -
that's a perception, it's not true.
Lemmy has a really copious bag of tricks.
He listens to an awful lot of... He listens to Joni Mitchell, for Christ's sake.
There's a lot of John Lennon in him,
there's the trick of having the mic too high
so he constantly has to produce a voice from out of here.
It works, and also it saves his voice, he claims.
He's got amazing stamina. He absorbs ideas.
I genuinely remember at times when it's like,
life's getting bit, "The girlfriend's buggered off with the furniture,"
or whatever.
"The program is not sounding good, my voice is a bit strained tonight.
"I know what I'll do - I'll bang in a Lemmy track and liven us all up."
I used to genuinely do that.
And it livened me up, livened the audience up, livened the show up.
I don't like people who are like...
You know, people who are stupid by design.
You know...
I've got no time for that.
I'm not trying to prove that I'm a man any more,
I know I'm a man, I've got two kids and a dick.
It's easy, we can judge this one - take your clothes off and it's a guy.
So I don't have to defend that any more.
I don't have to fight people to prove I'm dominant.
I've never been interested in that.
I'm interested in people meaning what they do and doing what they mean.
I'm not interested in people who say one thing and do another.
And there are more and more of them around as time goes by.
There was lots of different times.
Lots of strange times where he used to fall asleep with his eyes open.
I used to share a hotel room with him, and we were touring the States,
and many's the time he's conked out in his bed with his eyes open.
"Lemmy, wake up."
He's eyes would be wide open.
He'd go, "What? What?" "Come on, we've got to catch a plane."
"I'll be down in a minute."
I'd go and have breakfast, all the band would be waiting.
I said, "He'll be down in a minute."
And we'd send up a tour manager to go and get him
and Lemmy would be crashed out again.
Everybody would be getting agitated cos we were gonna miss the flight.
He eventually got it together to come down.
Oh, yeah, in Cleveland,
two lots of hippies spiked us with angel dust.
The whole band.
We went on stage, you know,
"What's this?
"Oh, I hit it and it makes a noise? Good!"
Apparently, the gigs were all right.
We spiked all the food and drink in the Roundhouse,
everybody was doing the same twitch.
It was really odd, 600 people going...
You see that, you know you've made an impression.
We used to lock the door so people couldn't get out.
We had five strobes on the crowd at eye level.
We were in the dark.
These strobes were at the low blink, which is the dangerous one.
This is how clever the English are -
the law says you couldn't have it over a certain amount of blinks
but it's the low one that fucks you up.
We used to give people epileptic fits.
And then Mick came across with the tambourine.
"The blond one!"
Then down the guy would go.
We were very irresponsible.
But you are, when you can get away with it.
Yeah, it was very innocent, really.
We didn't know everybody was gonna die.
You know. Cos nobody had really died then.
There were a lot of junkies around but they weren't our scene,
we were doing acid and smoking dope mostly.
Lemmy always had this amazing mental list
of who would be awake at any given time.
When you didn't sleep for four or five days,
it was very hard to find places to go at four o'clock in the morning.
So the bell would ring, you'd go, "That's Lem."
If I wasn't in bed or otherwise occupied, I'd let him in.
He'd come in, look in the fridge, make himself a sandwich,
hand me a beer out of his jacket
and away it would go.
I remember at the time when I was reading stories of them on the road.
You'd see Lemmy drinking Special Brew and you'd go,
"I'd really want to drink Special Brew."
Of course, as a 14-year-old, that can be disastrous.
Even as an old man that can be disastrous.
We were in our van and we got stopped by the police
and he took a load of his speed and downers at the same time.
He was all over the place. Couldn't stand up, was falling over.
We had to tie him to his bed.
It was one of those big, wooden, old-fashioned beds.
We tied him to the bed with some sheets
and I had to phone a mate and say, "Lemmy's really...
"What can we do?"
And he said, "Just keep him quiet, he'll get over it."
His consumption of drugs at the time was huge. He got over that all right.
He'd come at one o'clock in the morning going, "Coming down The Speak?"
And there'd be some outrageous scene
with anyone from Keith Moon to Oliver Reed
or both of them together...
