I thought about trying to make the intro to this interview sound like an impartial journalist wrote it. But fuck that. Lemmy is my hero and I’m not going to try and hide it because that’d be no fun. When I was meeting, photographing, and interviewing Lemmy backstage at a recent New York show, I felt like a young boy sidling up to the kitchen table with my grandfather when the houseful of relatives had finally gone silent and he decided that it was time for me to hear his stories. At first I was nervous because this was the big show, but within the first few words Lemmy had already disarmed me. Then he let it rip and told his tales. As a Motörhead fan, I can think of nothing greater.
Lemmy is by far one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve had the good fortune of coming across. He’s a goddamn gentleman and not too shabby of a scholar either. Like his music, he is also quite savage. Some find him too brutal to handle. But offending those who are weak in constitution is just a byproduct of his total honesty. Lemmy has never changed in order to gain fanfare or subdue his critics. His entire existence speaks boundlessly about what it means to stick to your guns. There are no astronomical highs or abysmal lows in the story of Motörhead. There is simply the trajectory of a band plowing insolently through an endless blizzard of gigs, women, trends, naysayers, ass kissers, and industry swine. Lemmy is THE exemplary road dog for the ages.
Vice: What was it that made you say, “I’m going to be in a band”?
Lemmy: Women.
Women.
Hands down, women. Seeing them on TV flocking around rock singers. I came up in the 50s, you know, and that was kind of basic at the time. I got my first record in 1958. I was pretty young then, and I saw this English singer, Cliff Richard, who is still going but is very different now from what he was then. He was on TV, surrounded by chicks trying to pull his clothes off. I said, “That’s for me. It doesn’t even look like work.” I found out later that it was, but it does have its advantages over working at the washing-machine factory.
Yeah, I would say so.
So that’s what made me go for it. My mother played Hawaiian guitar, right, but there was really bad action on it, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless I put strings on it and took it to school during the week after exams, when you don’t do anything.
When you’re just sitting around.
Right. And I was immediately surrounded by chicks. It worked like a charm, and I couldn’t even play the fucking thing.
How soon after that did you think, “Maybe I’ve got to learn”?
Oh, about two hours. I find it quite easy to play chords and, you know, that was all I ever did. I never wanted to be a lead guitarist. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a bass player till later.
I understand.
So I was a good rhythm guitarist for a long time, but I was shit at lead. Really mediocre, man.
But you did try doing lead guitar?
Yeah. I played lead for two years in a band called the Rockin’ Vicars. I just cheated, you know. I used to put on a lot of fuzz and move my fingers up and down really quick, and they thought it was a solo. I didn’t want to tell them it wasn’t.
Great bands usually implode after three albums or so, but you’ve kept Motörhead functioning for so long.
Coming up on 35 years now.
What are those other bands doing wrong?
They don’t think the music is important enough to sink their personal differences for the sake of it. I always felt that no personal differences were big enough to break up the band. I mean, people have left the band, but I always carried on. I never considered doing anything else. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is what I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be in the fucking dressing room doing interviews. It’s my life.
Yeah.
It’s not a job anymore.
I want to ask you about Hawkwind, who you played bass for before you started Motörhead. How did you get it going with Hawkwind?
I went to see the band play live once before I joined them. Everybody was having this collective epileptic fit—the whole audience, 600 people. I thought, “Fuck it, I’ve got to join these guys.”
What were the pros and cons of being in Hawkwind?
What I liked about it was that it was the first time I played bass, and I found out that I could be a good bass player. So I became a bass player and I was really good at it, you know? That was a great thing for me—kind of an eye-opener—and also there was a lot of freedom within that band to play bass. I did a lot of fill-ins and a lot of smart shit behind Dave, who played lead guitar. You know, I was showing off as usual.
For the chicks.
What’s it for if you can’t show off? It’s rock ’n’ roll, so you might as well.
What were the things that really bugged the shit out of you?
In Hawkwind? Their attitude. I mean, they never told me I was in the band.
Fuck. That was like five years.
Five years. They fired me, and I said, “You can’t fire me, motherfuckers, you never told me I was in the band!”
Who ran that band?
Dave Brock, the lead guitarist. It’s his band, lock, stock, and barrel.
I’ve always thought, from watching interviews, that he seemed like a pretty levelheaded dude.
He was, but at the time we were very successful in Britain—number one and all that. And that gets to different people in different ways. They never really forgave me for being the singer on their only hit single. [laughs]
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