RUMBLING
'The door is under attack. They're everywhere.'
INDISTINCT COMPUTER GAME DIALOGUE
Damn!
SHOOTING AND EXPLOSIONS
EXPLOSIONS
GAME SOUND EFFECTS CONTINUE
- RADIO: - 'Loveline is meant for an adult audience.
'Loveline may contain sexually oriented content.
'Listener discretion is advised.'
- 'It starts now.' - 'And it is Loveline.
'That number is 1-800-LOVE-191.
'Very exciting evening today. Why don't you introduce our guest?'
'Oh, I don't know.
'A little guy who started off his career in space rock band Hawkwind
'many years ago. But you probably know him best for
'the close to 35 years as the only static member of a band called Motorhead.'
The image of him holding that Rickenbacker bass is enough to put shivers up my spine.
I am, of course, talking about the man sitting right next to me, musical icon, Lemmy.
You romantic fool!
HEAVY GUITAR RIFF
The man is the modern Jesus.
To be honest, he is fucking Jesus Christ.
Motorhead is my life.
Without Lemmy, there would be no Metallica, no Megadeth, no Slayer.
There wouldn't be any of today's heavy metal.
Rock'n'roll IS Lemmy, Lemmy IS rock'n'roll.
Rock'n'roll!
# Hey, baby, don't act so scared
# All I want is your special care. #
If I hear Motorhead, I will bang for the whole time.
Lemmy is God.
If they drop a nuclear bomb on this planet,
Lemmy and cockroaches is all that is going to survive.
# Move over for a damaged case. #
# Hey, babe, wait a minute stop. #
Everybody, it's Loveline. Lemmy from Motorhead in the house.
- Mike Catherwood, paying homage. - You know it.
The current CD is called Motoriser, the 24th CD from Motorhead.
- Amazing. - Yes, it amazed me all right.
35 years ago, when you were getting the band started, did you think you would be 25 albums in?
You don't think like that. You think, two years.
You just want to play with a couple of guys, that is all it is.
- And then it goes on, and on. - And on!
- Is it true that over 2,000 women you've bedded? - No, the magazine printed that. I said a thousand.
- Yeah. That's still pretty impressive. - Not really, I've never been married and I'm 63.
Work it out, it's not many a year.
- Wow. - I like how he thinks.
Let's go to calls. Jason is calling from Canada.
'Lemmy, it is an honour to be talking to you. A true legend.
'Two quick questions for you.
'Basically, I would like to know what are your musical influences today?
'And your favourite place to play a gig.'
I don't really mind where we play, as long as they go "Hooray".
- 'I think it's cool you're still rocking today. Keep up the good work.' - I will.
Don't forget, I'm not qualified to do anything else!
- 'The other question was, what are your musical...' - Influences, yes.
He anticipates that one!
Your influences are the same when you're my age as when you were 20.
The first things you hear that really knock you out stick with you.
You're never going to hear any music better than that.
So it was Little Richard, the Beatles, Elvis, you know.
I like good old stuff, you know.
Where were you when you heard that stuff?
The first time I saw the Beatles, they hadn't made a record yet.
- You saw them? - Yes, at the Cavern in Liverpool. - What was that like?
It was magic. They WERE magic, you know.
- Did you think, "This is going to be the greatest rock band of all time"? - Yes. Kind of, I did.
We used to get these girls would come down...
I lived in a holiday resort place in North Wales.
These girls from Liverpool would come down.
And every year, there was this singer called Billy Fury, they were crazy about him.
And then one year, it had all changed.
It was this Beatles thing, you know.
So we would hitch-hike up to Liverpool, see what they were like.
They were monstrous, like, perfect, you know.
People think the Stones were the hard men and the Beatles the sissies, and it's the opposite.
The Beatles were from Liverpool and the Stones were from the London suburbs, you know.
Going to art school and shit. It wasn't that way at all.
The Beatles, I always thought, were the best band in the world.
- No, we don't. - I knew you were going to say that!
SHOP TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT
MUSIC ON TANNOY
TANNOY: 'Landor, call on line one.'
'Landor, line one is for you.'
The owner gave you hers.
Want to go over?
- 44.67. We don't take American Express. - Oh, you don't? Take Visa?
Yes.
- Where's the lady who gave me her copy? - I'll bring her over.
I was like, all right, I've got to give it to him, in the name of rock and roll.
And it sounds great. I think you'll really like it.
Yes, the original...
A couple of them are like, I mean... Sgt Pepper sounds amazing.
- I think you'll really like it. - Thanks very much.
# Dance
# Girl you gotta move your feet
# Dance don't stop
# Dance till you drop
# Dance to the American beat. #
The Sunset Strip has seen a whole lot of different movements and genres
and musical versions of the same thing, basically.
We had a bunch of different musical movements and, first of all,
Motorhead is one of those bands that transcends movements.
It doesn't matter what's happening in the community, in the rock culture,
Motorhead is still hailed as being, like, king.
When he moved to LA, became part of the scene, he was already embraced.
Basically, his throne was waiting for him.
Two cameras, A mark.
And mark.
Action.
Lem, there's somebody I want you to meet. Hank, the writer.
Obviously, he's not from LA, but it is really interesting to see
how much of a staple Lemmy has become, especially in Hollywood.
He has become a Los Angeles icon, you know.
- Cut. - I don't know if he does fit in in LA.
LA is so fucked up,
he doesn't really fit.
I think Hollywood has to fit him.
All we have to do now is do that another 147 times and we're there.
A lot of people are LA bashers.
Especially people from up north in San Francisco, that kind of thing.
That is LA, La-La Land, or whatever they call it.
You know, it is just a land of pretentious people,
all that kind of thing.
There is a real weight to this town, there is a real history to it.
I think it has got a lot more balls than a lot of big cities, frankly.
'Lemmy looks like an LA rocker to me.
'He has got that thing about him.
'He is combination biker, musician,'
or guy that works at the car wash.
He's got that old school LA look.
'He doesn't change it and I don't think'
it was created.
And that is what the good part of LA is, it is
the people who don't try to be.
I was in bands when I was a little kid. I came to California to do that.
I got out here and this guy I knew wanted me to go for an acting part.
I got that and the next thing you know,
I was in some theatre group and I didn't know anything about it.
I realised I was making a little bit of money doing this acting.
I do, too.
I doubt we'll get it in this day and time.
I always figured, my music is very popular, I must be doing something wrong!
Yes, me too. I grew up with that.
Oh, it's great.
Oh, I'm telling you.
Oh, yeah.
I worked with him one time on a TV show, he was there.
And he pulls up in an old Cadillac
and all of these guys get out in suits and everything.
He met my son.
My son at the time was only like three or four.
Little Richard goes, "Hey, baby!"
I go to my kid, I say, "Hey, Willie, it's OK to talk to this cat,
"but don't sit on his lap."
'Lemmy is like'
a fucking radioactive cowboy.
- A hard rock Johnny Cash. - A biker.
World War Two chic.
- He's Black Bart meets Mad Max. - He's Captain Hook.
A little bit of cowboy, a little bit of metal.
Little bit of rock'n'roll.
He'd be the perfect description of my dream dude, for sure.
Lemmy's look is something that is probably a little bit
cultivated from back in the fifties.
And then added to that,
some of the shit that he picked up
along the way... bikers, punk rock, whatever.
Although he has been around for a long time,
so maybe some of the punk stuff, they got it from him.
Describing Lemmy's style is not that easy,
because from boot to boot, it always changes substantially.
# Let me tell you, babe
# What I say is right... #
He's got a very distinctive and good aesthetic sense.
He actually will bring me drawings of what he wants.
# You've got me crazy... #
If I was to really give it a specific name,
I would probably say it is like a Western jackboot.
He likes these boots with a squared-off nose,
almost military looking.
Almost like a cavalry kind of boot
with Motorhead flair to it, of course.
# What I say is true... #
We were at a rehearsal place in the Valleys back in the mid-nineties
and Motorhead was right next to us, rehearsing for a tour.
Every day, we would see Lemmy out at this video game in the lobby area.
It was summertime, it was really hot in the Valley,
and Lemmy was wearing shorts.
Now if I tell you, he's wearing Daisy Dukes.