It was a very...
weirdly egalitarian time
where most things went and nobody bothered much, you know.
After a bit of fame, Lemmy couldn't walk out the door without being arrested
and there was a kind of hard core of him, Phil Lynott,
Wilko, Jean Jacques from the Stranglers,
and then suddenly at the ultimate end of that
there's John Rotten and Joe Strummer.
This was eight or nine years when things were rolling at an alarming speed.
Everybody had previous experiences,
he could tell his tales of working with Hendrix
and up until - God rest him - his death when he drowned in Greece,
there was Howard Parker
who was the mattre d'-cum-creative organizer
at The Speak which was the last bar open in town.
Then after that we'd find ourselves in the most alarming places,
weird places in Earls Court which were full of South African mercenaries
waiting for a job in the Congo or something.
The picture of Lemmy talking to...
two, kind of, South African Thompson-gunners, was...
It wasn't that it was weird, it all started to kind of get normal.
"Well, this is an interesting life. I'm glad I got this one!"
It was great, fascinating times. It was reflected in the music.
There was always something wrong with Phil.
Breaking his hand, or a bone in his foot, or his leg.
He had a lot of trouble with his stomach.
In New York he nearly died. Did he tell you?
Fucking hell, this is great.
We're playing at the old Waldorf,
just down from the Gramercy Park Hotel where we were staying.
- What is that noise? - Don't know.
- Sounds like a firework. - It's the door.
Oh, OK.
So when we do Overkill, at the end it stops,
then the drums start, and off he goes.
Well, it was hot, it was in the summer,
it was 100 degrees or something.
You know what New York's like, we was fucking toast.
So we're playing away,
we stopped and we were waiting for Phil to start.
There's nothing, so me and Lemmy look round,
and he's gone.
He's collapsed off the stool, he's gone completely.
So they've carried him off.
We've had to say, "That's it, kids, sorry."
So we've gone back to the Gramercy Park,
they've taken Phil up to the room.
I've gone to his room to ask what's going on.
And the tour manager, called Rabbit,
he said, "Man, go down to the lobby and bring the police up."
The paramedics and the police come together.
The police come first, I think.
So I've gone back to me room, tooted all me toot, had a quick joint,
and I've gone down to the lobby
and the police came in,
I said, "I'll show you where." So we're in the lift,
I'm shaking like a leaf. I'm toast.
I've had too much pump and I've just done a gig.
They said, "You're shaking a lot."
This is the cops and I'm fucking shitting it.
American cops, you've heard all these stories, and we hadn't met many.
I said, "I've just done a gig, I'm a bit freaked out."
So I took them up and showed them to Phil's room.
They still wouldn't let me in.
Apparently, Phil was having convulsions cos he was so ill.
He was having fits. They thought he was gonna die.
The paramedics came up. They thought he might not make it.
That's why they wouldn't let me in the room,
they didn't want me freaking out.
He's come close a couple of times.
There was a lot of drugs and drink going on.
The drink mainly, a lot of drinking. I didn't drink when I joined Motorhead.
I was a hippy, I'd smoke dope, toot coke, but not drink.
Anything that was a downer, I didn't like.
But with all this speed we were taking, we had no money for dope.
I'd be up for three days like a shaking wreck
and that's when I discovered that a Special Brew would take the edge off.
There was a funny story.
One of the early rehearsals, I think our second rehearsal,
this little room, much smaller than this...
It was about ten by eight. It was all full of carpets.
It was in the heat wave of '76, so it was toast down there.
A couple of Hell's Angels came to see us, Tramp and someone else.
And they came in. I didn't know any Hell's Angels at that time.
They came in and had a chat, nice guys.
They said, "We're off to the off license now."
So Phil and Lemmy said, "I'll have a Special Brew,"
and I said, "I'll have a Coke,"
which went down like a cup of cold sick.
I'm thinking, "What did I say that for?"
I knew Eddie Clark before Motorhead happened.
He and I were hanging out with a bunch of...
without going into details, very dubious characters.
We arrived one day in Cornwall,
at a place that had once been a sawmill.
I think it's a recording studio now. It was being converted.
