So, rock-music soon became the major obsession — but besides taking up the pieces himself, Lemmy also became Jimi Hendrix' roadie for a while — getting knee-deep into the drug-soaked world of psychedelia...

Around '66 he joined — maybe according to his father's profession — a band named The Rockin' Vicars — two other bands followed: Sam Gopal and Opal Butterfly.

Around this time he got in loose touch with the band that Robert Calvert had joined forces with as well: Hawkwind.

Drummer of Opal Butterfly was Simon King — soon to become drummer of Hawkwind and Lemmy's flatmate was a certain Dik Mik — an old friend of Robert Calvert from the Margate-days and already a member of Hawkwind, operating the audio generators.

Around late 1971 Hawkwind was in desperate need of a bass-player and Dik-Mik repeatedly recommended his friend Lemmy. The band knew that Lemmy had a reputation of being a notorious 'speed-freak' — but after finally doing an audition he got the job — and immediately turned into one of the key-members of the band.

Though he didn't contribute much to the songwriting, his energetic style gave the band much of the drive that should gain it its almost legendary status in the years to come.

One of the first recordings Lemmy did with Hawkwind was the bands first (and only) hit-single Silver Machine — composed by Robert Calvert and Dave Brock. Though Calvert was the original singer, it were Lemmy's vocals that appeared on the final single-release — and it was also him who did the vocals in the filmed version of it — in the band's first (and I believe only) Top of the Pops appearance.

The first LP featuring Lemmy was the 1972 release Doremi Fasol Latido — the album that for many Hawkwind fans marks the beginning of the band's 'golden period' — and features Lemmy's delirious, eerie acoustic contribution The Watcher — describing a kind of desperate Orwell-ish surveillance situation:

The album was followed by extensive touring with the gigantic Space Ritual set-up. From this tour the band compiled a double live album by the same name that marked the bands biggest commercial success and their first creative climax.
Lemmy's dynamic style can be heard on this album at its best — in songs like the crushing Time we left or the catchy Calvert co-composition Orgone Accumulator.
The Space Ritual finally secured the band's cult-status — that it still gains up to date.

Hawkwind's rise to fame also presented them with even more kind attention from the local police forces (mostly the drug-squad commission)...

1974 saw the release of Hawkwind's new studio album Hall of the Mountain Grill.
In the meantime Calvert had left the band to pursue his solo-projects and new members had completed the line-up — pulling the band into a more melodic — keyboards/synth based direction. This was probably already the beginning of a certain departure of Lemmy from the rest of the band in musical terms — though again he contributed one song to the album: Lost Johnny — co-written by Mick Farren, former member of The Pink Fairies — it is a much heavier song than most of the others on the album.

The band went through the usual cycle of recording and touring and recording... — and Lemmy kept his cycles as well — that didn't always agree with the rest of the band — his way of playing — being already very loud and aggressive brought up more and more problems.

...and he remained a member of Hawkwind for more than another year. In 1975 the band released Warrior on the Edge of Time — which marked another step into a more symphonic direction — dominated by the brilliant work on keyboards / mellotron and violin by Simon House — who could finally hear what the others were doing.

Warrior was clearly another step into the opposite musical direction Lemmy was heading for. Listening to the album these days, it seems hard to believe that the Motörhead - mastermind was on it. — And his basslines did sound less aggressive than on former albums...
The album didn't include a composition by Lemmy the single outtake 'Kings of Speed' featured a Kilmister composition on it's b-side, entitled MOTÖRHEAD.

In retrospect, this could very well mark the beginning of the end (of this Hawkwind line-up) and the beginning of the beginning of Motörhead.
Anyway, another tour had to go underway, before the final split of Lemmy took place — not in a big row on stage — but under rather strange and embarrassing circumstances. Attempting another of their almost traditionally ill-fated US-tours, the band had to cross the Canadian border after a gig in Toronto... but Lemmy didn't came through the customs...

The time was 1975, when Lemmy — obviously pissed off by his former band members — returned to London and decided to form his own band called Bastard.
However, his manager argued that a band by that name would never ever set a foot into Top of the Pops, and Lemmy changed the name to the title of the last song he wrote for Hawkwind: Motörhead — the slang term for 'speed freak'.

It took Motörhead around 3 years to really take off in commercial terms — and the rest is more or less history. Since 1977 — when the band was still playing support for Hawkwind on their U.K. tour — Lemmy and his comrades in arms and bullet-belts, are churning out records and touring continuously.
Their reputation increases year after year — and one will hardly find a (heavier) rock-band that doesn't acknowledge Motörhead as an important influence — or at least a band, that never lost its credibility — after all those years.

In 1995, when Motörhead saw the beginning of its 3rd decade — and Lemmy his 50th birthday, even the boys of Metallica flew in to Los Angeles, to dress up like Lemmy-clones and do a short tribute gig to him, calling themselves THE LEMMY'S!

But however sad and unfortunate the circumstances of Lemmy's split from Hawkwind were — Mr. Kilmister is not only known to be outspoken against the press, politicians and all sorts of hypocrites — he's also generous and forgiving...
Over the years he appeared from time to time at Hawkwind gigs and also guested on the band's 1984 EP Night of the Hawks.

Calvert's and Lemmy's friendship, however, remained untroubled throughout those years — and Lemmy kept on collaborating with Calvert also on his solo-albums.
He played bass on Calvert's 1st solo album Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters and also on the 1982 single release Lord of the Hornets.

Calvert has been very fond of Lemmy throughout his life and obviously also appreciated his post-Hawkwind music as well. In an interview he even stated that he wished the sound of his current band (his last one that was: The Starfighters) to be something like a cross between Kraftwerk and Motörhead — however that may sound...

...alas, due to the early death of Calvert, we will never know —
...but the thought alone is inspiring ~ amusing, isn't it...