It was like a thong, dude.
You would walk out of our door
and the first thing you would see when you walked out of our room
was Lemmy bent over this machine.
So it's basically Lemmy bending over with his ass in your face.
That's a weird scene.
And we're all wearing shorts, but our shorts are board shorts.
Finally, you know, I got the balls to walk up to him.
He's playing the game. I was like, "Hey, man."
He's like, "Hey, Scott, how are you?"
I'm like, "We've all been wondering." "What's that?"
I said, "What's the deal with the shorts? Like, seriously?"
And I'm thinking, I'm afraid is he going to punch me, what's going to happen?
He's like, "What? What do you mean?"
And I said, "They're really short.
"We see your ass every day, it's kind of weird."
He goes, "What? It's hot out. These are shorts."
And he kind of steps back and looks at me and goes,
"Those aren't shorts. Those are pants. These are shorts. I'm cool."
And he kind of goes like this, like...
Like it made absolute sense.
# So bad baby I don't care. #
What anyone thinks, what anyone cares, it doesn't matter.
He's just Lemmy, you either take him or you fucking don't.
He doesn't give a flying shit whether you do or not.
There are no words.
He's Lemmy. It's almost...
It should be a verb.
Nobody told him to do
anything that he wasn't completely natural and comfortable doing.
And that's rare.
And that's why I think we respond with respect.
Because we want to be like that.
I think he is a renegade.
There's not that many of them any more. Everybody assimilates.
You know, go along to get along. To get what they need to get.
And I don't see Lemmy as that kind of guy.
I see Lemmy as doing things his way to get where he wants to go.
And that's attractive, because people don't do that any more.
# When you move in right up close to me
# That's when I get the shakes all over me. #
The thing I remember about Lemmy, which has nothing to do with music,
is that he was obsessed, and I think he still is, with one-armed bandits.
You know, the...
And I can remember
Dingwalls, the little club in London, very popular, by the canal.
I think that's probably the first time I ever met him.
You walked into Dingwalls and just inside was the one-armed bandit
and, without fail, he would be on that.
Sometimes all night.
I don't know if he ever won, but he would play it for hours.
I've never seen anybody love those things so much.
They should bring out a Motorhead one-armed bandit.
And if you get three Lemmies, you win the jackpot.
# Shaking all over... #
When it comes to rock'n'roll, you need something to believe in,
you know?
Integrity means everything.
Musically, of course, when you go and see a band
and you know it's coming from the heart, it touches you even more
because there's some sort of human connection.
If you go up and see some robots moving around the stage,
you might as well go home and play video games.
But when someone is doing... when someone's playing rock and roll from the heart
and they really walk it like they talk it, you pay more attention,
because it makes you feel like a human being, in a way.
Like, to connect to someone doing something really honest or really true,
it's important.
And so, to me, more than any other rock musician...
I consider Lemmy a legend, you know,
but to me, more than any other rock musician,
he is the baddest motherfucker in the world.
HE PLAYS BASS DRUM
DRUM RIFF STARTS
You know what would be cool?
If I could get one of those lyric sheets?
When it gets to the instrumentals, there's two 12 bars in a row, OK?
Let's just check the levels here
with Lemmy, make sure he can hear himself.
BASS GUITAR
HE PLAYS A RIFF
BASS DROWNS VOICES IN BACKGROUND
That one little spot where it's on the double chorus...
- Yeah, it's a double chorus, you know? Fuck! - For Christ's sake.
What was Chuck Berry thinking?
I remember a show in England that I did with Meat Loaf, where the whole show
was held up because Chuck Berry thought he hadn't been paid when his agent had been paid,
and wouldn't go on until he had a wad of money.
He had been fucked so many times, you know?
In the '50s, there were no rules at all.
A guy could pull a gun and say, "I'm not paying you, what you going to do?"
Even in the '60s and late '60s,
Hendrix got burned fucking blind, you know.
He never saw any of the money.
I was outside LAX once, getting ready to get on a plane.
And this young black guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, I read in an interview that the only person
"you ever want to meet is Little Richard".
And I'd always said that.
I didn't give a fuck about anyone else, it's Little Richard.
And he goes, "Yeah, he's my dad." I said, "Shut the fuck, really?
He goes, "Yeah, come here."
And there's this limo parked up front, and he goes...
And the window comes down like...
And fucking Little Richard is sitting right there!
I'm like, "Oh, my God." And he goes, "Hey, Dad, this guy..."
And he was like, "What?" He said, "This guy's a musician".
And he goes, "Oh."
And the window comes down and he goes, "God bless you!"
How weird must it have been to be gay and black in Macon, Georgia
in the '50s?
- And an amazing singer. - The best rock'n'roll singer ever.
I don't know who people consider the originator of rock'n'roll.
That's who I think it is, Little Richard. He was crazy.
Him, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Those three.
You can't tell who did the first whatever, but between them,
they started rock'n'roll.
When you meet the originals, you realise, like,
of course they're troubadours and renegades.
They're fucking freaks.
That's where you got all of the music that was different than anything else, like Little Richard,
a gay black dude in Macon, Georgia in the '50s.
What was he gonna do? There was nothing he could do but
- play rock'n'roll. - Not going to be a boxer, is he? - Probably not!
People said, "Don't you like Prince?", back in the '70s and '80s.
I said, "No, I've seen Jimi Hendrix".
He comes on with scarves all over him with a Stratocaster.
Are you kidding?
I used to score for Mitch, I used to score dope for him.
And I used to score acid for Hendrix.
He was a very fair man.
I would give him ten trips, and he would give me three and take seven.
- Very generous. - But you had to take them then, on the spot.
Yeah.
The thing is with acid, they say it doesn't work two days in a row.
But we found that if you double the dose, it does!
Gutsy ending.
Lemmy.
FINAL CHORD
- Yeah! - Yeah.
- See you, buddy. When are you back? Are you here for good now? - I'm not away for a while.
I'll call you when I get back. Let's grab a drink. I haven't been to the Rainbow in ages.
I had a fight going on with the fucking Darkness, this band, right?
That's why I called you, because I was sitting there. We went to the show and the show was fun.
So we went to the Rainbow and we were sitting there, and I'm sitting at a table talking to the singer,
and he says, "Hey, you recorded a song with Lemmy, right?" I said, "Yeah".
He said, "We kind of have a little feud going with him right now." I was like, "Why?"
And he said, "He reviewed our record and he said it was fucking shit."
And I'm like, "Have you ever met him?" He said no.
I don't think you had met him before.
I'm like, "Dude, he's the fucking greatest guy". He's like, "Yeah, well,
"so I called him a fucking cunt or something in the press."
I'm like, "Honestly, he's a good dude. You'd like him".
And I said, "I'm going to take a piss."
And I fucking got my cellphone and I'm like, "Lem, what are you doing?
- "Come on up for a drink!" - So I got the whole of Darkness there.
When he sees you coming, it was just like, "Oh, fuck me, no!"
And Lemmy sat down. At first I'm like, "Hey, what's going on?"
He's like, "You know, I wanted to go to the Darkness gig,
"but they banned me from the show".
- And I said, "Have you met Justin, the singer?" - I talked to him for about half an hour that night.
- Yeah. - And you didn't change my opinion one bit!
LAUGHTER
MOTORBIKE ENGINE ROARS
# Riots in the burning street
# Crystal night outside
# Brutal music in the night
# Enough to make you cry
# Nobody knows how it is
# To sleep and drown the world
# I am the midnight snake to bite your little girls
# Outside in the distance the city in the fire... #
The Rainbow Bar and Grill is the most famous restaurant bar
where musicians and hanger-oners and groupies...
It's sort of like the place
to go hunt and the place to die at the same time.
It's a rocker place.
If you're a rock'n'roller, you come to the Rainbow.
If you're not, don't come here.
# Well lawdy lawdy lawdy Miss Clawdy
# Girl, you sure look good to me
# Please don't excite me, baby... #
In the '90s, for me anyway, Lemmy became synonymous with the Rainbow, because any time
you'd go there, there he is playing the trivia machine.
It literally became a joke. Like, "Let's go to the Rainbow
"and have a drink and say hi to Lemmy," like jokingly, and then Lemmy's there.
