Motorhead, Treated "Whimsically"!

Motorhead, Treated "Whimsically"!

Sylvie Simmons

by

It’s old, it’s dark, it hides a thousand evils behind a facade of normality and drapes drawn against the sun. On a dull West London street it could be any old house, but it isn’t—it’s Motorhouse! Home of Lemmy, legendary Lemmy, the Lone Ranger of Metal and his tonto, Wurzel! A nasty little boy watches me walk up the front path, picking his nose. Lemmy once said if he moved in next door to you the lawn would die, and it looks like the neighbor has, too.

As I’m thinking of the possibilities— install him in number 8 Downing Street and watch Maggie wither away—he appears at the door in a haze of smoke and Carlsberg. The little boy makes a perfect scale model of the World Cup football with the contents of his nose. Lemmy leads me inside...

Cozy, smoky and dark. Two downstairs rooms knocked into one with an arch in the middle where Lemmy’s model airplanes (crafted with love, painted with precision) dingle-dangle on little wires. A fireplace crowded with Motorabilia and scary masks and World War II stuff. A far wall plastered with a collage of Samantha Fox pictures, the topless D-cupped model and, loosely, singer, that Lemmy was going to work with until she got a hit on her own (there’s a photo of the spaghetti-eating contest where they met; Sam’s dad, recognizing Lemmy as a music industry great, asked him to “help” his daughter). Out back there’s a garden with more weeds and concrete than the Smiths. By the sofa various props of civilized life: whisky, beer, cigarettes, videos, TV set, and a nice cup of tea Lemmy just made. And in the corner there’s a parking meter. Why’s there a parking meter in the front room, Lemmy?

“Well,” says Lemmy. He says “well” just like he’d sing “well,” Lauren-Bacallto-the-nth-degree, soaked in Jack Daniels and strained through a filter-tip. “I was coming out of the Embassy Club one night with this bird and it was just there, you know?” I know. “I thought: That would look good in the garden,’ so I picked it up and hailed a taxi. And she’s going ‘No! You’ll get arrested!’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to walk home with it!’ So I hailed a taxi and I said, ‘Do you mind if I bring this in?’ and he said ‘No mate, I don’t,”’ this being one of those jovial and rightly world-famous London BlackCab drivers who mow down old ladies, small cars and bicycles with a smile. So here it is, in the front room. Should be out front making them some money, I suggest.

“We’ve tried it but you can’t get the money out,” shrugs Lemmy.

Wurzel comes in, plonks himself down on the sofa, lights up a cigarette.

Which of them’s the domesticated one? I ask, complimenting Lemmy on the nice cup of tea.

“Thank you. It was a teabag. You just put it in a cup of water. He usually makes it. I wouldn’t say he was domesticated, though.” Wurzel has just discovered that his cup of tea is full of washing-up liquid; Lemmy recommends milk.

Do they do their own laundry?

“No,” says Lemmy. “We used to have a machine, but it broke down. It’s difficult when you’re bachelors.”

But this is a man who’s learned to rise above difficulties in the past three years. It was that long ago that two-thirds of his band—Philthy Phil Taylor and cleanbehind-the-ears Brian Robbo Robertson —disappeared, and a legal battle with Bronze Records began that prevented the new line-up of Lemmy, Wurzel, Pete Gill and Phil Campbell from putting out a record. While the label was releasing compilations and the press was writing obituaries, Motorhead was out on the road—Australia! Hungary! Scandinavia! The United States! Tromso! Tromso? (“Even the people who live there have never heard of Tromso. It’s past the Arctic Circle!”)—honing itself into the tightest pack of metal animals this side of Metalzoic, and climaxing in a 10th Anniversary Show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon where the Motorheadmen past and present joined onstage in a rousing chorus of the song that started it all: “Motorhead.”

Lemmy wrote the song for Hawkwind before they kicked him out after five albums in ’75, and sang it with Pink Fairies Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox when he put together his new band, “the worst band,” as the critics called it, “in the world.” Soon came Fast Eddie Clarke and Philthy Animal and the line-up we scholars call Classic Motorhead, and two of the best Metal albums to ever scream through speakers: Overkill and Ace Of Spades.

And then Eddie left in disgust over Wendy O Williams, ex-Thin Lizzy Robbo came in for one album—Another Perfect Day, it wasn’t—and what with poor sales and poorer record company it looked like Motorhead was done for, over, flat on its back and deader than the neighbor’s lawn.

Except to Lemmy Kilmister. “Motorhead is my livelihood. It’s what I enjoy doing. If I gave it up what would I have left?” So he didn’t, and as soon as he could he put out an album. Orgasmatron is it, and it’s damn near brilliant. Lemmy thinks so, too.

* “The best one so far, don’t you think?”