It was in a weird Cornish granite V-shaped gorge
with buildings on one side and one of them had a flat roof.
I'd woken up from where I'd fallen the night before
and was stumbling around
wondering if there was any possibility of breakfast
without walking two miles to the village.
Eddie has dragged out a 100-watt Marshall,
a four by twelve, onto the flat roof of one of the buildings,
and he's playing, kind of...
a quasi-Hendrix solo directly at the cliff face opposite
and it's coming back at him, and I thought...
"Pity that boy isn't in a band,
"because there is a guitar player with a sense of stature, if nothing else."
I forgot about it, then two years later,
Lemmy introduces Eddie, his new guitar player,
and I'm going, "I know you." He goes, "I know you."
"You were the one playing at the cliff."
It always stuck in my memory.
This beautiful noise of a Fender hitting granite
and then coming back at you.
It even cut through the hangover. It was gorgeous, a gorgeous image.
He carried that through into...
You know, a guitar player is supposed to be larger than...
From Hank Marvin on, he's supposed to be larger than they really are.
I think Eddie really cut it.
Motorhead's after-show parties weren't known for their antics
because Motorhead full stop were known for their antics.
So it wasn't, "Let's have a party and go mad,"
it's like, "We are Motorhead, of course we're gonna go mad."
And they were all-drinking, all-snorting, all-fighting, all-shagging.
They were like rock Olympians in those stakes.
I think that they really, when Motorhead were on the road,
it really was a lock-up-your-daughters atmosphere.
Broke my ear off once. We were playing in the Russian Steppes.
That was during A Man Called Horse.
50 below zero.
I foolishly was doing that, and it came off in my hand.
- You had to stitch it back on for me. - I know. Superglue.
That's where you used your Swiss Army knife for the first time.
No, that was Eddie, when I cut the tip of his nose off when it went blue.
Yeah, that was good. Bluenose.
Bluenose. Phil gave him one of them and the tip of his nose went blue.
I didn't really mean to do that.
I saw somebody do it to somebody else
and I thought, "That's good." But I didn't have anybody to practice on.
So I went to Eddie... We were having a minor argument, I think.
I grabbed his nose and twisted it.
- It was in the Princess Alex. - It went blue immediately.
- He was ever so annoyed. - I know.
"Eddie's got a blue nose."
He wouldn't go out for ages. He hated me.
He hated everybody. But especially he hated his blue nose.
It was so blue.
I actually went with a sex change once.
Really?
I thought, "If he's got the guts to have his dick cut off, I've got the guts to fuck him."
That's real commitment, having your knob cut off.
What time to do you get up?
Very often I'm not in bed. I don't go to bed.
- Really? - You don't go to bed?
As you get older, you need less sleep.
Plus the fact I take a lot of drugs.
What's the longest you've stayed up?
Two weeks once. Without a blink.
But that was on methamphetamine hydrochloride, the liquid.
- That's impressive. - Back in '70, I think.
I felt fine. And all the time, in the two weeks I had two individual fruit pies
and two raspberry yogurts. That's it.
I went down The Speak, this is at the end of the two weeks, and I felt all right.
My friend Lou was there, and I said, "Hi, how you doing?"
She went, "Aah!"
I said, "What?" She said, "You just went, 'Nnnneeurgghh'."
We always worked from day to day...
I mean, when we were writing in the rehearsal studios...
Cos I mean, all the songs are obviously named...
Lemmy always wrote all the lyrics.
He's a good lyricist, I love Lemmy's lyrics, he's great.
Lemmy can be very, sort of, deep,
he can be very educational, he can be very philosophical,
and he can be very funny, all in the same song.
But it doesn't seem like it upon first glance.
I wouldn't say you have to know him to read between the lines.
He writes about things that are going on not only in his life
but all around him or everyone else.
But not...
You know, not specifically.
Very tongue-in-cheek or cynical,
without naming names.
Double meanings and double entendres.
But you know what he's writing about.
He writes great love songs, they just don't sound like love songs.
So he always wrote the lyrics, and the song titles came from those lyrics.
He always left his lyric writing right to the very last minute.