So many tourists come in, especially in summer.
"Is Lemmy here? Is Lemmy here?"
He's not here, he's on tour.
He's got to be one of two places, the Rainbow or on tour.
Just give Lemmy that game, a Jack and Coke and a cigarette, then he's there forever.
When people come in here and they go on the game
and they go, "It says Lemmy up there." "Yeah, Lemmy from Motorhead."
"No! It can't be." This is the middle of the afternoon.
Then all of a sudden, here's Lemmy sitting at the bar.
I've seen everything from chicks welling up
to the frat guy go, "Oh, my God!"
It's best when they start crying. It's so cute.
Anyone that wants a picture, he'll take one.
Anybody that wants to talk to him, he'll talk to them.
But you got to let him play his Megatouch first.
He'll be sitting there playing it.
Some sort of weird heavy-metal meditation,
mixed with Jack and Coke and something else that we won't disclose.
I was a house painter for about three weeks.
Working for this old gay guy called Mr Brownsword.
How's that? It's true, too.
Mr fricking Brownsword.
It doesn't come any better than that.
Monty Python couldn't do better.
Luckily, he fancied my mate and not me,
so I got to paint the upstairs while he was attacking Colin downstairs.
I worked at the riding stables in the summer. I worked on the fair
when the fair came round. What else? I worked in a factory for a while,
but that was terrible. I grew my hair, so they fired me.
We had the beach, the sea, the horses, so it was great.
I had a pretty good childhood.
I ain't complaining.
Until they fucking ruined it and put the school in there.
I had heard before that Lemmy went to school here,
but I had heard a load of rumours about it first.
I checked on the internet and found it was true.
- I heard Lemmy got expelled from this school. - For what reason?
Apparently, he was playing his guitar down the Tannoy,
but I'm not sure if that's true.
I don't know if he wanted to be a rock star.
I think it just came naturally. That is how he seems.
He seems like pure rock.
# If you like to gamble
# I tell you I'm your man.
# You win some lose some
# It's all the same to me
# The ace of spades
# The ace of spades! #
Hi, Lemmy!
# Dandy Dandy
# Where you going to go now?
# Who you going to run to?
# All your little life
# You're chasing all the girls... #
I saw the Vickers at the Oasis in Manchester, and I thought
they were excellent, so I went and asked for a job with them.
# Chatting up the ladies
# Tickling the fancy
# Hiring out your charms... #
We'd be on with the Kinks, the Who, the Hollies.
We played at South Pier, Blackpool, with the Who.
And all the audience were chanting "we want the Vickers."
Roger Daltrey didn't like that.
They were a damn good band.
And compare very favourably
with any of the bands who were bigger,
like the Who and the Kinks and Manfred Mann and all those people.
At the time, they were as big in the north as the Kinks were in the South.
We just toured around the north of England, really.
We couldn't even get arrested in London.
North of Birmingham, we were big stars. This was 1965/6.
We were on �200 a week each, clear.
That's like �4,000 a week each now.
We all had Jags. We had a speedboat, for Christ's sake.
We used to go water-skiing on Windermere.
It was rock 'n roll with a bit of thump. Very aggressive.
He would go up to his amplifier and feed his guitar back,
and he would make them scream.
When I first joined the Vickers, they were ambitious.
They settled into this routine of doing the same gigs every year.
In the end, they became a cabaret show.
So it wasn't for me.
He wanted to be in the thick of it in London.
And we didn't.
What I really like about the Lemmy mythology is that he used to
be a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, too,
which scores a lot of points in my book, man.
He would rather play an instrument than carry it.
And so that gives you the idea.
Just as a resume piece, defining "what is a rocker?",
he had it to his core, you know.
The kind of guy that says "If I can't be in the band...
"I'll carry their equipment".
He hung out with musicians,
and he did it continually until people let him play.
He's really come up the hard way.
He said one of the most amazing one-liners I've ever
heard in my life, to me.
He said I remember before there was rock'n'roll.
I said "wow, that is a wild thing to say."
I said, "What do you mean?"
I'm not going to try and imitate his voice.
He said "I remember when there were only Rosemary Clooney records.
"I remember before there was rock'n'roll.
"There were just your mum's records."
I think I'm paraphrasing.
He said something like "then we Elvis and never turned back.
"We heard rock'n'roll" and said "that's us."
In the '60s, to get albums and singles,
I had to go down to the electrical appliance shop,
and he would order it for me from whatever company.
He wasn't licensed to do it, it was just a friendly basis.
He would order them for me and three weeks later, they would come back.
The Buddy Holly record called Wishing,
and a Buddy Holly record called Learning The Game.
Eddie Cochran, Three Steps To Heaven, and Something Else.
Kids, without knowing it, when they listen to Motorhead, they're getting
Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran.
It was the same thing with the original punk rock guys.
They were very influenced by that music. A lot of times, the fans don't know that.
But when they are listing to Ace Of Spades,
they are listing to Eddie Cochran.
That's Lem's influence.
# Well, I taught the weeping willow how to cry
# And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky... #
It is like what we did when we are were teenagers
and that is why we played music in the first place.
The music was so real, so unpretentious,
that people can't help but like it.
# A bad little kid moved into the neighbourhood... #
The genesis of Headcat was somebody wanted me to do one track for an Elvis tribute record.
I know Lem loves Elvis, as did Jonny Ramone, so I thought,
wouldn't it be cool to get Jon and Lem on the same record.
So we went in and we went and did the song.
Jon went home and we had all the studio time left because we did it so quickly.
We all knew the same songs by heart, so we said we should do an album.
So we did.
# Buys all the rock'n'roll books from the magazine stand. #
This apartment is like a fucking museum. It is a museum.
I have seen museums with less shit in them.
It is one of those things.
This was available and it was near the Rainbow, you know.
Because that is the only reference to LA I have ever had.
All I've ever done is stay at the Park Sunset and come up to the Rainbow.
Which is what we used to do. He's pretty cool, isn't he.
That is the Metal Hammer award. Two of them.
This is a porcelain model of me,
done by somebody and given to me on the road.
It is pretty interesting shit. You get given some great stuff.
The platinum album is from Joan Jett.
The gold one is from Lita Ford,
because I wrote a song on that album.
That's from a festival in Germany.
And this is my Scottish clan - Fraser.
And this is my honorary membership in the Rangers.
There's my action figure.
You've got to keep these in their original boxes.
One day, it might be worth as much as 5.
Silver and gold records for Ace Of Spades.
This is from Hammersmith Odeon. And this is by a German cat.
Pretty good, too, huh.
I wish I hadn't dropped it, you know.
Why not move?
For one thing, I'm never going to get a place for the money
I'm paying here.
I've got a place that is rent controlled,
they can't put it up by more than six percent a year,
so I am still only paying 900 bucks for a block from Sunset.
I am never going to get a deal like that.
And I'd rather live around here because I like it around here.
What's your most cherished possession in here?
My son.
He's the only one I have got.
I mean, I have another one, but I have never seen him,
so he doesn't count, really.
Neither have I, no.
His mother went and found him two years ago,
says he's five foot tall,
just like me, and he is a computer fucking programmer, or something.
She's a social worker, and she's put on a bit of weight,
so she wears these Paisley smocks.
She said he put his head in his hands when she told him
she was his mother, she said she hadn't got a heart to tell him who his father was!
Probably be out in the parking lot with a fucking pistol.
But you can't win them all, can you? Where would you put them?
Yes, but I mean...
I don't know, I just like stuff. I've always liked stuff.
Stuff is what happens, you know.
In your life, you get stuff.
Then you lose some stuff and you keep some stuff, and then at the end,
you leave it for some other poor bastard to be saddled with
it the rest of their lives.
Don't worry, you'll have all of this shit soon enough.
I'm looking forward to that.
I have no doubt, yeah.
- I'd rather have you than all of that stuff. - I know, yeah.
I can never imagine why that is.
Why would people rather have some gobsmacked human
instead of a load of money? I've never understood that.
Money doesn't love you back, does it?
You can spend it, but it doesn't love you back.
You can imagine it does.
I know you met your dad when you were six.
I met him, too.