“I’m rather partial to Ace Of Spades,” I say.

“It’s certainly the best thing we’ve done since Ace Of Spades,” says Lemmy. > “And this is definitely the best Motorhead.”

Other than the obvious difference to all but the innumerate, how’s this Motorhead different, I ask?

“Enthusiasm,” says Lemmy. “That’s the main difference. It’s such a relief to be with three geezers who want to be in the band, in Motorhead as a thing, all together, us against the world. The others got really jaded about the whole thing. You had to put a pistol up their arse to get them to play any of the old songs— even ‘Motorhead,’ for Christ’s sake! If I went to see Little Richard and he didn’t play ‘Long Tall Sally,’ I’d be round the dressing-room banging on his door! This lot really want to do it, and I’ve never had that sort of thing in a band since Eddie left, really, and it wasn’t there for quite a while before he left either.”

The dispute between Lem and Ed over sticky-nipples is public domain by now. But why did Phil leave? He seemed as permanent as a wart.

“I don’t know, really,” says Lemmy. “I don’t think he knows. It’s just that it wasn’t going that well with Brian Robertson, so we fired him and got these other two guys in, and on the day we got them Phil announced he was leaving.

“He was just fed up and he didn’t think it was going to get any better. I think he was just depressed about being in a heavy metal band and never getting any honor from his fellow musicians—do you know what I mean? Because you never get the respect side of it. You might be a fantastic player, but nobody expects you to know how to play. A lot of HM bands have got musicians that are a damn sight better than what you’d get in a jazz-fusion band, but you don’t get any Emmy awards, no accolades.”

Does that bother him, I ask?

“No, it doesn’t bother me because I’m a cobbled-together bass player anyway. I’m not supposed to be playing bass, I play rhythm guitar, so I’d never be in a poll for bass players, and I’m not exactly Maria Callas either,” a wicked chuckle, “so I get voted in because I’m a character.” Certainly is. Even trendy Sounds and NME writers wear Motorhead Tshirts. “It’s because,” says wise Lemmy, “they get them for nothing.” .

But not Brian Robertson, uh-uh.,You always got the impression, seeing him with Motorhead, that the band was a bad smell under his (daintily-freckled) nose.

“I know what you mean,” says Lemmy. “The fans felt the same way. He was always more like I’m-Brian-RobertsonGuest-Guitarist instead of one of the band. But he was a good player. I think Another Perfect Day was a good album.”

Wurzel nods so I ask him, was he a Motorhead fan before joining? Lemmy looks up from his whisky.

“I had two albums,” beams Wurzel like a schoolboy who knows the right answer. “Ace Of Spades and No Sleep, and then I heard Another Perfect Day—a friend brought it round and said ‘HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW Motorhead?’ and put it on and I really liked it. But it didn’t do very well, did it?”

“Certainly didn’t,” growls Lemmy.

So much so that a lot of people— actually, let’s be honest, it was just a couple of people in the press—rang the death-knell for Motorhead.

“I don’t even listen to them,” says Lemmy. “I’ve always been determined that they don’t tell me when it’s finished, / do. They all thought I was going to have a new name for it too, lay Motorhead to rest, cross its arms over its chest, shut its eyes and leave it. Well, / invented Motorhead, it’s Motorhead as long as I’m in it. And I’m not going to start again, going around the boozers—I’m too old for all that,” he cackles. “Can you imagine? The Red Lion in Brentford again? A nightmare!” He chokes. Lemmy’s 47. Wurzel’s 37. Where did he find him?

“Under a rock,” grins Lemmy. It’s a wicked grin. “I was looking for a toad and I had to make do with him.”

Did he kiss him and turn him into Prince? “More likely to turn into a lay-by,” says Lemmy, making one of many references to Wurzel’s Manly Prowess. (“Don’t mention the measurements or that’ll be it,” whispers Lemmy. “The best of us will never get a bird in America next time. Just say, when he gest undressed people throw buns at it...”)

“Maybe people will hear the new lyrics and not think I’m just a gorilla in a leather jacket. ” —Lemmy

What were you doing before Motorhead? I ask Wurzel.

“What? Musically?”"

Unless there’s something else you want to tell us. Feel free. CREEM is a mightier organ than yours.

“Well I was on the roof killing moss, spraying chemicals in it,” he demonstrates, “and in the evenings I was playing with this band called Bastard.”

“Which is a coincidence,” says Lemmy, “because that was what I was going to call Motorhead originally!”

“The reason I called it Bastard was because I was sick of it up to here with all these wallies,” Wurzel goes on, “so I thought I’ll call it what I want and just get on with it. Which is what Lemmy wanted to do, too.”

Describe the new band in sentences of two syllables, I demand of Lemmy as Wurzel goes to make more tea.

