Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers

by Martin Popoff

  Doug Smith figures that Lemmy hasn’t yet received the respect due to him for his lyrics, his world view and the amount of integrity that he represented to his fans.

  “His lyrics were always great,” chuckles Smith. “I actually have some of Lemmy’s handwritten lyrics and a few short stories that he wrote. Oh yes, he tried to write short stories; he would do it when he had nothing better to do and he had a good line of speed. And he would work hard at it. No, he was a great lyricist. As far as artists and musicians go, when people actually read his lyrics, they get a real shock. They are really political. He had his own way of saying what he felt, and I think he should be even more immortalized than he is, that’s for sure.

  “He didn’t like sycophants,” continues Doug. “He didn’t like people who pandered to him—and people always did. Which was terrible. Because, you know, he was as ordinary as everybody else. He felt that he had to be, otherwise he wouldn’t connect with the punters in the audience. He connected with these people. And they loved him for it.

  “I remember a gig in Newcastle, watching them play, and they were really so hot at this particular point; they were just boiling. And I was standing at the side, in front of the stage in the audience, and looking up from that point of view. And the front row had this kid who had medical glasses on. Now you may not know what these are, but if you come from Northern England, you’ll see kids with these old things; sometimes they had pink rims to them. This kid is sitting there watching the band, going crazy. And suddenly, they go into this great guitar riff, and he just leaps up and jumps up onto the arms of the seat. And he can’t be more than 14 years old—he shouldn’t even have been at the gig. It was a magnificent sight.

  “And that’s how he connected. They were idols. And at the same time, you look back on the lyrics and realize what he was trying to say, basically that we are all the same people in the world, one global village. I was with them for many, many years, and I’ve got to say, that original material . . . all this recent Motörhead, isn’t, to me, what the real Motörhead is. The real Motörhead was Lemmy, Phil and Eddie. That’s it—always will be. And Lemmy knew it. I don’t think he would agree with me on that, I think he’d get really fucking annoyed with me, but it’s the truth.”

  “We were called ‘The Best Worst Band in the World,’” continues Lem, on the subject of getting little respect, which rankles him almost as much as it does Eddie, even if his nature is to, well, stare it down. “I remember seeing that for the first time and I really thought that was unjust. You’ve got to read the reviews just to see what people are saying but just don’t believe them—the good or the bad. You’ve just got to figure out what is relevant. Most of what they say is irrelevant. The best rock ’n’ roll has always pissed off parents. The best stuff makes them go, ‘Turn that rubbish down.’ If they are saying that, then you’re on the right track.” But respect from direct peers, like Ozzy and Metallica and Slash, who have all heaped respect over the years, is important. “Yes, of course it is. It means that you’re doing it right. For me, music and friendship come together.”

  Lemmy also leaves behind an improved relationship with his long-estranged son, Paul Inder, something he never had with his own father. “I thought it was great; I thought he should know,” reflects Lemmy, when Jeb Wright points out the scene in Lemmy where he says he loves his son. “I’m not very good at saying things like that to people. I just thought I should say it. British people keep it pretty close to the chest, you know what I mean? That is kind of why I like Americans; they are keen. They are eager to get out there and they want to get the most out of things. They want to find out how things work. It is certainly different than the British, as they are so fucking stuck on their manners. Manners do not make for progress.”

  And Lemmy wasn’t about to look back. Even when everybody was hearty and hale, the high quality of the longstanding current lineup—tour in, tour out—was enough to ensure that no one was calling for a reunion of the original classic lineup. Might have been nice to see, but there was never much cry for it.

  “The thing is that I’ve had this band together with these two guys now for a lot longer than the original band,” answers Lem. “They have been through a lot harder times than the first band. I don’t see why I should put this band on hold for a bit of nostalgia. I don’t see why I should put these guys out of work while I go and tour with the old guys. I don’t think it’s fair of us to do that. I don’t know if Eddie and Phil can still do it at this point.”

