MOTORHEAD GIVES GOOD SHOW!

Sure ain't no Howard Johnsons. There's a woman in the lobby looks like a Kentucky Fried Chicken leg let loose in Freddie Mercury's wardrobe; all flesh, bone, leather and tastelessness, and her fingernails are heading straight for the desk clerk's eyes. A bunch of guys dressed like recent flood victims, not like any Tupperware Convention-ites I've ever seen, are cooling their heels by the door. And there's no way they're getting up to her room unless she coughs up the 300 big ones she owes, which doesn't look like happening in the 15 minutes I've got before the band is ready for the interviews.

High Noon on Sunset, and the usual collection of whores, winos, Mercedes owners and other Hollywood reprobates are trying to rub the smog from their eyes and earn an honest cent. The woman in the leather hotpants is having a tough time doing so. So's the Polygram Man who's trying to get order where none should rightly exist. So am I, forced out of bed at an hour when most self-respecting rock fans haven't even put on their studded leather pjs yet. The only people having fun in the cash-earning department are Motorhead, smiling like gurus and sitting under a hotel pool umbrella chatting and signing autographs and looking like a martini commercial from Hell. When a cluster of fans—Motorheadbangers as they are so accurately known—are moved along by the Polygram Man to make way for the CREEM interview, leaving just a pile of strange people with loud transistor radios who've pulled up their beach chairs to see what's going on, Lemmy offers me a screwdriver—confirming my belief that he is a practical sort and a gentleman. We begin.

"How else could two horrible reprobates like us get to visit America if it wasn't for rock 'n' roll? —Phil Taylor"

Talking of beginnings, let's get them out of the way for those unfamiliar with the Motorhead Story. ("Cor look at her," gasps Lemmy as another hotpanted female waddles up. "Hey, I never need a blow-job that bad." Shh. I'm trying to tell these Americans a story.)

The band wgs formed in 1975 by the dashing Lemmy Kilmister, he of the long hair, interesting complexion and novel teeth. When he left Hawkwind, a sensible | move, he put together a group with one Larry Wallis and one Lucas Fox and decided to call it Bastard. The manager didn't think it was such a good idea, suggested they settle for Motorhead, that being the title of the last tune Lemmy wrote for Hawkwind and slang for speed-freak. He is. They did. They played with Blue Oyster Cult (horribly). Got a deal with United Artists (more horrible still) and made an album called On Parole with four tracks produced by Dave Edmunds (no joke) which would never have been released at all if is wasn't that Britain wisely made the band Big Stars. (It was put out belatedly a couple of years ago). Pissed off at lack of plastic representation, they signed with Stiff and paid for their own sessions. The record never saw the light of day (except on later compilations). Their third shot was with Chiswick, but it wasn't 'til they signed with Bronze Records that things started happening. Meanwhile the band had changed to the long-term, successful line-up of Lemmy on bass and vocals, Philthy Animal Phil Taylor on drums and Fast Eddie Clark on guitar. Phil met Lemmy when he was a skinhead and Lemmy was living in a squat with the Angels and they both ate speed for breakfast. Phil met Eddie when they worked on a barge together. The trio seemed to work perfectly. And with music that punks liked and heavy metallites liked and Air Supply fans didn't, they started touring extensively, doing wild things and eventually selling lots of records. Eventually even America caught on, releasing their fourth album, Ace Of Spades, as their U.S. debut.

Some complaints you may have about Motorhead: But they're so ugly. Bet you're the kind of pervert who thinks Steve Perry looks cute, huh? Or as Phil puts it, if you could pull a chick as good-looking as his old lady, good luck to you. Nothing wrong with ugliness. But you can't hear the lyrics of their songs: You can read, can't you? They're printed on the inner sleeve. Anyway, the titles tell you everything you need to know—"Limb From Limb," "Jailbait," "Overkill," "Love Me Like A Reptile," "Overkill." Only reason they've got lyrics half the time is for people who get bored with instrumentals. But they're nasty and outrageous. Nasty and outrageous is OK by me.

