Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers

by Martin Popoff

  Exemplary of the band’s do-no-wrong run of good luck at the time, “Motörhead,” the album’s oldest and trashiest track, as well as arguably the most haplessly written, would be issued as a single (backed with “Over the Top”), becoming the band’s biggest U.K. hit ever, peaking at No. 6.

  What’s more, backstage in Leeds and Newcastle, the band was presented with silver records for Overkill and the St. Valentines Day Massacre EP as well as a gold record for Ace of Spades, making them fully sated big fish in a medium-sized pond, further confirmed when the album improbably vaulted to the No. 1 slot on the U.K. charts, by far the nastiest, most uncompromisingly heavy record to ever reach that loftiest of plateaus.

  “It was our peak time,” agrees Eddie. “The bummer, though, about the album, No Sleep ’til Hammersmith, we were in America when it came out and went straight to No. 1. And normally you’d be in the fucking pub and in the clubs, right? Everybody’d be buying you drinks. But of course we weren’t there. Typical Motörhead. We were on the road in the U.S.A. with Ozzy in Beaumont, Texas, with Mountain, strangely, opening the show. Because they had to be somewhere else, Leslie, who is a very good guy, used my amps that night, and I can honestly say they never sounded so good. But we missed all the free drinks we would have been eligible for back in London, and it was all over by the time we returned to the U.K. It was a bad time to have a No. 1 album, but I can live with that.”

  Not only were they away for the accolades, but earlier on, they were away for the finalizing of the mixes. “Yeah, we were in America for that too, and as I remember it, they sent us a rough mix of some of the stuff, and we were having a rave-up. We were in Detroit, which would’ve been May. We were with our agent, Nick Caris, and we were at his office in Detroit, and we were partying that night at his place, and we played the tapes, and we thought it was terrible. It was the mix of the album we played him, and we hated it, just the mixes. So we sent a six-foot-long fax to Gerry Bron at Bronze Records, telling him what we wanted changed and all that. And at the end of it, we said, ‘If you put it out on us, we’re going to kill you.’ He put it out anyway. It went straight to No. 1. They didn’t do any changes. They put it out as it was, even after us sending him a six-foot fax telling him we’re going to kill him. But of course it came out and went straight to No. 1. And as I say, we were in America at the time, so we missed all that.”

  But at least Eddie got to rectify the situation 20 years later, being in on the remix of the album for the hugely expanded version issued by Sanctuary/Metal-Is in 2001. “We had a situation with the record company, whereby I got involved with doing the mixing on it. What happened was, we didn’t really want to change No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith, the original, because it was a classic record. But as it turned out, the record company would have expanded it anyway, as record companies do. They want to give away more later just to keep a little bit of something going. So I spoke to Lemmy and Phil about it and we agreed that because I’m here in the country, I should at least go in and keep an eye on it and do a bit of mixing on it. So that’s how that came about. I didn’t want people to think it was just being thrown out there for any old reason. We did as much as we could. We are all very pleased with it. The material we added on didn’t have the overdubs. Because we replaced a couple of things on the original, because Lemmy’s voice was a little bit shot because we had been touring a lot. So back then we had the opportunity to change a few things. But obviously in the second lot, we couldn’t change anything; it’s got more of a nice life feel somehow.”

  But nearly four decades on, people are still scratching their heads as to how Motörhead could have such a hit with such an egregiously noisy and distortion-drenched live album.

  “It’s to do with the whole Motörhead attitude, what we kind of stood for back in those days,” answers Eddie, asked why No Sleep’til Hammersmith was so popular. After all, again, logic would dictate that Motörhead in the studio was already a pile of abrasive signals, one would think only accessible to the most metal-tolerable of potential consumers. And along comes a live record of those songs, played fast and loose, ferocious, naturally dirty songs played much dirtier. Who the heck was buying all these copies of No Sleep ’til Hammersmith?!