  “Well, it’s me; I never gave up,” says Lemmy, when asked how the band had endured to last fully—and exactly—40 years, along with 22 studio albums and, depending how you count, another dozen or so live albums. “So I have to have a band with me, so that’s it, I guess. I mean, a lot of bands break up because they can’t decide who’s the leader, you know? There’s always infighting going on, and a lot of bands are jealous of the fucking singer. I’m sure Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts and Keith Richards bitched about Mick Jagger getting all the interviews. It’s always the same. You have to get on with that too. Tolerance again, you see? Everything is tolerance.”

  To persevere for 40 years is one thing, but to do so while generating the kind of amps-buzzing racket Motörhead was known for is impressive. Really, it’s a hard music to love, music made for lovers of hard music, and hence it’s easy to understand the lack of wider acceptance in America.

  “It’s passionate music, isn’t it?” continues Lemmy, for once defending heavy metal. “I mean, so-called heavy metal . . . I call it rock ’n’ roll. If Eddie Cochran was around today, he’d be in a garage band. And he was, wasn’t he? But it’s the kind of music that they can aspire to do themselves, right? Might call it three-chord bullshit, but it isn’t. There’s just as much craft in making a three-chord song sound different than all the other three-chord songs, as there is in writing a 25-chord song. The passion is most of it, actually. And the volume; volume is very important. And we’re good—we’re a fucking good band. We deserve success. I don’t care. It’s not false modesty. I’ve got no false modesty. I have a certain amount of real modesty, but I don’t want to show much. Fuck them. I’m proud of what I’ve done.”

  Lemmy—smoker, diabetic, drinker, hypertension and hematoma sufferer, abuser of a suspect ticker with a pacemaker—had been looking thin and fragile and far less mobile on stage as 2015 drew to a close. His enunciation was compromised but his bass was strong. Dates would be missed in America, but he completed a European tour. He played his last concert in Berlin, Germany, fittingly the nation Lemmy always called the band’s best territory, on December 11. On December 13, back in his adopted L.A. home, Lemmy was thrown his last party, a star-studded early birthday celebration at the Whisky a Go Go. Two days later, he was admitted to hospital, checked out and released, with test results pending. On December 26, he was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive cancer of the brain and neck and given two to six months to live.

  After the bad news, Rainbow owner Mikael Maglieri, sensing the end was near, delivered to Lemmy’s sanctified and rent-controlled apartment his favorite video game, so that he could play it from his bedside. Lemmy loved the Rainbow, and his curious habit of hanging out there just showed how Lemmy could be misanthropic at the same time as he could be open and sociable. If you respected him and his space, he would respect you right back. It was in his eyes, his disarming politeness when you least expected it.

  “It was a great place,” mused Lem. “Stars like John Lennon and Keith Moon used to hang out there. Lennon went on a bender for about a year and he hung out there with Harry Nilsson. Ringo Starr and Alice Cooper used to hang out there. There is a great tradition there—rock ’n’ roll is oozing out of walls. It is a legend that you can still visit. Plus they have a patio bar where you can smoke. I used to smoke in there but I didn’t want to make them lose their license, so I stopped.”

  Recalls historian and label executive Rob Godwin, “I once
put out a best of Motörhead box set. And around that time, I met Lemmy at the Rainbow and didn’t even know he was going to be in there. I didn’t know the legend of Lemmy at the Rainbow at that point, because this is back in the late ’80s, early ’90s. I’d seen him play twice with Hawkwind and I’d never met him before. I saw him in ’72, and I saw him again when he guested with them in ’87. I was on tour with a local Canadian band called Honeymoon Suite, and they were opening for Jethro Tull, playing Universal Amphitheater. Later on we went back to the hotel on Sunset Boulevard, and the hotel was like rock hell. I literally bumped into Stevie Ray in the lobby with a girl hanging off each arm. And Jon Anderson from Yes was sunbathing by the pool. And I went over to the Rainbow because the guys wanted to go over there. I’d heard all the Led Zeppelin stories about the Rainbow, so I said okay, let’s go over there. We went over there, and there’s Lemmy playing the bloody video game—I think it was Missile Command or something—standing at the bar. So I went over and just said a few nice things about Hawkwind to him and he was very gracious. He wasn’t standoffish or gruff or anything, just like a normal nice guy. And he said, ‘Do you want to play?’ Because I was pretty good at Missile Command at the time, I played a game of Missile Command with him. The guys in Honeymoon Suite were more in awe, I think, at the fact that he was just standing at the bar because they had a different perception of him than me. To me he was always Hawkwind’s bass player and I’d been more interested in what he had done with them.”