Anyway, on to the present where the screwdrivers are waiting, and the band is talking about the good time they had making their latest classic, Iron Fist; helped a little, no doubt, by more than four bottles of Smirnoff a day.

"We really liked all the new numbers we wrote on it," says Phil, fetching in a tiny pair of black swimming trunks and turning golden pink." Also, with Eddie producing it, we were getting a much better sound as well. It's a shame we didn't try that before. But Eddie doesn't have much confidence in himself. He was always a person who thought he wasn't quite as good as he actually was."

All these past tenses; Eddie hasn't kicked the bucket, just Motorhead. He left in a cloud of dust the day before the band was due to start their American tour.

"This scene where he's left is only really him crying for attention," Lemmy reckons. "He just wanted us to ask him back, you know, say 'please don't leave' or something like that." Will you? "No, he's done it once too often. You get sick of it. After seven years it was beginning to screw our heads in. You can cry wolf several hundred times. When you leave a band sort of like once a week for seven years for whatever reason—I mean, we didn't want him to leave, we tried to persuade him not to. But he was so adamant that I just thought, 'well obviously it's not just a drunken wobbler,' him throwing a wobbler to get his own way."

Everything was fine until the band arrived in Canada to make a single with the Plasmatics—a Plasmahead/Motorhead classic featuring Wendy O's—uh— upfront vocals on the gut-wrenching "Stand By Your Man." Eddie wasn't standing for it.

"We all knew when we left England," says Phil, "that it wasn't going to be a Stevie Wonder meets Paul McCartney production job. It was basically an overthe-top single. We got the backing tracks down fine, then as soon as Wendy started singing, Eddie got up and said 'I'm just going out to get a bite to eat' and never came back." (We've all had those problems with Ms. Williams's vocals).

"He said 'If this fucking chick comes out,

I don't want to be associated with it,' And I said to him, 'well that's no problem. Easy. If you want, you can put on the back of the single: Eddie Clarke is no way involved with this. He hates it. He thinks it's a bunch of shit.' Because we knew the Plasmatics wouldn't mind that being written on the sleeve and neither would we...I still don't believe that was his reason for leaving," says Phil. "It's such a superficial, idiotic reason. We're sad he's gone, because when he went it was almost like being with a lover for seven years, and when you split a lot of tears were shed. It wasn't a case of 'if you're going to leave, all right then fuck off, we can replace you dead easy.' "

They couldn't. There they were stuck in Canada, and if that isn't bad enough the only musician daft enough to be there and also be familiar with their tunes was a Motorhead fanatic in a band called Anvil, and he was otherwise engaged.

"So me and Lenny sat around the hotel for a couple of days going 'oh fucking hell, what are we going to do? Do we bottle the tour?' And if we bottled the tour we'd probably never come back, that'd be it, our first headlining tour in America." After enough vodka, Lemmy had a brainwave. A Scotsman, an old pal and ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist, was up there working on a solo record (Scotland is not unlike Canada—a cold wasteland where people talk funny and drink for comfort). Brian Robertson— Robbo as he's affectionately known—had just junked his band Wild Horses, signed into a detox clinic and was living a respectable life till he got that fateful phone call.

"I don't think we're anything to do with heavy metal. I think we sound more like new wave when you get into it. I mean the old new wave. Punk right? —Lemmy Kilmister"

"Lemmy called him up and said, 'do you fancy joining Motorhead.' 'Och, wee naught, anything for a laff.' We've known Robbo for a few years, but only on a social drunken falling-down state. I know his guitar-playing inside-out because I've been a Thin Lizzy freak from the very first album. I knew the only person who could play this fast and learn the numbers this quickly and play shit out of the guitar in place of Eddie was Robbo."

He was given a Sony Walkman, Motorhead cassettes and 16 hours to learn enough for the set.