Yes, we met each other at the same time.
- Funny how that happens. - Like two ships meeting in the cosmos.
It's a memory that is all frayed around the edges,
and all sepia toned.
- I was sepia then, I was almost see-through, in fact. - Yeah.
I just remember tugging at these slim legs in jeans.
That's me, you see.
I was very small, so I just saw the legs.
Then what happened?
- I don't really remember. - There was a dope deal.
I was waiting for some hash to arrive, or something,
and I was in the kitchen making a piece of toast
and the small blonde child came in, "you're my dad,
"I am your son and my mum's in the other room."
I looked around and there was Tracey,
babbling like an idiot as usual.
I don't even know how have he got there, she wasn't in on
the dope deal because she didn't do drugs, so why was she there?
- How did she get in there? - She went looking for you, I know that.
That's because when I was about four, I was in kindergarten, right.
Right.
And there was this other kid that came up to me
and he said, "I've got a daddy and mummy."
I said, "I've only got a mummy."
He said, "you must have a daddy
"because everybody has a daddy and mummy."
- So I went home and said... - Where is my daddy? You bitch?!
And I got this look like...
We don't talk about him in this house!
Then I think, after that,
endeavours were made to introduce us to each other.
I didn't want to live with his mother, you see.
It was only casual sex, really.
I mean, I like Tracey, she is great and she did a really good job
bringing him up, up to a point, and he has turned out to be
a really clever kid, and he is a great musician.
You have no idea how good he is.
My mum knew the Beatles, right?
Yes, she used to go out with John Lennon, didn't she?
Obviously trying to get to Paul McCartney through him.
No, she lost her virginity to John Lennon.
The story I was told by my mum is that George liked her
and he would shyly, coyly look at her
when he walked past a bus stop.
George was standing there, she wasn't interested in George.
And then, um...
But I don't know, maybe if she had been interested,
it would have lasted longer than with John.
- It didn't last long with John, did it? - No, it didn't.
But she always talked about it, she was very smitten.
But she called you after Paul, not John.
Yes, that is a strange one.
She must have been thinking about Paul when she was with John.
Perhaps she called him Paul and that is why it didn't last.
- I love you, Paul! - Yeah!
We swapped girlfriends twice, didn't we?
At The Limelight and at Stringfellows.
We swapped girlfriends one night
and then did it again two months later.
A lot of chicks like that, the old man and the son.
It's like screwing the daughter and the mother at the same time.
- That kind of thing. - Yeah.
Does it ever feel too cluttered for you?
Yeah. All the time. What do you think?
Are you shooting the trash can? Fuck off, man.
You better not put that in...
- Where is the trash can? - There.
I didn't see that, I was looking at that, whatever that is.
That's a fucking Domino's bargain list.
'One of my favourite memories of my dad was'
when I was six years old,
and I was just learning to play three or four chords.
He came to visit and as he was leaving, he picked up
one of the other guitars and started
playing by the front door, like E major,
and we just a jammed on that one chord for about 20 minutes.
And he was just looking right into my face, right into my eyes.
Just egging me on.
This is the rhythm, this is the feel, this is how you do it.
Probably the third time I had ever seen him, something like that.
So that was a major event in my life.
The nicest thing he ever said to me was very recently,
was when you asked him what was the most precious thing in the room,
and he said, "my son."
I was kind of blown away by that, I wasn't expecting that response.
I wasn't thinking he would say that. That was amazing.
It was wonderful.
Thank you. This is my son, Paul.
Not bad for an only child.
# I'm so lazy... #
- Go and take it to him. - That is some size. That's cool.
I present this tank... LAUGHS
- Isn't that bad? - Yeah, it is.
I served several years in the US Army
as a special operations soldier,
both in the Ranger Regiment and special forces
and have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know Lemmy is a big military history buff.
That is my kind of rock and roll connective tissue to the military.
It was probably Motorhead.
I would wear Motorhead t-shirts over there,
in a way stating my own individuality.
Not to glorify war or to say, war is really cool, or whatever,
it is what it is.
It is a function of the human condition.
Motorhead is good go to war music.
Most people would know he is a World Wars One and Two historian.
1916, their first Grammy nomination record,
that was about World War One.
He's a collector, in, I would say, war memorabilia in general.
I remember watching a BBC documentary with him,
he was showing me an aeroplane, a Messerschmitt or something,
I'm trying to remember what it was, and he was saying that's wrong.
I said it was a documentary, they must have researched this shit,
he brings out three books showing that it wasn't even built then.
Everybody collects something, right?
General Malband used to collect elephants.
Elephants all over his fucking apartment.
I think my collection is more interesting.
Luftwaffe Damascus sword.
See the blade?
That's Damascus steel.
That's a Luftwaffe middle dagger.
That is quite pretty, I think.
Purely decorational. These are Masonic daggers.
Look at that.
That is a nice piece, too. This is from Toledo.
Not Ohio.
Look at this fucking thing.
- What is that? - British.
That is British, I think it is from the First World War.
And this is a German bayonet.
That's seen action. I always liked the workmanship and the designs.
They were the last great knife makers,
the last great sword makers.
It is a craft in Germany that has largely disappeared.
Even the American swords were made in Germany.
In the civil war in America, a lot of German swords were
used in that war, and up until the First World War.
I've got Argentinian stuff, Yugoslav, Croat, Slovakian.
How long has it taken you to amass this collection? Years and years?
19 years, yeah.
When I came over to the States, I had nothing.
So there we are. Come on.
ENGINE ROARS
- Thought I'd dress up. - Yeah, you look good!
- Good to meet you. - Scott, nice to meet you. Check it out.
MP40s, G43, K98.
That's a nice gun, that.
- That's a chassis of a 222, isn't it? - That is a 251. - 251.
- What was the chassis? - A 38T.
- Skoda? - Right. - So did you have to restore it?
Yeah. It's got an original engine in it.
ENGINE STARTS
This was actually the smallest tank that the Germans made.
It was made in Czechoslovakia,
based on the Skoda design from before the war.
This was called a Hetzer, a 38T chassis, it was a tank killer.
This is a big gun for a tank this size.
It is a 75 millimetre, armour piercing gun, you know.
This would stop anything, more or less.
They buried this tank in the ground, right,
so that all that would be visible would be this,
just the gun and the top of the tank.
So they would sit there and wait for you to come along and just kill you.
Wars are the most interesting times.
It shows the best and the worst in people.
You get to find out who your real friends are.
Ask any of those boys coming back from Iraq, you know.
Anybody who's watching this film and thinks that you're Nazi,
what do you want to say to them?
Well, I've had six black girlfriends, so far.
So, I'm one of the worst Nazis you ever met, right?
Imagine going to Nuremberg
and introducing my girlfriend to the Fuhrer? I don't think so.
I just dress how I like to dress.
I don't ask anybody else to do it.
It's a free country, supposedly.
I've often said if the Israeli Army had the best uniforms,
I would collect those.
But they don't, you know? So there you go.
It's ridiculous to think that I could be a Nazi.
I'm about as far from it as you can get.
Fire!
- How was that, Lemmy? - That was great.
MUSIC: "Silver Machine" by Hawkwind
I think Hawkwind were really ahead of their time.
I worship Hawkwind. That is some genius music.
They were kind of like a prog rock group
that punks were allowed to like.
# I, I just took a ride
# In a silver machine
# And I'm still feeling mean... #
It was dangerous rock and roll. It's not choreographed.
It's not safe, it's not cliched.
You never know what you are going to see.
That has got to be good.
We're a space rock band, so a lot of the music we played
was around science fiction stories, which we would interpret into music.
So we were a pretty heavy rock band with nice, flowing electronics.
People thought we were some sort of hippy, fucking, flower people, and it wasn't true.
We were a black nightmare.
We used to lock the doors so people couldn't get out.
It was a psychedelic experience, and no-one was doing that sort of thing.
We just used to have this trancey beat going.
This trancey rhythm, and a strobe going.
It didn't drive you insane, it's just put you into a trance.
# I got a silver machine
# I got a silver machine... #
For New Order, the driving sound that Hawkwind had,
the very pulsing, percussive keyboard sounds,
we would actually listen to that
and to try and emulate it in songs like Temptation
and Everything's Gone Green. We did try and rip off Hawkwind.