  “I used to think the show had a lot to do with it,” wonders Eddie, agreeing with the characterization. “Having the bomber and stuff like that, and generally so fucking loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. But obviously you can’t include that on the record. So I think it’s just the thought that somehow we did capture that as well. When it came out, the kids and everybody who was a fan of Motörhead used to enjoy the live gig so much that a live album sort of takes them back there. So they get a little piece of the magic of the gig. Because our gigs were kinda special. Obviously the sound used to vary because of the volume and stuff, but it was always a good show. We were a great band and a great live band, and everything we did was for live. And I think with Motörhead, there was a charm with the live shows. People used to come to the shows, and it wasn’t just the songs and the music. It was an event.

  “I went to see fucking Queen,” continues Eddie, drawing comparisons. “I saw Zeppelin, I saw Bowie, you know, back in the ’70s, and you go to the show, and after halfway through you go, I’ve had enough this, really. I might as well go put the record on. Not Zeppelin so much, but Queen, definitely. And Bowie a little bit. But Motörhead wasn’t like that. You went to Motörhead, you couldn’t get that in plastic, you know what I mean? The whole event, the vibe you got at the gigs, the bomber, the sweat, the noise—it was an event. And I’ve spoken to people since, and they always talk about going to a Motörhead concert. When I’m talking to them, I’m thinking, they didn’t just go for the music. They went to see Motörhead, but not Motörhead playing music—it was Motörhead: the event. And I think the live album was that. I think when people bought the live album and put it on, it took them back to the event. As opposed to, ‘Oh, listen to that guitar solo. Isn’t he fantastic?’ It was fucking great in those days getting your ears blasted out, you know?”

  Lemmy sang straight up so his throat was as open as possible.

  © Wolfgang Guerster

  Lemmy had a way of bringing the fans into it as well. Even from the few lines he throws out on No Sleep ’til Hammersmith, there’s a sense that he’s (begrudgingly) glad you’re there, and that he was going to treat you with a level of intelligence because you’ve made the effort to drag yourself down to the show. He’s a frontman that detests the tropes of frontmen. This is not a “Hello Cleveland!” kind of pony show. It’s more “We’re Motörhead and we play rock ’n’ roll” and brief inside jokes with the hundreds of people inside, including a shared laugh over just who, really, has bought the new album. In a sense, he’s not going to suffer fools gladly, just like in his interviews, but he’s pretty sure there are few fools in the crowd anyway, because after all, they have the good cynical sense to be at a Motörhead show.

  “Lemmy was a very serious frontman,” continues Eddie. “He took his job very seriously. Yeah, he was a funny man, but he loved every minute of it. He didn’t have any contempt for the audience at all. He did it 100 percent. He was honest and he had a wry sense of humor. We were all honest; we weren’t trying to lie. And I guess you’ve hit on it there. Being honest was our thing; we weren’t trying to sound better than we were, but we were just doing the best job we possibly could. And Lemmy always had a nice turn of phrase; he always had a good vocabulary, Lemmy. So he could come up with good things. Whenever you hear his interviews, he’s always got a little something to say.”

  “He was a very good guitar player,” says Angel Witch bassist and Bronze Records label mate Kevin Riddles, assessing Eddie’s place within Motörhead. “He used to rein it in a little bit sometimes. Because he could quite happily go off and widdle away, like most guitarists can for hours on end. But he knew what was required in Motörhead, and did it, I think, brilliantly. And yea
h, he was the thinker, if you like. Lemmy is the tactician, if that’s the right way to put it. Lemmy’s the quarterback, Eddie was probably more like the wide receiver and that sort of stuff. He was brilliant at what he did, incredibly quick, occasionally had to rein it in for the good of the band. But that was classic Motörhead, to me, just classically brilliant.”

  As for the dynamic in a studio setting, Riddles continues, “I saw them once and it was the most chaotic thing I’d ever seen. Phil just played all the time. He never stopped hitting something. So there was always that noise of a drum kit going in the background. And then all of a sudden, Lemmy would shout, ‘Right, here we go, one, two, three, four,’ and off they go. And somehow it would all come together. But I know that at that time, the only time they ever did any overdubs was at the intro of the song, because they never came in all together. So by the time it came to like the verse, they were all where they were supposed to be. But leading up to the verse, they were never together. It was only when they got to the verse. And when they came to listen to it, they’d always go back into the studio and do the first bit again and splice it back together. That happened on three or four cases I know.”

