Motörhead - the dirtiest, meanest and loudest band in the land for the last thirty years. Fused cracked open the Jack Daniels while band leader Lemmy rants about hip hop, the war on Iraq and hitting 60.
How did you celebrate your 60th birthday?
I did it in Vegas, just stayed away from everybody, in case they had any surprises ready for me. Yeah, this is as good a way to spend your birthday as any. The next one I got to look forward to is 70, man, how is that for a big step?
In your case: Are there still goals to be reached?
Yeah, I haven’t fucked Halle Berry yet for a start. There’s always goals that you haven’t achieved. I’d like to have a hit in America before we go. I’d like to have another hit here too. Thank God for Germany, we still have hits there. They really stood next to us all the time, they were really loyal. That’s a great characteristic of Germany, they’re loyal. They can listen to the new stuff and the old stuff at the same time. People over here don’t realise that, they have to have just the new stuff.
Do you take more care of yourself these days?
No. Why should I take care of myself? It’s all still working. I just had a medical in Berlin, they said I had the liver of a newborn baby and my lungs are fine. It’s incredible. My heart is fine. Figure it out.
Is it easy being Lemmy 24/7?
Yeah, I’ve never been anybody else (laughs). It’s that simple. I can deal with it. A lot of people can’t deal with being famous. I can deal with it. I like been famous, I’m used to it now. I don’t know what it’d be like anymore, I mean, I can remember intellectually that there was a time when I wasn’t in Motörhead, but I can’t remember how it felt after 31 years it’s my life, and that’s just fine.
And you never wanted to escape that?
How can you? ‘Cause you stop being a writer at whatever time you finished the interview, right, and then you’re whoever you wanna be, but I’m always running for Motörhead, 24 hours, all the time, forever. Even if I stopped playing tomorrow I’d still be Lemmy from Motörhead, like McCartney is still Paul from the Beatles. You never shake that but luckily I’m happy with it. A lot of people will go: “Oh no, I’m a private person”, fuck off, you’re not a private person, you gave up being a private person when you ran on stage the first time. People make me laugh. Well quit music, motherfucker. You gonna be a cheap metal presser again? That’d be much more fun, wouldn’t it? Bullshit.
Any current music you´re listening to, or just the classics?
Every once in a while I roll out on my wheelchair and I´m getting to listen to a couple of new things. There’s a lot of good bands around at the moment. Meldrum from Sweden, they’re very good, all girls. Crucified Barbara are really good, they’re coming on tour with us, Clutch are good, they’re coming, too. There is an Iron Maiden tribute band in the States, called The Iron Maidens, they’re really good, I saw them recently. Cheerleader from Toronto are really good, there’s no end to them, but you never hear them on the radio because they’re too heavy or some fucking thing,
What do you think of Hip-Hop and R&B?
I hate Hip-Hop. I hate it. It’s the worst music black people have ever played. I loved black music. All the way through my life until the last ten years, fucking HipHop and reggae, I hate it. It’s like nothing to me, it’s not even music to me. It starts and it goes along and it stops. And they say they write relevant lyrics, no more relevant than mine, and we have real music behind ours. So what the fuck is wrong with you people, can’t you listen? I’m sorry everybody, I hate fucking HipHop, and I can’t tell you nothing else, because I do. I tried to like it, I listened to a lot of it, and I thought: “Well, man, I was right the first time, it’s crap”, so there you go.
How comes it´s such a mass phenomenon then?
Well you’re quite entitled to like it if you want, but don’t ask me to like it, because I don’t. But there’s room for everything, any music can be played, there’s plenty of room. There’s millions of people out there that enjoy music, you know, rap fans, Rock‘n’Roll fans. There’s gotta be all kinds of music for everybody to listen to.
Are you still angry with Hawkwind for sacking you?
No I don’t think like that. I don’t have revenge in my heart. It takes too long, and it makes you twisted and bitter, and I don’t wanna be twisted and bitter. I don’t need revenge, I’m doing what I do, and I’m happy doing it and that’s it. That’s all there is.