They represented the first counter-culture.
Alternative. That was all coming up.
It was a wonderful time to be a kid.
But mostly, I remember standing at the front,
drooling at Stacia. The girl with her breasts out,
which was incredible for a 12 or 13-year-old.
It was like OUR education.
We were a bunch of misfits.
It was like a family, you know. It was like a family.
We had a huge following, because we would do any gig.
We would do a gig in London and it would be like a drug dealers' convention.
Dik Mik and Lemmy was always into a lot of speed.
Dick was grumpy, because they had been up for a few days,
and we would get picked up in a van and he would be all grumpy.
Lemmy would be all surly, and would slam the door and sit down.
We were in the States touring, and we were in Niles, Michigan,
on the way to Detroit.
Niles is on the other side of Michigan from where Detroit is.
We pulled over at a roadhouse to eat, and I was not hungry,
being a speed-freak.
I just got this new camera.
So, I went prowling around looking for things to film,
you know, new camera.
And I conked over the head in this abandoned housing project.
When I came round, without my camera, without any money,
and I got back to the road house, and they'd gone.
They'd dumped me there. What kind of shit is that?
If one of your band members is missing after you have a meal,
you just drive off? That's not the way I work.
So now I'm stuck, so I have to hitch-hike across Michigan.
I got to my room, crash out for about two hours,
do the sound check, do the show,
and then the next day I got busted for speed.
In jail for two days in Canada, handcuffed to a fucking iron bar.
Then I get the news that I am going in to Essex County jail.
With my overalls on, going in to the delousing section.
Then this guy says, "you are bailed." Thank you.
Flown to Toronto immediately, do the show,
four o'clock in the morning, fired.
Apparently, they only got me out of jail
because my replacement couldn't make it in time.
I found Lemmy, in certain ways, quite hard to work with.
We were in a band where everybody was taking different drugs.
So you had this disparity between people
of where they were, and what sort of wavelength they were on.
I was into psychedelics, pot, and mushrooms, peyote,
that sort of thing. Pretty calm stuff, you know?
And Lemmy was more into amphetamines.
He used to hang the band up because he was never on time to leave in the morning.
We would have to get up, and catch a flight somewhere,
and we'd all be downstairs and be waiting to go.
"Christ, where is he?" And he'd still be in bed.
"Come on Lemmy, for Christ's sake."
It did cause a lot of stress within the band.
All of us got pissed off.
It wasn't just one or two, we did get pissed off.
Then he got busted at the border, sort of thing.
When you're on tour, it's like the last straw.
It was decided, the majority, the band said, no, enough's enough. That was it.
When I arrived at the gig and said, "where the fuck's Lemmy?"
They said, this other guy, Paul Rudolph, was taking his place.
They'd sacked Lemmy. I mean, I was devastated.
But I'm the type of person... I keep a lot inside. So...
I think I just carried on. But I was devastated.
It was a sad thing, actually.
Very sad. He was very upset over it.
And, er... We all were, really.
It was coming for a long time. It was '70s drugs snobbery.
They were just doing organic drugs, man,
and I was doing speed and organic drugs. They didn't like that.
He hated us for it all. You would, wouldn't you?
He described me as a sanctimonious, self-righteous asshole.
I thought, that's all right, that's what he thinks of me.
I went and screwed three of their old ladies.
Vengeance is sweet, sayeth the Lord.
I must admit, I was banging one of them already.
Before I left.
But it was a great time.
I wouldn't have traded it for any other band, ever.
I would probably have been in that now if they hadn't fired me.
But there you are.
It was quite good for him because look where he is now.
How long have I been on the road? 19 years.
- 19 years? - Give or take a year. - Isn't it boring after a while?
- No. - Why is there so much violence on the road?
- Why do you break things? - What violence?
I mean, the violence.
When you start... When you start doing things...
What fucking violence?
I don't know what you mean about violence.
You want to see some violence, baby?
No, not me!
Want to do an interview?
Lemmy was at the beginning of heavy-metal,
maybe even pre Black Sabbath.
If they'd said to me, who was the original metal man?,
it is a toss between Lemmy and Black Sabbath.
But I would say Lem, and Motorhead.
It took elements of what existed as heavy metal, mixed it with punk
and created this frantic, intense, powerful music form
that went on to define heavy metal as we know it.
It was brash, in your face,
it was like getting socked by an overhand right,
like Mike Tyson in his prime.
You'd turn the radio on and it was really rancid disco,
bad boy band pop-music, you know?
The Osmonds, stuff like that.
You'd go and see a Motorhead show and it was completely different.
# The silver-tongued devil, demon lynch
# I know just what I'm doing
# I like a little innocent bitch... #
I could not believe that this, there was a guy singing like that
on a record, and people were digging it. Whoa!
We had headlines like the worst band in the world,
but it was in big letters. Well, I mean, fucking great.
Cause I didn't give a, well, you kind of care up to a point,
but the kids were turning up.
"I want to see the worst band in the world." They must be great.
'Motorhead was speed music, with three people on speed.
'Consistency of energy could be contributed to that'
And our slim figures.
LAUGHS
'Everybody tried to be that heavy after that. Nobody's achieved it.'
We fancied ourselves, Guns N' Roses did,
but if we could be even close to as heavy as Motorhead,
we'd be successful.
'Back when I was young, 19,
late '70s, early '80s, we were very punk rock.
I had my little shelf of my old rock records I bought as a kid,
Steve Miller, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, all these bands I used to go see.
Then punk-rock happened and I saw the Clash and the Ramones
and my life was changing, all of a sudden, that's the old, in with the new.
And you'd see someone with long hair, well, he's a hippie.
I can't listen to that music, Johnny Rotten says...
And then someone would pull out the Ace Of Spades record.
Oh, oh, wait a minute.
This kind of goes against the gospel of the punk rock,
because they have long hair and it's metal,
but you put the record on and go, "Damn, man. I'm a Motorhead fan."
#..playing hide and seek cos I'm a speed freak...#
'It was their look, it was their attitude, their music.'
You felt by listening to their records that they didn't fit in.
You felt that. And when you didn't fit in yourself,
there was that instant lightning bolt connection.
"Oh, Shit. They're one of us. They're us."
INSTRUMENTAL
I think personally, this tour is the antidote to Simon Cowell
and all the evil, shit music that he's purveying!
CROWD CHEERS
And if there's one man on this tour that embodies
the spirit of rock and roll more than Lemmy, show him to me.
Ladies and gentlemen, the great man himself, Lemmy!
GUITAR INTRO
INAUDIBLE
'The Damned split up
'and Brian James went off and did other stuff.
'And we thought, could we possibly have a Damned without Brian?'
"We need someone who can play base."
So we asked Lemmy, and he instantly said yes. He would do some gigs with us.
As a laugh, me and Scabby we said,
"Let's see if he'll play SOS by Abba."
We thought there was no way in the world, we did it as a joke
and he said, "Yeah, I'll give that a go." And he played it!
He played a whole bunch of Damned songs
and we did one of his, one Motorhead song, we fucking ruined it.
Yeah, he wasn't pleased about that.
He said, "I learned all your fucking shitty songs, and you ruined my one."
One fucking song! You bunch of cunts.
The great man himself!
- Killed By Death. - Metropolis. - Overkill. - I Don't Believe A Word.
Some people might be like, "Killed By Death? That's stupid." I'm like, "No, you're stupid."
Lemmy is an amazing lyricist, powerful lyricist, smart, sharp.
'The first lyrics are just so twisted, straight in your face.'
"Don't talk to me, I don't believe a word."
"But that's the way I like it, baby, I don't want to live for ever."
I mean, who can say it better, you know? I mean, that is one of the most prolific lines.
"You win some, you lose some, It's all the same to me."
I kind of live by that.
Fuck Keith Richards.
Fuck all those dudes that fucking, you know...
That "survived" the Sixties
and are fucking flying around on Learjets and, you know,
living up their gunslinger reputation as they fuck supermodels
in the most expensive hotel in Paris.
It's like, "You know what Lemmy's doing?"
Lemmy's probably drinking Jack and cokes and writing another record.
