To sit and chat with one of today’s rock and rollers you are more likely to hear of marketing plans and advertising campaigns than you are of any actual rock and roll, not so with Eddie Clarke. No, Eddie Clarke, Fast Eddie Clarke to fans and friends, is not one of today’s contrived breed of spiked hair rebels, he hails from a day when a Marshall on ten was a sacrament not a science project and he didn’t mind ripping you a new ass with some tasty guitar licks during one of his solos/prayers back in the day either. Take a listen to MOTORHEAD’s “NO SLEEP ‘TILL HAMMERSMITH” live collection and tell me you have heard a guitar sound so perfectly measured while being so viciously unrestrained and I will spit in your tea. Fast Eddie Clarke is as much god as he is man where infusing guitar notes with feeling is concerned and as it turns out, one hell of a great conversationalist too.

In my first attempt to ring up Mr. Clarke the phone line was busy. “Funny,” I thought, “‘cause I am right on time.” I try again, then a third and fourth time, busy, busy, busy. I dial for what I tell myself will be the last time, success, it’s Eddie! He is alive and well and fending off incoming calls from female admirers, more proof of his real rocker credentials methinks. We get on for about an hour and a half during which time Clarke runs me through everything from MOTORHEAD’s us-vs-them attitude in the early days on through the creation, disintegration and occasional re-birth of FASTWAY. What unexpectedly emerges as the most intriguing aspect of our chat is Fast Eddie’s forecast for a new solo album. There is no band, no music and no particular direction set as yet but what it definitely is, is the realization of Clarke’s desire to come from out of retirement and to follow wherever his fingers lead him on the fretboard. When Clarke speaks of reaching for the Rock again after having been away for a while there is an absolutely infectious optimism in his voice, a confidence that he had thought lost forever until recently. He gives much credit for this newfound interest in playing to two things, first to his partnerships with his producer and fellow FASTWAY alum, Lea Hart and with official web-site designer, Steve Goldby. Between Hart and Goldby Clarke has found not only that he can again make records that he enjoys making but that there is a sizable audience ready and waiting to hear what he has got cooking as well.

The second bit of motivation came in October of 2000 when during MOTORHEAD’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration at London’s Brixton Academy Clarke was enticed up on stage to perform a few numbers with his old band. Relying solely on what has been written of the event it seems that the night was just short of a sonic Nirvana with a hall full of fans screaming for more when it was all over. Clarke felt this night deeply and intends on repeating it on some scale. Says Clarke, “If just one person wants to see me I will be there.” I shouldn’t think that would be a problem anywhere on Earth so lets get to fueling the bus already! A single conversation doesn’t cover nearly enough ground so after giving the following a read please do check out www.fasteddieclarke.com for more on the return of this rock and roll legend. (Sorry Eddie, didn’t mean to embarrass you but you are what you are.)

DAVID LEE: I have been told that you are quite the busy man as of late?

FAST EDDIE CLARKE: I am, yeah. I am just starting to crack on now. In October I got up onstage with MOTORHEAD in a big London venue, The Brixton Academy.

DL: Really?

EC: Yeah, well they had this kind of twenty-fifth anniversary/birthday gig and Lemmy phoned me up and asked would I come along and “Of course” I said. It was great for me because I hadn’t done it for a while with them. So, I got up on stage with them and Brian May was up there, who I know quite well, and we had a bit of a laugh and I quite enjoyed it. After I came off I though, “Oh I have to do this again!” So since then I have been kind of putting the foot to the floor to get something organized. I went to see a studio last night where I am going to be making an album, I am going to do a solo album for a start, as soon as I can. I am going to use some people on that and, hopefully, get a situation with some good players that I can get on with and take that further to have a band to have a band to, later in the year, go out and do some stuff.

DL: That would be nice to see.

EC: Yeah, it is quite a good plan if it all comes together but the trouble that I have had over the years is not always being able to get on with the musicians, you know? Singers are hard work, man! (laughs) They have got egos the size of fucking houses haven’t they?

DL: I have heard that! (laughs) One of your old singers is floating through town in a day or two.

EC: Who? FLOGGING MOLLY?

DL: Exactly.

EC: Yeah, Dave King, he was one of those! (laughs) He always thought the band was him and I always wondered why he had to feel like that when it was four of us, you know what I mean?

DL: Yes. The last time I saw him he was stuffed into the back of a van with four other guys who I later learned were KATMANDU. Poor guys, they were playing support for Don Dokken on his solo tour and I was promoting the show and had no idea who the hell they were until after they played.

EC: What did you think of KATMANDU?

DL: They were different and they did the “hits” from each of their member’s previous bands which was the whole concept I think. I don’t think they burned the place down or anything like that.

EC: No. I went to see them when they came here because I tried to stay friendly with Dave although he is a hard man to stay friendly with. Have you seen him lately?

DL: No, no and this FLOGGING MOLLY thing is some kind of Irish-Funk thing or something?

EC: It is a sort of Irish Jig band I heard. I have no idea! (laughs) I spoke with his wife a little while ago, she still calls me and keeps in touch, his ex-wife that is. I think that he has been married about four times, yeah, he is one of them, “I am not sure I better get married.” No confidence. But yeah, the KATMANDU thing, I didn’t think that it sparked any kind of excitement. It was all a little bit flat I thought.

DL: It was a bit contrived I think because it was “Hey this is the drummer from KROKUS and the guitar player from ASIA with the singer from FASTWAY” instead of it being an entity to its own.

EC: Yeah, that is exactly what they thought. The bloody cheek these people have got, these managers and stuff. That is not how to get chemistry, know what I mean?