Is it true you tried to teach Sid Vicious how to play the bass?
Yeah. It was all uphill and he still couldn’t play bass when he died, I mean, fucking hell. Everybody knows that, just listen to the Sex Pistols record that he was on. You can tell it’s Steve (Jones) standing in for him. In fact I’m not sure if Sid was ever on the record, I think it was Steve who played bass.
Are you still in touch with Steve?
Yeah, I see Steve now and again. He does a thing called ‘Camp Freddy’, which is like a bunch of people get together and play shows, Dave Navarro and the drummer from the Chilli Peppers, and the bass player from the Chilli Peppers, too, I think, Flea, now and again and all kinds of people. And Steve Jones does that, too. I went out a couple of times with him and did “God Save The Queen”, and we did some early Presley and did two Pat Benetar songs. Juliet Lewis has been up a couple of times with her band. It’s a fun thing, just fun, and people get in for free, it’s great.
Is ‘Ace of Spades’ both - a curse and a blessing?
It’s a curse and a blessing, because it’s a good song and you get tired of playing it, but it’s still a good song. We got lucky, we could have got famous for a turkey, couldn’t we?
Do you still collect 3rd Reich stuff? Where do you find that?
In America, that’s where it all is. The Americans took it all home with them. One guy was in the American army and they took over Rechlin Air force Base, and he got a Fokker Wolf 190, and dismantled it and sent it home in parcels bit by bit and re-assembled it back in America, numbers on the parcels and a map with numbers on it. Shipped it all back to the States and re-built it. He has the only fucking Wolf 190 in perfect condition with all the original parts. He has it sitting on his deck in Pennsylvania. That’s the ultimate war trophy - a fucking fighter plane.
What’s your biggest treasure?
Probably a Luftwaffe sword with a Damascus blade. I got Hitler’s autograph about three or four times, but there’s so many forgeries and there’s an autopen version they used on documents anyway, you can never tell if it’s real or not, but I have one saying “Happy new year and merry Christmas from Adolf Hitler. I got that from Ozzy, too, so double whammy. I should have gotten Ozzy to sign the back of it, right, Ozzy and Hitler on the same piece.
What do you think about Bush and his war on Iraq?
It’s a mess. George’s Vietnam, and now he’s about to go into Iran too. So there’ll be two Vietnams, three with Afghanistan. I don’t think America can cope with even one, never mind three. It’s a claustrofuck, you know, it’s a war you can’t win. You can not fight a guerrilla war with ordinary troops. It’s been demonstrated thousands of times. The Germans in World War II couldn’t do it in Russia, the fucking Vietnamese beat them again, you know the Americans. Lebanon, the other one. You can’t find guerrillas who can hide in the hills and come out and stab you. You can’t fight those people because there will always be more of them and everyone you kill is a martyr, right, there is no way you can win. And of course, the Pentagon loves it, because they can get more helicopters, but it’s still true, you can’t win.
You´re touring soon. How many new songs are you actually going to play?
Probably three of them, you can’t really play more than three, ‘cause they wanna hear the old stuff. You have to try and balance it. We’ll be doing two at least or three, I’d like to do three and keep the two from ‘Inferno’ in there.
Will you bring out the legendary Bomber?
Only if they pay extra. It costs a lot to bring it, it’s a whole truckload by itself. It’s an 18 Wheeler.
How much would that be per ticket?
I have no idea. I don’t even know how much without the bomber. I know it’s a fair price compared with everybody else. I know we’re keeping it a fair price, and the merchandise - I have to always go at the beginning of every tour and cut the price on the fucking merchandising, because they always try and sell you nothing for everything.
So you have an eye on that?
Oh yeah, you wouldn’t believe how many fights I have with the fucking quality of the merchandise and the price of the merchandise. You have to have an eye on everything, man, because they just fuck it up otherwise. Always. You have to watch everything. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.
Motörhead tour the UK during November.
Illustrations Serge Seidlitz