Two, three, four.
'One of the lyrics that Lemmy wrote for me was,'
"Mama, I'm coming home".
It's really a haunting feeling because I give someone that doesn't know
what the situation with my wife and I really is...
'It's kind of spooky when somebody writes a lyric, when you sing that lyric,'
and you go, "Fucking hell, it's so close to home, you know?"
Every time I played it on stage, it's like I get a chill up my spine.
# Just a clown in a one-horse town
# In broke-down second-hand car
# Can you still get it up?
# Or are we pushing too hard?
# I think if you ever had a beautiful girl
# You had to use your MasterCard. #
Nah, let's go again.
# Can you still get it up?
# Or are we pushing too hard?
# If you wanna get your hands on a beautiful girl
# You gotta use a MasterCard. #
- Let's listen to what we have, OK? - Yeah.
They're pills. Oooh!
HE LAUGHS
- What kind of pills are they? Vitamins? - No.
Diabetes. And umm...
One for...
blood pressure, I think.
I mean, I told him, "My blood pressure's just fine.
"Every time I cut myself, it comes right out."
OK, lets hear it.
# Or are we pushing too hard?
# If you wanna get your hands On a beautiful girl
# You gotta use a MasterCard
# There's no excuse for bullshit
# So don't try to feed me none
# You better shake some action
# Bring it on, bring it on... #
We were sitting around talking, and he asked me about a quad injury.
I had torn my quad like maybe a year before that.
He just, out of nowhere, said, "You know when you tore your quad, did you think that was it?
"Did you think your career was over? Were you finished?"
And I said, "You know, it went through my head a few times, but I just kept going with it."
He said, "When they told me I was diabetic and I was really sick with it,"
which was actually right before he did my song,
he said, "At first, I thought, 'I'm done. It's all over.' "
Then he said, "I started thinking about it, and what the fuck am I going to do?
"I've lived my whole life this way, I've done everything I've done up until now to get to where I'm at.
"I'm not going to change."
And the quote that always sticks with me, he said,
"I do all the stuff that I do drug-wise and drinking-wise and all that stuff,
"and at the end of the day, I'm too old to find God now."
I'm touring, man.
'He wanted us to do a couple of songs with him in the studio.
'He came in there with a bottle of'
Maker's Mark Whiskey.
And I started drinking with him.
'And we didn't really get much done because we were just drinking.
And he was like playing guitar and showing me stuff
and then we'd start drink, drink, drink, drink, drink.
And...
the next day, I had to go to a hospital.
Lemmy gave me alcohol poisoning,
basically!
'There's Marlboro Reds,'
Jack Daniels, speed, strippers and gambling.
That's what he likes.
'I remember me sitting down with Zakk
'and he's showing us Beatle footage and stuff and...
'he says,'
"Do you want a Jack Daniels?" Me and Zakk, "Oh, far out."
So, I remember this, he takes out a fifth of Jack Daniels
and cracks the seal and then hands it to me,
so I take a swig off it and hand it to Zakk.
Zakk takes a swig of it, then he goes to hand it back to Lemmy,
and Lemmy is opening another fifth for me and another for him.
It was like having a beer with the guy!
He wanted us to drink the whole fifth like we're drinking a beer. We're like, "Holy shit! No, no, no!"
'First time I ever met the guy, he says, "Hello" '
and proceeds to offer me crystal meth. This is a fucking hard-core dude!
'I will say this.'
I've never ever ever seen Lemmy incapacitated by booze or anything.
I have not seen him fall off the stage,
I haven't seen him say stupid things,
I haven't seen his life crumble because of it.
It would be pretty scary, Lemmy completely sober,
and on you, man!
By the law of average, he should have been dead.
I used to hit it really hard, but he's just... I don't know.
He's made of fucking iron.
I don't really want to advertise all that.
I don't want kids to take any drugs cos of me.
I don't want them to stay off drugs cos of me, either,
but I don't want to advertise a lifestyle that killed a lot of my friends.
OK?
Here's another question for Lemmy. Jose.
- 'Yeah. Lemmy?' - Yeah.
'What do you credit to your longevity?
'You drink, smoke, party a lot. I want to know what you credit to it.'
Not dying! That's the secret.
That's the secret of survival, not dying!
I don't know, you know.
- I was lucky cos a lot of my friends didn't make it, you know? - Yeah.
And I did. I never did heroin, you see. That was the one.
I never saw anybody die on anything else.
When I was about 17-years-old...
..he said to me,
"Son, promise me that when you grow up,
"you know, don't do coke.
"Please, just don't do coke."
And I was like, "OK, yeah".
And he says, "Just do speed. It's much better for you!"
When you think back in it, Motorhead was the original thrash band.
Everything about them.
They played fast, it was gnarly, it was a little loose,
it had some punk rock, it had metal,
it had all the elements that we then later perfected and refined
and then we became part of the Big Four of thrash metal.
You could definitely say, without Motorhead, there's no Metallica,
there's no Anthrax, there's no Megadeath, probably no Slayer.
There could have been those bands, like Anthrax lite or something.
Man, influenced me big time, as a bass player. Big, big, bit time
because of the levels of distortion.
The speed of it all, like, the power of it all
and the relentlessness of it.
I can't even begin to say how much of an influence
Motorhead have been on us,
on a bunch of different levels.
I'll give you a list of things that were lifted from Lemmy.
- Musical level. - Singing style.
You know, lyric phrasing, the simplicity, the rhyming. The scheme of it all.
Attitude.
Trying to be as cool as Lemmy.
Motivation and perseverance. Er... The look.
I mean, his facial hair, in the early days for me,
was certainly all about that.
The bullet belt, come on!
Lemmy, to me, is not just an inspiration,
but I think he's kind of like the OK sign. You know?
It's OK to go this far, it's OK to do this.
It's like he's kicked the door open for a lot of bands
that were feeling like they wanted more.
HE PLAYS RIFF FROM ACE OF SPADES
ATTEMPTS HIGHPITCHED VOCALS
- COUGHS - I can't sing that bit.
I'm like the opposite.
I have to sing down here.
You like it lower?
Yeah.
- SCOTTISH ACCENT: - # You take the high mic and I'll take the low mic... #
- What's up, motherfuckers? - Hello, sir. Good to see you, brother.
Good to see you too.
- Hey, man. What's happening? - Hey, Lemmy. How you doing, bro?
Good.
What do you want to do? I'll do the first one and you do the second one?
- Yeah. - Do the third one together or something? - Sure. - Or one each?
You do the high harmony?
No. Not any more, no!
I'll grab your balls and you go, "Ahhhh!"
That's the theory, yeah!
What ending do you have for Damage Case?
He stops and I stop and then...
- And then you're the last.... - How?
Don't be under any illusion that we know what we're doing.
Let's see what happens, let's have fun with it.
It's a freak-out! It goes, one, two, three...
Is it time to go home yet?
AUDIENCE: No!
I didn't think so.
You can see there's an extra amp up on stage here.
We have the distinct pleasure
of inviting on stage with us
one of our all-time idols.
And I know the reason
that Lars is so into music...right?
He followed him around, pestered him forever,
I think he even threw up on him,
something like that.
Lars is the biggest Motorhead fan on the planet.
And here's the godfather of heavy metal.
From Motorhead, the one and only Lemmy Kilmister!
CHEERING
Lemmy, Lemmy, Lemmy, Lemmy!
CROWD: Lemmy! Lemmy! Lemmy! Lemmy!
All right.
# Hey, babe, don't act so scared
# All I want is some special care
# On the run from some institution
# All I need's a little consolation
# And I can tell by his face
# I'm all over the place
# Put me inside this place
# Move over for a damaged case
# Hey, baby, don't act so scared
# All I want is some special care
# I ain't lookin' to victimise you
# All I want to do is tantalise you
# And I can tell by your face
# That I'm all over the place
# I'm a total disgrace
# Move over for a damaged case
# Move over!
# Hey, babe, don't turn away
# I'm here tomorrow, gone today
# I ain't lookin' to victimise you
# All I want to do is tantalise you
# I can tell by your face
# I'm all over the place
# Move over for a damaged case
# Damaged case! #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good job, man.
Thanks. Good job, good job.
