Fused - Archive - Motorhead (Lemmy)

Best known for their 1980 hit The Ace of Spades Motorhead are still rocking along today. Although perhaps past their peak in terms of commercial success, the band still have a loyal fan base and have just recorded a new album, Inferno.

Having started in Hawkwind, but being kicked out for apparently "taking the wrong drugs", frontman Lemmy formed the band in the late seventies. As famous for his rock'n'roll excess lifestyle as his music - he has a tattoo featuring his motto "Born to lose - live to win" - Lemmy is still seen as the ultimate British rock star, despite emigrating to Los Angeles in the nineties. Although he hasn't exactly cleaned up his act, Lemmy doesn't want to return to the dizzy heights of success the band had early in their career. "We almost lost touch in 1980 when we were really big. Because we had four hit albums slowly going up the charts. And then we hit straight in at number one. I don't want to be up that high. I don't want to be with Elton John and fucking all them people. Because those people are really fucking strange. And I don't have time for all their fucking drama and uproars and all that. A straight-in-at-number-one live album is impossible to follow. You can't make another live album and then a studio album sounds tame by comparison."

Talking of drama and uproar, the reality television show The Osbournes, has introduced seventies rock star, Ozzy Osbourne to a whole new generation. But Lemmy doesn't understand the appeal of reality television: "That's a weird thing, having a camera following you around the house all day. Not me! Watch me playing video games for an hour and a half. That's quality T.V."

It's also an opportunity for this generation to see the effects of the hedonistic lifestyle of 70s rock legends. But Lemmy doesn't think Ozzy should be seen as an example of the dangerous effects of drugs: "Everybody could possibly end up worse. Even if you don't do any drugs and you don't drink and you don't smoke and you jog every morning you can still get one of them fucking little twiggers in your brain and you're gone. You can still end up a babbling idiot a lot worse than Ozzy. So I don't think that really applies.

I know a lot of people who got more fucked-up than Ozzy and are still doing alright. I'm one of them. 'Cause Ozzy never did a whole lot of acid. I was with the Hendrix crew, we did a lot of acid. I did '67-'75 constant acid. And I'm telling you, you don't go through that shit... if you come out of the other side of that even alive, you must've done something right. But I was lucky, I always had this, what I call the 'window on the world', I could look out and see what was really going on."

So would it be safe to say acid is Lemmy's drug of choice? "Acid's an interesting drug. I don't regret it, not for a moment. It made me a better person, definitely. But now it's not the same acid, see. It's really adulterated now, you don't get good acid. In those days it was pure.
In those days they were giving the Hell's Angels acid. And these were not the English or European Hell's Angels, these were the American Hell's Angels. The original Hell's Angels were bomber and fighter pilots that formed clubs. So you can imagine that, giving those guys acid. That's what you do when you're a Hell's Angel, you do more extreme everything than everybody else because that's how they work. And it has worked because they're still around."

Lemmy is, like many, cynical about much of the pop music currently in the charts, but believes there is still good music to be found out there, not least in the more established acts: "I went to see Blondie. Fucking great. Bands who have been around for a few years become a band and not just a bunch of guys who go into the studio now and again. I believe you have to go on the road with the band and prove it to an audience who can throw bottles at you if they don't like you. You have to go out there and be interesting enough so they don't do that. Because audiences like throwing bottles at you.

Dee Snider [of Twisted Sister] once told me he went to see Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden and there were two guys in front of him with a six-pack of beer. So they finished the beer then one of them said, 'I bet I can hit Pagey from here'. And they were really big fans but they suddenly wanted to throw a bottle at them. Why? To get them down to his level maybe? Weird. I don't get it."

Surely Lemmy must have had a few items thrown at him on stage too, over the years? "I've had things come past me on stage. A razorblade between two coins to make it heavy. And this happened before the solo on the first song, of course, and I look down and there's blood all over the stage. I didn't realise I'd been hit 'cause I'm playing and I look and see it's pumping out of my hand. So I go over to the amps and my roadie ties it up and I finish the gig. And this guy was not only dumb enough to do this, but also dumb enough to say 'It was me!'. So our crew went over and had a word with him and then threw him out the door.

Most of the people who come to our shows, I know a lot of them by name. We've been going around for years. And a lot of them are young people who don't do anything like that. It's a certain age group, about the 35-40 year old age group. And they're trying to show off in front of their friends, you know. 'Hey I'm a tough guy, y'know, I can throw a bottle at a guy'."

And is there a particular way of dealing with these people? "I found an answer to it. I warn them once and then I leave. I'm not here to be a target for some dickhead, that's not what I'm for. I've earned my place on my stage and I shall be treated with respect. Even in my advancing years. You should go up and throw a punch at the guy if you want to do something.

We played with the Damned once. God man, at the height of it. At the height of '78-'79. By the time they finished the set they were sliding around in this green spit - it was this thick on the stage. Green shit, you know? And they were sliding around in it. It's fucking horrible. Covered in snot. Fuck off!"

All that sounds like rock'n'roll can be a dangerous business and it isn't for the weak. "Sometimes it is, yeah," explains Lemmy. "Sometimes it's fist fights in the fucking dressing room. Rock'n'roll is certainly not cowardice, I wouldn't have thought. And it certainly isn't sneaky. Rock'n'roll is at least stand up and be counted. If you go on stage, you are putting yourself in the situation where you can fail or win in that one-day. And if you fail bad enough on that one day, you can be fucked for years or forever. So I think that it is kind of brave. I don't think it has anything to do with throwing bottles at people. That is kind of lame."

Carrie Shearer