He would be writing all the way through
but he would be changing and chopping them when he was at home
and not until he was satisfied with lyrics for a certain tune
would he then show the band the lyrics.
We'd be listening to a playback in the studio
and he'd come up with a different lyric every day.
It seemed as if he'd just pulled it out of the hat
but he'd be working on it at home or while he was at the bar.
The thing about Lemmy, he's got great powers of concentration.
He could be working on the lyrics for something
the same time as reading a book, playing a one-armed bandit,
sweet-talking some girl and smoking a cigarette at the same time
and apply equal amount of concentration on each subject.
Every one was different.
Most of them I write under the clock in the studio.
I find that works.
Some I've written before we had the song,
most of them I've written for the song when we've already got the riff.
But Sacrifice and Orgasmatron I wrote before we've had the riff.
Couple of songs here and there.
But usually I'm better off writing to the riff, you know.
I think Lemmy is a very, very fine writer.
Very fine writer. Nobody's ever given him the time of day for it.
Influential people have not so far stood up and said,
this man is a fine writer,
in the British sense.
Don't forget he's British, English.
Lives in LA. Most sensible move he ever made.
He was starving in this country, going nowhere,
went to LA and two years later he's got a Grammy nomination.
That says something about what you can achieve in Los Angeles.
He would never have achieved that in Shepherd's Bush.
But he's got a...
unparalleled passion for what it is he does
and as a lyricist he can hardly be touched.
So all around, just his bass sound, his persona, his creative...
It's a lot more than even what Motorhead encompasses.
I mean, obviously, it's mostly Lemmy's input as far as the writing's concerned,
but the depth of it,
I think people don't even realize how sincere and deep some of it is.
Cos it's probably delivered at such high velocity
that people are trying to keep their molars in
and their fillings in their teeth from falling out,
and never stop to think about the sensitive subtleties
of Lemmy Kilminster's delivery.
I think Lemmy as a lyricist is completely underrated.
How many other guys in rock-'n'-roll bands can you name
that have managed to fit the word "parallelogram" into a song?
I'd say he's in a field of one in terms of that.
I think, lyrically, Ace Of Spades, it's got some fantastic wordplay.
It's got some straight-up and direct stuff on there as well
but it is a hugely romantic record.
I think his lyrics are very romantic on that.
They do celebrate life on the road
but they also celebrate the notion of swaggering rock-'n'-roll,
and that rock-'n'-roll is not just about the music,
it's about a way of life.
And I think that's what that record, lyrically, symbolizes to me.
Lemmy as a lyricist is very underrated.
Extremely underrated.
People chuckle sometimes at the "simplicity".
But you know what? You can remember those words.
And if you look into some of it, some of his lyrics are very funny.
There's an oblique sense of humor.
He's a great Spike Milligan fan, and The Goons and Monty Python.
He loves vintage comedy.
He's got an incredible sense of humor,
very dry, very ironic.
The best sense of humor. Too quick for most people.
Certainly too quick for me half the time. But a great sense of humor.
And you do see it in some of the song titles.
Shoot You In The Back, there's a sense of irony to a lot of this stuff.
There really is. He's having fun with words.
One of the problems with Motorhead,
I was always a bit disappointed that people didn't read Lemmy's lyrics,
which are very, very pungent, very meaningful,
they're not just ordinary lyrics.
I think if people took more notice...
The trouble was, it was very easy to dismiss what Motorhead played.
We had terrible trouble with our licensees, nobody wanted to put Motorhead out.
And we had to really talk everybody into it.
Once they started selling records, then it was a different thing.
The way we used to write songs,
we always wrote way more than what came out on the album
because we'd always pick and choose.
We might rehearse a number for ages and ages
but at the end throw it out
cos we'd get into the studio and record it and hear what it really sounds like.
Quite a few numbers don't sound anywhere near as good
as when you're playing them at a thousand million watts
and can't hear what you're playing in the rehearsal studios.
You get in the studio and you can hear every little thing.
Some numbers don't sound as good.
So we did have a certain amount of self quality control.
I think, with any kind of music,
whatever your personality is,
whatever the kind of person you are and you write and play music,
your persona, so to speak, or a side of your character,
will somehow come through in the music.