Yeah!
Lemmy! Lemmy! Lemmy!
AUDIENCE: Lemmy! Lemmy! Lemmy!
TV: 'Oh, Stacey, you dropped your pom-pom in the water.
- 'I'll get it for you.' - 'I'll come with you'. - 'Me too'.
'Wait a minute, we don't want to get our sweaters all wet.
'Better take 'em off. Splash fight!'
At one point, I hadn't seen Lemmy or the boys for a decade or whatever,
and I wanted to do a show with them. And surprise, surprise,
the same dudes are on the crew as when I toured with them in the '80s.
And here it's the '90s and they go "Hey, how are you doing?"
I'm like "holy crap". But this is Lemmy.
It was just like a big family thing, without getting too cliched.
We love each other, we hate each other,
we love to hate each other.
We've done a tour, gone home, come back.
The first time you see them again, it just feels tight.
There's not that band/group thing with this lot, they're just friends.
It's fucking great. What other job can you get paid
for travelling around the world,
meeting great fucking amazing people and seeing Motorhead every night?
# Happy birthday to you
# Happy birthday, dear Roger
# Happy birthday to you! #
Eat your cake!
A year older now.
What I've seen in rock'n'roll bands that I've been in,
yeah, the money comes into play
and then attitudes change
and they fucking want to act like a rock star.
Motorhead doesn't do that. Motorhead's in it for the music.
Motorhead's in it for the fans.
# Well, we came up from the gutter
# Wrong side of the tracks... #
They still have the goal, you know,
to move this band forward
and to sound the best and be able to, you know, write good records.
There's no faking going on here.
I used to say there's not a fake bone in Lem's body,
and that really is true.
I could say the same for Phil and myself as well.
We're not faking through year after year, you know, pretending,
and I think that is reflecting out, you know.
It's like an aura around us, I suppose.
We've had quite a few people tell us that our music got them
through particularly low times in their lives.
It does something to us when we play.
For some reason, it's great.
I don't know what it is we do, but it gives a good feeling.
I guess it's the same for the fans.
I asked him for his autograph when I was 12.
He came to my home town with Hawkwind, and he was the only one
that came out to sign autographs.
If somebody had said then that I'd be in a band
with this guy for a quarter of a century, a big rock band,
I'd have said, "Come on".
It's a good story to tell,
because it's inspiring. Anything can happen.
MUSIC DROWNS LYRICS
MUSIC STOPS
Fucking microphone. What's the point?
FEEDBACK WHINE
Listen to it.
Didn't you know it was doing that all afternoon?
Has nobody tested it before?
I've done a few gigs with Motorhead
and done a sound check with him.
It's so fucking loud, you really can't do much.
So there's a lot of yelling going on.
One! Two! Three!
- Perfect, just a bit more. - An ear doctor would be amazed
at just how well Lemmy can hear,
considering the abuse he gives his ears.
There's one thing about Lemmy -
he'll always hear you if you offer him a drink.
Even if you walk up behind him.
The loudest band in the world in the Guinness Book of Records.
That's what people want.
They want it loud, they want it fast. They want it...Lemmy.
- Is it loud enough? - CROWD: No!
- You want it louder? - Yes! - Are you sure about this?
This is called Killers.
I remember when we went in to record Power, Corruption And Lies
in Britannia Row in Islington in London.
And the people that had been in before us hadn't -
you're supposed to level the desk when you leave.
You take the strip off, and you level the desk, put it back to how it was.
And they hadn't done it, presumably because it was late
when they finished.
And I said, "Rotten fuckers. Who was it?"
They went, "It was Motorhead". I was like "Oh, fucking great!"
So we put my bass through his channels on the desk,
and it sounded shit.
# Another time, another place Another girl... #
When I think of Motorhead, I don't think subtlety.
It makes me think of a door blown open.
His voice is a rasp. It's like eating fucking nails.
It's kind of more like a wind coming at you.
It's like someone coming up behind me and spanking my ears.
Everything starts going grainy.
It's like being in a sandstorm, basically, that's it.
It's the aural equivalent of being in a sandstorm, I would say.
When the lights go down and that motherfucker hits the stage
and he blows the cigarette out of his mouth, it's game over, man.
You could drag anybody to a Motorhead show, and they're gonna go...
INTRO: "Ace Of Spades"
# If you like to gamble, I'm your man
# Win some, lose some It's all the same to me
# The pleasure is to play Makes no difference what you say
# I don't share your greed, the only card I need is the ace of spades
# The ace of spades
# Going for the higher one Dancing with the devil
# Going with the flow It's all a game to me
# Seven or eleven Snake eyes watching you
# Double up or quit, double stake or split, the ace of spades
# The ace of spades
# You know I'm born to lose and gambling's for fools
# But that's the way I like it, baby, I don't want to live forever
# Pushing up the ante
# I know you want to see me
# Read 'em and weep the dead man's hand again
# I see it in your eyes Take one look and die
# The only thing you see, you know it's gonna be the ace of spades
# The ace of spades. #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank you kindly.
TV: '..Next election, I'm gonna run against you, and I'm gonna win.'
'All right, Mrs Griffin. You want to take me on? Fine.
- 'But if you plan to beat me, you'll have to...' - 'What is it?'
'A bee just flew in through the window. Don't move.'
'Hmm, now look who's mayor.
'First order of business - free honey for everyone!
'Yay, Mayor Bee, Mayor Bee, Mayor Bee - ow! Oh, done stung myself.'
# Lucky there's a family guy
# Lucky there's a man who positively can do
# All the things that make us Laugh and cry
# He's...a...fam...ily...guy! #
Everything about Lemmy's playing sets him apart
from other bass players, or for that matter any other musicians.
The biggest thing is the Rickenbacker and the Marshalls.
That's the sound I've never heard anybody create on bass.
And he plays it a lot like some heavy metal guitar players.
He doesn't play guitar on bass, but it almost sounds like a guitar.
The basic difference is that most bass players sound like this.
Whereas I...
..sound quite different.
AMPLIFIED SOUND
Like that.
I always wanted that sound, but I didn't necessarily know it then.
It evolves, you know.
- What would you say, Tim? - What's that?
How would you say my bass playing encapsulates my personality
and my outlook on life generally, in the modern 21st century?
- The phrase "hammer and tongs" comes to mind. - Really? - Yeah.
- Not a hammer, an anvil. - Anvil and tongs.
And hammer. Stuff like that.
Very hard.
BOTH TALK AT ONCE
Actually, he talks one thing that's in one ear and out the other.
And nobody ever fucking understands a thing he's saying.
Actually, we're two geezers trying to get along backstage.
- And everything like that. - And things like that. - Or something else.
Americans usually have a nervous breakdown around now.
He's dead, isn't he?
How do you sell a deaf guy a frog?
How?
DO YOU WANT TO BUY A FROG?
Is it still as fun as it used to be
to go around the world and play concerts?
Yeah, you know, it's a great job. I recommend it.
It's almost as good as being a TV interviewer.
- Are there a lot of groupies backstage? - Do you see any?
What makes you the proudest in your career?
Survival, I think.
Every year that goes by, I get a bit prouder,
because we've proved that we weren't the trash band
that they said we were originally.
And every year we've survived
proves it a little bit more, you know.
You know, like that.
What keeps you going for 30 years? What keeps you going and going?
You have a dream when you're a kid.
And my dream came true, so why stop it?
Until 2047. Then I might slow down a bit.
It might be 2048, I don't know.
I love everything about Lemmy. The music, fucking everything.
There's nothing not to like about Motorhead.
It's a band that's got it all.
They're hardcore, a proper hardcore band.
They don't like sax and all that shit, they're excellent.
They're full on, they've always been full on.
Motorhead set the standard for all the others to follow.
Every time you see 'em live, they make you deaf.
I don't have to listen to my wife.
For about five days out of every year, my wife is totally ignored.
"Oh, sorry, darling, I can't hear you. I can't hear you.
"Sorry, I just can't hear you".
They've made me stone deaf forever!