"One of the first comments he made when we were teaching him the numbers was 'fucking hell, I always thought you guys were two-chord wonders, a fucking wall of noise, and now I realize there's some structure in there. There's actually some quite tasteful things going on.' At which point Lemmy said, 'next time you do an interview make sure you say that!' "

He did when he finally emerged from the hotel room, rubbing his eyes and looking like a bleached carrot in the California sun. "If you had to play those two chords," he adds, "you start wondering about it, I tell you, because the way they play them it's actually very difficult to do."

They don't care too much having their music slagged as mindless simplicity. "The only press we got in the beginning was bad press, like how many bad spots has Lemmy got this week, or the ugliest band in town.

"It's true it's the same formula. When we come out with an album it's different songs but there are obviously a lot of similarities. Then again, you listen to any band who's been around for a while—Status Quo, the Stones—and you'll find similarities. It's just a style, and every band has a style."

"There's only a certain amount of chords you can use," reasons Lemmy, a self-confessed Joni Mitchell and Chuck Berry fan. Perks up Police fan Phil. "The Police for instance—because I know most of their numbers by heart, I can see similarities between albums.

TURN TO PAGE 65

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37

"The way the press brings it over, it's only something that's unique to Motorhead, that we seem to be repetitive...Obviously we'd rather be liked than hated, but it doesn't bother us."

Especially when a whole lot of the record-buying public likes them lately. "I think it's great," says Lemmy. "And I don't think for a second we don't deserve it as much as a lot of other bands. Why not us? We've worked for it. And I think we've got a definitive kind of style.

"I don't think we're anything to do with heavy metal, mind you. I think we sound more like new wave when you get into it." New wave? Like Futuristics and stuff? "I think the futurist thing is abominable," Lemmy nearly chokes on the screwdriveer. "It seems to consist to three blokes on keyboards and somebody telling you what a drag it is in a gaberdine mac. I mean the old new wave. Punk, right?"

"I'd rather call it hard rock," says Phil. After much discussion joined by half the prostitutes in Hollywood we settle on fast rock. What do you expect with all that speed pumping through the old veins?

"I like to smack them in the face and split," says Lemmy. "Short sharp shock."

Talking of shock, this degenerate bunch of pussycats has a big following in the homeland of 8-12 year olds. Honest. What so they think they're doing to these impressionable young minds?

"Probably giving them a good time," says Lemmy. "I don't see why the hell we should clean up anything, I'm not asking them to do what I do. I used to go and see Gene Vincent, people like that, when I was 12 or 13They never cleaned up their act for me and it didn't do me any harm."

"When we talk about drugs or that we're raving alcoholics," Phil explains, "we're not preaching that the only way to become a successful musician is—"

"Become an alcoholic," Lemmy interrupts, offering me another corruptive swig.

"Or," back to Phil, "an out-of-it maniac at all." They don't just play that way because of the booze and the pills though "it did help a bit in the beginning.

"The first couple of years, that I knew Lemmy before I joined Motorhead, quite often Lemmy and I were like a two-headed leather monster driving around London. When they offered me the job they went, 'what a horrible little cunt, he's perfect!' We didn't just put together a band and say, 'hey let's get out of it now we're a rock band' or whatever."

Their first U.S. visit had them climbing walls, what with the band on uppers and half the crowd on downers.

"There really isn't anything you can do about it," says Phil. "I just shout at them," says Lemmy, "bitch at them and insult them and play very loudly. If that doesn't get them up, too bad."

"If someone's swallowed four quaaludes," reasons Phil, "there isn't very much you can do about it when you're onstage other than yell 'get off your fucking seats you cunts.'It's a bit of a drag. It leads you to believe they don't like the music. So you just get on with it and play faster."

This time it's been far more to their liking, with a small but solid core of fans in just about every American city "going apeshit. It's kind of like our second year in England," says Lemmy. "And they turn people on to it and it'll go on and on like that. That's how we did it in England. You can't mount a compaign. We're not that sort of band. And we don't want to concentrate on any one place to the detriment of anywhere else. We'll just come over here whenever we can and play whatever we play. And if they ljke it, fine, and if they don't we can always play at home."