  Lemmy had no qualms about making the news of his terminal ticket to the other side public, but he would be dead before a proper press release could be drafted. On December 28, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and four days past his 70th birthday, Lemmy died at his memorabilia-filled two-bedroom apartment two blocks from the Rainbow.

  Motörhead manager Todd Singerman had been on the phone summoning Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee to come visit him while he was still, seemingly, in relatively good shape. He was working quickly, despite the doctor giving Lemmy two months to live. It came as a shock to all, the diagnosis and Lemmy’s quick passing, because there were any number of things that were going to kill him—just not cancer.

  Lemmy would become the first rock star to have his memorial streamed live, garnering 230,000 viewers of the elegant event taking place on January 9, 2016, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood. Lemmy’s son, Paul Inder, spoke memorably, as did Slash, Mikkey Dee, Lars Ulrich, WWE’s Paul “Triple H” Levesque and Dave Grohl. Also in attendance were Rob Halford, Matt Sorum, Robert Trujillo, Bob Kulick, Todd Singerman, Scott Ian and Mike Inez. Notably absent was Phil Campbell. Ozzy Osbourne issued a statement of tribute, as did Alice Cooper, Tony Iommi and collectively Metallica and Iron Maiden.

  Less publicized was the death, at 61, of Phil Taylor, who over a year earlier had suffered a brain aneurism that caused permanent complications. Taylor succumbed to his ailments on November 11, 2015, a short month and a half prior to Lemmy’s demise.

  I spoke to Eddie twice in the month before Phil passed, and a year earlier as well. In October 2014, there was even hope that somehow, Eddie could gerrymander some jamming with Phil to lift his spirits, perhaps even with Lemmy as some sort of informal and casual reunion. Relations had in fact been fine between all three of the guys for years, arguably relaxed and cordial, because once Lemmy had found Mikkey Dee and Phil Campbell, the guys were never going to have to deal with reunion talk.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean, you know, just a ride in the saddle one more time would be great. I mean, it’s a bit of a dream at the moment, but, keep your fingers crossed. But I suppose Lemmy—I spoke to him last week, it’s my birthday, I gave him a call—and he’s not feeling too bad. Because the week before, I went up to Phil’s 60th birthday, and I managed to text Lemmy to have him call Phil. Phil’s had an aneurysm in his brain, when he was in Los Angeles. So we had that capped off. He’s all right, but he varies. I’m trying to get him to play again now because he just spends too much time doing fuck-all and avoiding the world. So what I’m trying to do now is get him into playing again. I’m saying, ‘Look man, you play and we’ll get on stage together one last time.’ So I’m trying to get him to do that at the moment. I don’t mind, to be honest, I’ll play any time. There’s no one I’d like to play more with than Phil. Lem, I don’t know. I didn’t say anything to Lem. I told Lem that what I’m trying to do is get Phil working again.”

  Many thought that Phil had been struck with stroke, given reports that his speech was slurred. “No, not quite a stroke,” qualified Eddie. “He’s talking fine; he’s just a little slow. His thought processes are a little hesitant. He’s just a little damaged. That’s all I can say. But he’s generally okay. But he’s not doing anything, and I think if he does something . . . you know, your brain is a marvelous thing; it can work things out. But he needs to do something. Just lays in bed all day, really avoiding everything. And yet he’s fine when you sit and talk to him.”