# Rock'n'roll will save your soul And I got it
# Give it to me loud and free
# Don't knock it
# Let me hear till the end of time
# It's the only way
# Send shivers up and down your spine
# You can't stop it
# I'm tellin' you one more time
# It ain't no crime Rock it
# It's the only way to fly
# I gotta have it
# Break through, gonna break you too
# You better grab it
# Let me hear it till the end of time
# It's the only way
# It'll stop you on a dime
# You can't stop it I'm telling you one more time
# It ain't no crime
# Rock it
# Rock'n'roll music gonna stop the world
# Can't lose it
# It'll make your toenails curl You can't defuse it
# Let me hear it all the time
# It's the only way
# Gonna make you feel all right
# You can't excuse it
# I'm telling you one more time
# It ain't no crime Rock it
# Rock it Rock it... #
That's all right.
It's the biggest thing that's ever happened to me.
It's huge. I love that guy.
- He's so much nicer than I thought he would be. - Why's that?
Oh, he's really humble.
I thought he would be like, "I don't give a shit".
But when I said "Your music really means something to me,"
he looked at me and said, "Thank you."
That really means something to me.
If you look at him, he's probably very intimidating,
but this is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.
There's so many people that hit him for stuff,
and just look at him.
Most people in his position would not pay attention
to these things. This is a guy who'd go out of his way to help anybody.
You just see it in his heart.
When I was married before and we were all on the road together,
my husband at the time was from Indiana, this redneck kid,
idolised Lemmy. Huge Motorhead fan.
So we were on tour with Motorhead,
and me and Lemmy immediately had this connection,
and my marriage was heavily on the rocks.
Lemmy...my husband wouldn't talk to him or anything,
and Lemmy would just come up
with T-shirts and be like "Hey, Matt", you know?
And when we actually separated, he was telling all these people
in the town we're from, Athens, Georgia,
a very small town,
that me and Lemmy were having this affair, blah, blah, blah.
Eight months later, he died.
But when I was going through
all of his things that his mother gave me,
I found a letter from Lemmy, and he had written him a letter
saying, you know, "I know at one point, you really liked my band,
"and just so that you know for the record,
"Corey and I are really good friends.
"There's mutual love and respect there.
"She did nothing but talk about how much she loved you
"and I would never cross that line, I'm not that type of man."
And it was just so cute, because when you read the letter,
it was like, "I know that at one time, you liked me and my band,"
and it's Lemmy and fucking Motorhead.
It's so bizarre, but he wrote this beautiful letter to him,
with the red candle wax and the stamp on the back,
and sent it to him, you know?
That type of shit, man.
It's like, he's a very honourable,
generous, good, good man.
He's very much a complex emotional person,
but there is a kind of distance that he's purposefully put in.
Do you know what I mean?
I think a lot of that, from what he tells me, is from his youth.
He's always had to look out for himself, and he's realised
that 90% of the time, the only person he can depend on is himself.
Tell me about the people who've been most important in your life?
My mother, obviously, because she brought me up on her own.
And my granny, for filling in during the day. They were really important.
They really tainted my outlook on things,
because being brought up by two women is different from having the big, heavy husband in the house.
So I never got the, "Let's go out and kill some small furry animals."
I never had that shit going on.
I just never missed a father
because I never had one, you know, so I didn't care.
He was just a miserable little dickhead with glasses,
and all he ever did for me was walk out on me.
I think I understand women a lot better than some guys do,
because women want the same things as guys do,
they just don't want them for as long.
Guys want the quick fuck in the alley all their lives,
whereas girls get tired of that pretty quick. They want security,
meaning you have to give up everything
that might be a risk to that security,
which is why I'm not married.
My dad once went out with a woman that he really fell in love with
when he was very young. He must have been about 17.
And...this girl died of a heroin overdose.
My dad is anti-heroin.
He will not have anything to do with someone who is on smack.
But I think it's because of this girl,
because he really loved this girl.
And he found her in the bathtub. He found her dead in the tub.
And I think that, as I can recall,
he sat in an armchair for, like, three days.
He hasn't been able to feel the same way about any other woman
since that woman.
And...that might be a part of why he is the way he is.
I don't miss her any more,
it's been a long time. 1973. That's a long enough time.
I can't even...some of the time, you can't even picture her face.
She was all right. But, you know,
she died young and left a beautiful corpse. When they do that,
it's easier to think they were the one. She probably wasn't.
She was a...she was a mouthy little bitch as well.
But she was great at the same time.
For a woman to be really interesting,
she's got to be something of a bitch, surely?
Somebody saying yes all the time, that's no fucking good, is it?
You want somebody who gives you a run for your money.
No relationship can survive a guy or a girl being in a rock band.
Unless the other one is also in a rock band,
and even then it's difficult.
You're away for six or seven months of the year.
Nobody will stand for that.
Either they go with you, which doesn't work, or they sit at home
and have affairs or take care of the kids, which builds up resentment,
because they think you're having a whale of a time on the road.
It can't work. You have to make up your mind between rock and roll
or your beloved one. Sex only lasts for half an hour at the very top.
A rock and roll set lasts for an hour and a half,
so I think we've got that one sorted out.
Do you ever stop filming?
Huh?
It's a pity you haven't got Smell-O-Vision.
# Here's a little song I wrote
# Might want to sing it note for note
# Don't worry
# Be happy # Don't worry, be happy now
# Whoo-oo-oo
# Don't worry
# Whoo-oo-oo
# Be happy
# Whoo-oo-oo
# Don't worry, be happy. #
# Well, if I'm in heaven or if I'm in hell
# Don't matter to me because I'm under your spell
# I'm playing the ace Trying to make you see
# Don't matter to me
# I'm over my head
# And I'm driving for sure Don't matter to me
# Like I told you before
# I'll sink like a stone
# If you leave me be Don't matter to me
# Babe, you know I love you
# But you can break my heart
# I want to be here with you But you're tearing me apart
# I wanted to be your only one
# I want you to be mine
# But if you're going to be this way
# I just don't have the time So now if I stay
# Or if I should go
# Don't matter to me if I can't see you no more
# If you shoot up my lights
# Black night's where I'll be
# It don't matter to me... #
I just can imagine the party,
the party for everybody to celebrate his life some day is going to be...
like a head of state.
I think he'll be sorely missed throughout the world when he goes.
But then, I think the way it'll be and the way he would want it,
there's not going to be many tears shed,
but mainly what fucking great times we had.
Do you know what I mean? It's going to be one of those,
a sad day but also a day where everybody will get together
and talk about the great fucking times they had with that man and his music.
I don't know how old he is and I don't care,
he could be 100 years old.
The fact that he's up there still doing it
is an absolute inspiration for us.
We got nothing to complain about and everything to look forward to.
This is what I am. This is what I do.
This is what I'm supposed to do. Right here.
I'm supposed to be backstage, waiting to go on.
If your life was a movie, how would you want it to end?
It should end with a clap of thunder
and me vanishing off the top of a mountain,
leaving behind a plaque which says "Fooled you, again". Yeah!
Something along those lines. But of course, we can't afford the mountain
and we can't afford the flash powder
and we can't get the cameras up the slope, right, so there you go.
You can't have everything, can you?
Any regrets?
None. Life's too short.
CROWD: Motorhead!
Motorhead! Motorhead!
I would like to say that you're one of the best fucking crowds
we ever played for.
Thank you.
Don't forget us.
We are Motorhead! And we play rock'n'roll!
# The only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud
# So good, I can't believe it Screaming with the crowd
# Don't sweat it Get it back to you
# Overkill
# On your feet, you feel the beat It goes straight to your spine
# Shake your head, you must be dead If it don't make you fly
# Don't sweat it Get it back to you
# Overkill Overkill
# Overkill
# You know your body's made to move You feel it in your guts
# Rock 'n' roll ain't worth the name If it don't make you strut
# Don't sweat it Get it back to you
# Overkill
# Overkill. #
INAUDIBLE
All for one and all for another fucking year.
Good one this year. Nice one.
Now fuck off back to your dressing room.
It was all right, this show, wasn't it?
Bugger off, Greg.
In the elevator? Give it a break. Oi!
Go away.
Fuck off with your cameras.
Oh, there they are.
What's the matter with you, pal?
You want a mouthful of broken teeth or what?
- Cheers, guys. - Cheers, man. Good to see you again.
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