  But on stage, the band was all black clothes and smoke, Eddie, the second coming of Blue Cheer’s Dickie Peterson, buried in his long hair, Phil givin ’er, and Lemmy croaking up at his mic. “That was to help him to sing,” explains Eddie on Lemmy’s battle stance. “When it’s that high, to sing up like that, it opens up his throat, and it makes a clear passage. The air goes straight up and out your mouth. If you have it down, you’re almost cutting off your throat a bit. And Lemmy used to always be able to sort of shout up. He’d position it so he could shout up.

  “I tell you what, I think we looked great,” laughs Clarke. “Now that I look back on it. I didn’t really pay very much attention to what we looked like, but on reflection now, we really did look fucking great. Bands out there now, they go out in their fucking pipe and slippers, or you had the spandex look not long afterwards with the hair and the makeup. But we didn’t do any of that. We went on with our jeans and stuff, bullet belts, leather jackets. We wore those in the street. That’s what we wore all day, really. And I just thought we looked kind of real. I think we looked quite serious, really.”

  But, again, it’s not so much a biker look. “Well, not really. But like we had to say in an interview once, well, actually, I don’t own a motorbike; I don’t ride one. And so even though a lot of bikers had taken us to their hearts, we weren’t actually bikers.”

  What they were was approachable. And fully anti–rock star. According to Rob Godwin, one might trace this ethic back to Lemmy’s time in Hawkwind. In this light, Motörhead came honestly and naturally to their role as bridge band between long-haired rock and music by people with hair like Phil’s. “At that point in time, by ’75,” says Rob, “when Motörhead first came on the scene, bands like Priest and AC/DC were just getting recognition, the punks come in and derail many different subgenres of rock music, including prog and psychedelia. And everything was being tossed out. But Hawkwind and Motörhead just plowed right through, because they had a connection with their fans that was more in sync with what the punks were saying. Which is, you know, we don’t want these big rock guys looking down on us from 60-foot-high stages and from behind a moat. You want to go and have a beer with them at the bar.

  “And that was something that Hawkwind had cultivated,” continues Godwin. “I don’t think they consciously cultivated it. It was just something that they’d been doing since the beginning, right from playing outside the gates of the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. While Hendrix was playing inside, they’re playing outside the gates for free. That mindset, I think the punks sort of latched onto. It was like, these guys, they’re the same as us. And I have to say that that mindset continued in the sense that you could always go and find Lemmy at the bar at the Rainbow. He wasn’t going to go hide behind a castle wall. And it’s the same with Hawkwind today. The last time I saw Hawkwind was a year and a half ago playing some theatre in Yorkshire, and before the show they were in the pub next door, with all the audience. I can’t say what other bars they’d be in, but having said that, the Hammersmith Odeon was one of those places that Motörhead, obviously, played. It is a very well-known large venue in the West End of London, and it had pubs all around. Even now, they’re still gathering places for punters before the shows. I went to see Kate Bush a year ago, and every pub within spitting distance of the Hammersmith Odeon was overflowing with the punters. Needless to say Kate Bush wasn’t in the pub, but you can bet your ass Hawkwind and Motörhead would’ve been there.

  “There’s an authenticity about it, right? You could tell Motörhead was the real deal. I don’t think they got into it for the money. They got into it because they wanted to be musicians. They wanted to play rock music. And like I say, in Lemmy’s case, certainly, that whole mentality came from Hawkwind. They would play a paid show and then five minutes later they’d go and play somewhere for free. And I think that whole outlaw counterculture thing went all the way down the pipe to Lemmy as well.”