I mean, I don't think you can avoid that.
We were driving through Michigan to get to Detroit
and we stopped at the roadhouse in Niles, Michigan,
to get a meal or something.
I wasn't hungry cos I'm a speed freak,
so I went off for a wander
and I came back and they'd gone without me, left me there.
And I was tripping as well.
So now I'm hitch-hiking across Michigan, right,
and it's dark too,
and the people were picking me up, w buses full of hippies
making it even worse, giving me joints to smoke.
Get out again, truck stopped, I get a lift from a homosexual trucker.
"You're from England? I'd like to suck your dick right now."
"I'll just get out here then."
And I got to Detroit, seven in the morning,
and I get to the hotel.
Now imagine, I'm winding down off acid,
had a very traumatic journey,
the hotel has a convention of cripples.
So there's wheelchairs and, like, Humpty everywhere
and I'm...
So I finally get up to my room at about 7:30, eight o'clock,
sleep for about five hours, then it's sound check.
Go down to the sound check,
everybody was, "Glad you made it," played the show,
thunderous applause.
Woken up at seven the next morning to go to Canada,
got some pills and some powder,
stuck 'em down me pants,
supposed to go over the bridge, went under the tunnel - bad move.
Instant skin search and they found it all.
He was in our car.
Doug Smith, our manager at the time,
said, "Make sure you don't have any drugs as we go across the border."
We all got rid of everything.
Lemmy had crashed out on the front seat, always sat on the front seat,
and he was asleep with his mouth open,
drooling, unfortunately, as we went through customs.
They saw him and thought, "We'll get that lot out."
And unfortunately they found what they thought was some cocaine but was speed
that Lemmy had stashed in his pocket.
He was immediately pulled,
we all got searched and sent on our way
and they kept him at the border until they analyzed it.
"OK, everybody, this is cocaine."
It wasn't, it was speed.
In the great way of Canadian courts,
it was thrown out because it was a wrongful charge.
And they don't re-charge you over there.
Cos they know it's illegal, they just got it wrong.
In England they'd arrest you outside the court and take you back in.
So I got away with it.
So I get to the gig.
I found out later that they only got me out of jail
because the replacement couldn't get there in time.
I get there and everybody's fine, get on stage, thunderous applause,
four o'clock in the morning I'm fired.
Here we are in the Rainbow indeed.
- Is it your regular hangout? - It's one of them.
How often do you come down here?
You know, on national holidays or of a Sunday afternoon,
just before I go to church for evening mass.
Or evening mess.
I come here about three times a week, it's only two blocks from where I live.
And it's downhill going home.
- That's important. - Yeah, it's handy, that.
A guy in Wales carved it and presented it to me.
Fucking great lump of granite.
I told him I'd bring it here, see if they'd put it in the sidewalk, and they did.
So hooray.
- Hooray for me. And him. - Yeah, cool.
Where you are, Joe DiMaggio met Marilyn Monroe on a blind date.
This used to be called Villa Nova, it was an Italian restaurant,
where Sinatra and his mates all hung out.
It's changed because time's changed.
It's like another planet now from when I first came here.
People are different, they think and act different.
They are different. So fuck 'em.
That's what I say.
You know, the old days weren't always worse.
The old days here were better,
to a very, very large extent, believe me.
We were optimistic, instead of being fucking doomed like they are now.
- This doom thing is... - It's fear, man.
- It's a bit fucking uphill. - It's fear.
The government programming fear into everybody.
They were frightened then too, they used to have riots.
The cops used to beat them up with billy clubs in the '70s.
They weren't scared then.
- They were up for it. - They didn't have Starbucks.
- Yes, and thank God for that. - On every corner.
I believe they're gonna outlaw booze in bars soon.
We're all gonna sit and drink fucking Starbucks and not smoke.
Or we have them smokeless fucking cigarettes.
I don't know what's the matter with everybody. You can't be safe.
A car might run you down any second. Think of that.
Never come out the house again. I don't need you on my street,
you afraid motherfucker.
What's the matter with people?
They just want to go to work, come home, and lock themselves in.
Big fucking thing around the garden like it's a medieval fortress.