“Wurzel’s sneaky and cheerful, Phil Campbell’s young and horny, and Pete Gill is old and flash, like me,” says Lemmy, “but in a different way.”

Does he feel his age? I ask. “You find you have a reserve of energy that clicks in, that goes into overdrive when you need it,” says Lemmy.

Does he eat salads? “No.” Has he ever eaten a salad? “Yes.” And that’s why he doesn’t eat salads? “Yes.”

“Who wants to eat rabbit food all the time,” asks Wurzel, who’s come back with the tea. “Rabbits,” say Lemmy and I in two-part harmony.

There’s harmonies on the new album—on one track anyway, “Ain’t My Crime,” only not dippy metal harmonies; Lemmy tells me it’s a love song. Personal experience?

“Of course. If you get through life and you don’t get married or you don’t die, it’s going to happen.”

Is Lemmy a confirmed bachelor? “Well, you get set in your ways,” Lemmy shifts onto the floor. “Because if somebody says to you, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t live like that’ you say ‘Fuck you!’ and that’s another one gone, isn’t it? So I’m not expecting to live with anybody really seriously again. Except Wurzel, and that really is serious. I find him walking backwards and forwards in the kitchen singing to himself at all hours, or telling himself jokes under his breath and laughing at them.”

Tell me about first love, I ask, whimsically.

“Tender, romantic and hopeless,” Lemmy answers, whimsically. “Actually on the first one you’re so scared that nothing happens, ever, and all these macho stories you get in the locker-room is crap. It never happens!”

“Mine,” Wurzel’s gone all misty-eyed, “was called Ethel Taylor...”

“Ethel?” perks up Lemmy. “Mine was Kathleen Sweeny. A little slip of a Catholic girl...” And he’s got a lot to say about religion. Always has had—the evil and hypocrisy of the whole damned thing’s been as permanent a fixture with Motorhead as the fetching horned death’shead. Lemmy’s favorite song on the album’s the title track, “Orgasmatron”— “the lyrics really, they’re very personal; maybe people will hear them and not think I’m just a gorilla in a leather jacket.” ‘Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name Hipocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law My name is religion, sadistic sacred whore. ’

That’s some of them.

“That’s how I feel about the whole thing,” steams Lemmy, detailing wars, inquisitions, poverty, the Vatican, the Pope and Catholic girls in-the-club for God. His mother was a Protestant, his father left them—and he was a Protestant vicar for Christ’s sake, the Reverend Sydney Kilmister—and she had to write to the Pope to get his Catholic stepfather’s permission to remarry! His father, he says, is a hypocrite. No love lost, they didn’t contact each other until Lemmy was grown up and already starting a band. They met up. Dad asked forgiveness, said he’d do anything to make it up to Lem, who asked for some money, not much, just enough to get the band off the ground. Dad said no, he didn’t think it was right for his son, he’d send him to school to be an accountant instead. Lemmy said off, and the rest is metal history.

So that’s where the doom-and-gloom interest came from?

“I think that’s my star sign,” says Lemmy, who’s a Capricorn, who are all (except for Jesus) miserable humans. But “I’m on the cusp of Sagittarius, so that’s what my outgoing bit is. I’ve got the depression and the doom and the pessimism of a Capricorn, but I laugh at it because of the Sagittarius bit. I think it’s funny! The oncoming death of the universe as practiced by the human race is inevitable, and I just think it’s hilarious! They put a new war on the telly every night and I just fall all over the floor—here they go again!”

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 44

“It’s true what you say about cusps,” pipes up Wurzel, who is a Libra and Scorpio mix. But do they mix a good cocktail?

“Yes, I do actually,” says Lemmy. “I invented a cocktail called the Motorheadbanger. I made it out of the entire band and crew’s duty-frees on the French tour last year. It’s really quite interesting, and quite expensive to get it mixed up, but you only need two and the world ceases to exist.”

Do they throw many parties at the Motorhouse, I ask?

“No, I just go to everybody else’s. It’s a much more sensible idea. Why have a dog and bark yourself?”

Why indeed. Are they kind to animals?

“Yes, actually, but we don’t have any.”

Which musician would they least like to spend a night with?

“Divine,” says Lemmy. “I thought you were going to say Paul Weller,” says Wurzel. “Easier to stand than Divine,” says Lemmy.

If he could be a spot on anyone else’s face, who would he choose?

“Jimi of Bronski Beat,’’/chuckles Lemmy, “and then I’d have Iqts of friends!”

And talk turns to Raquel Welch for some reason, Lemmy’s Ideal Woman, and we’re going to watch videos so I’ve only got one more thing to ask: is there anything about the Real Lemmy that would shock and surprise CREEM readers?

“Yes,” says Lemmy. “I’m a1 woman.” E