  A year to the day later, October 8, 2015, Clarke’s ambitions for the original Motörhead—himself and Phil and Lemmy—getting together, sadly, were more in the realm of visitation and reconnection rather than any thoughts of vigorous Motörizing. And on the horizon was the perfect occasion for something of that nature, even if it would become past the horizon for the band’s dear leader, Lemmy Kilmister.

  “They’re having a 40th birthday concert at Hammersmith, in January,” said a hopeful Clarke. “Which I’m quite looking forward to, because as you’re probably well aware, Lemmy’s having some ill health as of late, and so I don’t know how long he’s going to manage to keep going for. I think he’s going to sort of rock until he drops, really. I did see him last year. I went to Birmingham and I got up on stage and we did ‘Ace of Spades’ together. That was November. And it was nice; that’s the first time we had been together for years, sitting in the same room. Unfortunately, Philip’s health is also on the wane. I went to see him; he lives in Darby, in England now, in the Midlands. I went to see him a couple of weeks ago, just to see how he is. He’s not bad, but he won’t be playing anytime soon. He’s had the aneurism and that’s damaged him a bit. So I don’t anticipate him playing anytime soon, which is a shame. Because it would’ve been nice do one together.”

  Eddie says he certainly would have been at that 40th anniversary show, but he said, “I don’t know about Phil. I think it depends on how he progresses in the next couple of months. He was quite ill in the summer, and that’s why I went to see him. I was a bit worried about him, and so I went up there. He doesn’t get up and around much. He spends a lot of time in bed at the moment. So I’m hoping that’s going to improve, but they’re not sure. The aneurysm has put a lot of pressure on his body and his liver and everything and he’s struggling.”

  As for Lemmy and his bill of health, Eddie said, “I think he wants to die on stage. I mean, one of my quotes when I was in Motörhead—when I left Motörhead, was out of Motörhead, whatever, when I was not in Motörhead anymore—I used to say I was going to die, in Motörhead, onstage. In those days it was all gung ho and all for one and one for all sort of thing. A very dear friend of ours died last year on stage, at the Break for the Border, London. Micky Farren. He was a writer and poet, but he wrote some of our tunes on the first album and Overkill. He wrote with Lemmy and he’s always been a great friend of Lemmy’s and mine. And he died on stage. He went on stage and had a seizure or heart attack or something and he collapsed. And of course he never came out of it and died—he sort of died with his boots on.

  “But we’re hanging on with Phil,” said Eddie as our chat grew to a close. “I’m going to check up on him this week and I might go and see him next week again. And just sort of keep an eye on him. God bless him, little fella. Because he’s the baby of the band. He’s kind of like a little kid. He was always breaking his foot or bashing someone’s head in and breaking his hand. He did need a certain amount of care, Phil.”

  Not 11 days later, Phi
l passed on, leaving just Eddie and Lem, and then seven weeks on, that would be it for Lemmy as well.

  Backstage at The Warehouse in Toronto, June 24, 2000.

  © Martin Popoff

  “I have too many regrets to go into now, but overall I think I have been very fortunate to have met and played with all the people I have,” reflects Eddie. “I do not think I would change a thing, as I would not risk losing the music and the memories I have. Whatever happens, I have no complaints. There is always gonna be things you would have done different, but who knows, it could have turned out worse!”

  All for one and one for all, at least in the innocent days when it was all new. “Yes, it was always the three of us,” agrees Clarke, defining the character of the classic lineup. “I’d say it was an equal share, to the three characters in the band. Like I was a character, Lemmy was a character, Phil was a character. The band wouldn’t have been the band without him. Because he brought a lot of uniqueness to the band. He was very funny. He had loads of energy. And I always thought of him as one of the best drummers ever. Because it isn’t so much technique or anything that for me denotes a great drummer. For me, it’s someone who could fit in and make the music work. And Motörhead was not an easy outfit, really. We were all going fucking mad all the time. So everybody had to fit with everybody else.”