  Addressing the band’s visual image, Rob clearly sees the connection of Taylor to the punks. “Yeah, I think so. His image, with the piercings and the spiky hair and sort of ripped clothes and everything else, he was always like Animal from the Muppets. And when he first came on the scene, yeah, I think he complemented Lemmy’s image. Lemmy had started to cultivate a biker look. I have to say that the first time we really got a sense of that was that shot for the cover of the NME in the mid-’70s, a famous photo of him in shades sitting on a long-neck chopper, and there’s a girl on the bike with him. That was like the first time that we saw him doing the sort of Hells Angel/Easy Rider thing. But he was just another one of the guys.”

  Phil bringing the thunder.

  © Wolfgang Guerster

  So like their fans and like bikers, the guys in the band lived fast, traveled light, and could always be available for a pint—Lemmy would indeed tell me at the end of every phone interview in advance of a show (and I’m sure everybody else he talked to as well), “Come say hi and we’ll have a beer.” Furthermore—between the three—there would be no marriages and only one child (Lemmy’s son, Paul Inder). One can debate the number and intensity of regrets, but I’m sure there are a few for each of the three members of the classic Motörhead lineup. There was not even much in the way of transportation or purchased accommodation, although, as Kevin Riddles relates, once the band had a bit of money in their pocket, Lemmy upgraded his digs, which nonetheless remained a rental until jettisoned.

  “He used to live on a beautiful houseboat on the River Thames in London, in Chelsea,” recalls Riddles. “And I walked in there one day, and the one thing I noticed by their absence, there wasn’t a single piece of musical equipment. Not one—there wasn’t a guitar, there wasn’t a ukulele, there wasn’t a juice harp, there wasn’t a kazoo, nothing. And I just happened to say, ‘So where do you practice?’ And he goes, ‘What the hell would I want to fucking practice for?’ And that was it. He, by his own lights, by his own admission, developed his style. And the way he played during his Hawkwind days, if it was good enough in 1970, so it was good enough for the rest of his career, basically. And that’s all he did. That’s what he did. That’s why it’s unique.”

  Eddie adds his thoughts on no instruments in the place. “When you’re in a band and you’re rehearsing every other fucking day. I mean, I always had a guitar on the side, but I was too busy partying and shagging birds to fucking play the fucking thing. You know what I mean? Someone to pick you up and stick you in a fucking rehearsal room and put a guitar in your hand and say ‘Go,’ and you go off. Fucking great. It was a little bit like that. But Lemmy wasn’t, like I say, about the jamming thing. Lemmy wasn’t the greatest man for rehearsal. I used to like rehearsing; I used to enjoy it. And I know Phil did. But Lemmy didn’t like it.”

&nbs
p; Back to the home on the river. “Fucking cold in there, mate,” remembers Eddie. “Yeah, he had this fucking houseboat. I only went on there a couple of times to go and see him. And of course trying to get to it, you had to jump across all these other boats to get there, which, being a piss-head, could be quite difficult at times. But no, he stayed on there. That must’ve been about 1981, I guess. That might’ve been about the Ace of Spades tour; I’ve got to think it was. But it was very cold, very damp. Great in the summer, but in the winter, cold and damp. In fact, we worried about Lem on that. In fact, he tried to buy the fucking thing, if I remember rightly, but they wouldn’t give him a mortgage on it. He fell out of love with it eventually, but there was something he kind of liked about it. I think it was the fact that he felt a little bit cut off from everybody there—he kind of liked that.”

  “Phil had his old green Camaro,” says Eddie, on any other material possessions the guys had, now that they could afford them, albeit modestly. Confirms Phil, “I was out to buy a bike once, and my manager said, ‘You’ll be dead in a week,’ so I bought a Camaro instead. I was dead in three weeks.

  “What did I have? I had a fuckin’ old piece of junk,” continues Clarke. “I was never really bothered about cars. Lemmy doesn’t drive. I never had a fancy car. Fancy cars never did it for us, especially me. You know, the last thing I want to be seen in is a fancy fucking car. It’s not my cup of tea at all. We sort of tried to buy some houses, sort of after Ace of Spades, and after No Sleep in the early ’80s. Phil managed to put a deposit on a flat, in I think ’82, and I was going to buy something in ’82. But then of course I wasn’t in the band anymore. So that went up the Swannee.