Who are they hiding from?
If the guy wants to get in, he'll get in.
They just boost each other over the fence.
A jumbo jet taking off from LAX, right,
is like 2,000 smokers smoking 200 cigarettes a day for 30 fucking years.
And they want me to stop smoking this?
Fuck off, be serious.
If you're gonna be serious, ban automobiles.
Then I'll give up smoking. I'd volunteer for it.
Unless you're gonna do that, then don't be fucking futile. Slogans.
The charts were always crap, man,
right from when they started having them.
All this shit was up there in the top ten.
Might get a few rock-'n'-roll things in the bottom half of the top 20
but not a lot.
I did like it when you could get The Yardbirds
in the same charts as Barbra Streisand,
cos you only had one chart to try and get in.
We went number one in the national chart,
not the heavy metal chart,
or the alternative chart, or the postmodern chart,
or the urban renewal chart,
or the one man with a leg on a donkey chart.
What's the point of going to the top of your own little chart?
Doesn't mean anything.
Help, I'm being interfered with.
You may not touch me there!
You know you want it!
I'm being inappropriately handled.
That was part two about inappropriate touching, children.
Never let a man touch you like that
unless you're another man on a drum stool,
and he wants to put a microphone on you.
Otherwise it's right out, not permittable at all.
The end. Wasn't bad.
So do I get the job cleaning up, then?
That's probably the most famous heavy metal riff of all time.
I like to think so. It would be great if it was.
I'm sure there's other ones that come in the top ten or whatever.
But yeah, it's one of the most common in your head.
When you hear "heavy metal", you think Ace Of Spades.
Cos it did kind of cross over, whereas most of the other ones didn't.
I do remember, I can honestly say,
I seem to remember standing in this little studio
and Lemmy saying to me,
"Let's change that riff."
I'm going, "OK, what have you got in mind?"
So then that's when we went to E.
And then this...
I don't know where that came from. Maybe Vic.
Cos Vic Maile was throwing in his six penn'orth.
Like I was saying, little things that got changed in the other two albums,
would never have happened because it was already done.
This one we had a bit of a chance to tinker with stuff.
That's the live ending.
The other thing with those tracks, especially Reptile...
Just to say about Reptile, the verse was...
That was... The verse went like that.
If we were having a particularly fast night.
It became virtually impossible.
I was telling you about the fast nights.
OK, Hammer.
This is in E. Another of our favorite keys.
- So that's... - Very cool.
The solo in that...
I did one of those solos.
There were times when you wanted to do something different.
The only problem that we did have is the speed we were going.
If you got a bit overambitious you could find yourself out on a limb.
Suddenly everybody's off on the next verse
and I'm still trying to finish up my lick.
Which happened quite a few times.
But generally speaking, when you're live, people only hear it quickly.
We'd come off stage and go, "That was a crappy gig."
And the kids come and say, "That was the best gig I've ever heard."
They don't hear all the little mistakes that you might make.
They just hear it as a whole thing.
Just sometimes we get a bit... Musicians being musicians.
Or whatever they call us. Motorhead are not really musicians.
Motorheaders. We were Motorheaders.
This guitar was a little bonus thing...
I've had it ever since the very early days.
We had a friend of ours who later became our tour manager...
I only had one guitar, cos as I told you, one of them was stolen
and I used that money to... So I only had one guitar left.
It was a little one pickup thing.
I had to use that for the first year.
Then this friend of ours, he didn't play guitar but he had this guitar.
When anybody who used to pop round his house, he'd say,
"If you wanna sand off the guitar, you can do."
So over the years, or six months,
people who'd been round there got all the paint off,
he linseed-oiled it and he lent it to me first for two years.
I couldn't pay him, obviously.
Eventually I did pay him. I didn't rip him off.
There's a nice bit of history with this.
It was stolen... I had it stolen in '93 out of my place in Twickenham.
The local papers did a big spread
and the police put it out on the radio,
and I got the guitar back about five days later.
I got these frantic phone calls from the thieves.
"You can having your fucking guitar back, it's too hot for us."
I said, "Bring it round, I'll give you 100 quid."
So they sent some bird round with it.