There's a song on the new album about their last American tour, and other than schoolgirls in the back of Pontiacs they seem to have the best of impressions toward the Land of the Free.

"It was a bit of a slog—but that wasn't what I meant," says Lemmy. "It was a catch phrase on the tour: don't make a fuss, get on the bus. More a tongue-incheek thing.

"I love America actually. I'd quite happily move over here tomorrow. The one thing I dislike about Europe is it's always raining and there's so much grey brick. The only good thing for me about England is the bands. It's given birth to a lot of fantastic groups. Then so's America."

What about the violence? It's been getting animal-lover Ozzy Osbourne— whose tour they were on last time here— into deep depressions.

"Ozzy's worried about violence; I'm not. I think if your number's up your number's up," says Lemmy. "Might as well be fatalistic about it. People could throw a can onstage and it could kill you. If you worried about that it would drive you crazy. There is a lot of violence over here though. I think all the sunshine boils your brains. Then again, England's getting the same. This place only slows you down if you get divorced from your fans and get involved in the business. We don't."

Corny but true, this band stays as close to its fans as a flea on a cat's belly. They've let kids milling outside a gig in the back door if the show's soldout or the tickets too expensive; they've had fans throw up on their hotel room floor and merely handed them a bucket; they take cassettes of the rough mixes of new albums to the kids to get their opinions; they've got Motorheadbangers buzzing around then here like mosquitos at a picnic and don't brush them off.

"You've got to be close," says Phil. "Those are the people that pay our wages. How could I be sitting here in the sunshine? It's all made possible by the people out there that you play to."

"And they're the reason we do it," says Lemmy. "If you forget about your fans, you're forgetting about yourself really."

"How else," asks Phil, "could two horrible reprobates like us get to visit America if it wasn't for this? If it wasn't for rock 'n' roll, how could we exist." How could you? "We'd be thieves," muses Lemmy. "The world's a wonderful place," coos Phil. "Drink, drugs, sunshine, swimming-pools, cigarettes, cancer..."

Ah, we're getting somewhere. Drink, drugs, women. Is a Motorhead tour still the mobile mayhem I recall from my youth?

"One always tries," says Lemmy.

But can one, after so many years of wildness, keep it up so to speak?

"On the American tours we've done so far, we've been on the bus. It's been finish the gig, get on the bus and go 1,200 miles. You have to find a young lady who'll come on the bus with you, and then you have to get her a plane back from the next stop."

With all the plane tickets and vodka and the rest, have they got any money left?

"We've been skint for years, haven't we Phil? What have you got in your bank account? I know what I've got—200 pounds overdraft."

A moment of silent for sweet innocent and detoxed Robbo, who apparently owes them so much for vodka money that "he's up to his neck in it now—in too far to get out." A lifetime of craziness ahead with a band that's already ripped a bathtowel off his otherwise naked body and locked him out of his hotel room.

"I was a bit of a rowdy fucker for a long time," is the case according to Robertson. "And it didn't do me any good musically. It didn't do me any harm though, come to think of it."

But what about Lemmy? He's 36 years old now, spent half of them behaving like an unreasonable human being. Won't he ever ease up? Eat health food?

"It would probably kill me. I'll tell you," he tells me, "I was going to get my blood changed a couple of years ago because I was feeling knackered all the time. I was"—gulp—"going to give up amphetimines!

"So I sent out a couple of feelers about this blood change deal—I mean, you're always hearing about Keith Richards. So my manager rang up the doctor and he said, 'how long has he been taking amphetamines?' And he said 'Fifteen years.'

"And the guy said, 'I wouldn't touch him with a barge-pole. His metabolism is so fucked up by now that new blood would probably kill him.' "

On that note the screwdrivers run dry, so do my questions, except for the usual got-any-messages-for-CREEMsters line. They have.

"What happened to our last CREEM interview?" threatens Phil.

"What happened to our can of Boy Howdy beer?" leers Lemmy.

Robbo has already gone back to sleep.