DL: Sometimes that kind of thing works, with BAD COMPANY for instance but overall it ends up being pretty transparent.

EC: Oh yeah, absolutely and that Ted Nugent thing with DAMN YANKEES. I thought a bit of that was quite good.

DL: Yeah, and they are trying for a third record now. I have to say nice things about Ted because he is a god in this part of the world. (laughs)

EC: Is he still hunting in his loincloth?

DL: Oh yes.

EC: With the toilet roll stuck to his bum? (laughs)

DL: Yeah! That little fox tail thing of his.

EC: I love Detroit. I have played there quite a few times haven’t I? I played the Joe Louis and Cobo with AC/DC and IRON MAIDEN. I nearly got arrested in Detroit actually because I was very drunk in the hotel! They don’t take any shit do they? (laughs)

DL: Not when they know they can squeeze some bail money out of visiting musicians! (laughs) With the mass of musical memories that you have is there a particular place you want to get back to with this new solo album?

EC: It is kind of like a chance just to do something really because I have been in the wilderness since I did my last solo album. I think that everyone has one in them where they say, “I have to do this solo album thing” but that was just something that I wanted to do because I had some songs and stuff. Now, I haven’t really got any songs because I have gotten out of touch a little bit. You get a bit like that and you do different things so I am using it as a vehicle really, to put a band together and the material will be written as we go or as I go. It is not like I have this thing that I want to do. I will create it as I go along. I will probably do a couple of old MOTORHEAD songs and maybe a couple of good FASTWAY songs that I like but only to keep the links there. I feel that at this age I am not going to go out there and say, “Hey I have got a new album with all of this new material and I am starting all over again, ain’t it great?” That is not for me anyway and I would rather say, “Hey, this is what I do if you like it, fine, enjoy but if you don’t that is fine too.” It is that kind of attitude. I am not going out to try and sell records it is just a vehicle for people who like my guitar playing and like the sort of music that I play. I want to keep it sort of straight so that if they do come and see me they know what to expect, you know what I mean? It will be me doing just what I do best.

DL: Was there any particular reason why you stopped playing music a few years ago?

EC: Well, it gets a bit fucking tough you know? The confidence goes and the business gets a bit, you know, I suppose that I am a bit sensitive really. When no one wants to know you, like in MOTORHEAD, we fought against everybody, everybody hated us but we kept going. I felt for a while that it was because you wear out and instead of taking the attitude of, “Well, bollocks to you, we’ll fucking show you!” in the nineties I felt like, “Oh, fuck it nobody wants me so I’ll knock it on the head, bollocks!” That kind of defeatist attitude really but when I did that MOTORHEAD thing (in October 2000), it was fantastic. All my friends were telling me that when I got up on stage all the kids got up on their seat and cheered and it made me think, “Yeah, there are people out there that want to see me fucking play!” I thought “Well fuck it, I will give it a go.” It is going to be a totally non-ego type of thing and just going out there and doing what I do.

DL: With much love and respect for Lemmy and the current band, it is the lineup with you and Philthy that people hold on to as the definitive version of the band. The records with you are the ones that still sell in the catalog, you have made a mark there and elsewhere that is for sure.

EC: Yeah, the first half a dozen albums really. I still do quite well off of those funny enough.

DL: So you actually do get paid still?

EC: Oh yeah! Since 1991 I started to get paid again because all of the companies and management’s that had MOTORHEAD they had to go to court as well and they all went bust or something. They had to sell all of the catalogue and the publishing to major companies. The publishing went to EMI and well, EMI don’t fuck about, they pay you! I got the shock of my life, I said, “What is this check?” and they said, “Those are your royalties” and I said, “Well, I haven’t gotten one of these before!” (laughs) And it was the same with the records so it was kind of late coming but it did come which was quite nice. It is always nice to be appreciated isn’t it? You know, I am sensitive as shit man! (laughs)

DL: Do you see the same return from the FASTWAY records that were on EPIC?

EC: No. You see I got lumped with a big debt with CBS because everybody fucked off. Dave went off and did this other thing and the management went with him and CBS went with him. They all kind of fucked me over and that didn’t help me. That was in ’86 and what happened was that I got left with the bill up to that point. The first couple of albums sold well but the latter ones, where they go these fancy producers in and all that, I lost my way a bit. Dave wanted to do this and that because, you know, he is a singer! (laughs) So we ended up with orchestra’s and doing it at Abbey Road and all that and I lost control of it completely. The bill went up and the record didn’t sell any, that was, “WAITING FOR THE ROAR,” do you remember that one?

DL: Oh yeah.

EC: Yeah, that cost an absolute fortune and what they did was they discontinued the record but just a month or two ago they did a deal with another label where they put “ALL FIRED UP” and the fist album all together in a package. I haven’t managed to get hold of one yet but apparently it is out there.

DL: It must be a bitch to keep track of unless you have the money for a lawyer and an accountant to audit the whole thing?

EC: Well, that’s right and as I said I did leave CBS and they still send me the bill every six months for what I owe them and that is why they are not going to give me anything. It is probably like three and a half hundred thousand dollars and the record is not released anymore so it is never going to go down! (laughs) I am going to have that until I die I think.

DL: That’s too bad but, as you say, the MOTORHEAD stuff seems to be well cared for maybe too well cared for because they keep re-releasing the same stuff or just repackaging it really.

EC: Well, I don’t like that much actually. It pisses me off a bit. I had a meeting with Lemmy earlier last year and we discussed a couple of things like that but there is absolutely nothing that we can do because back in the seventies when we did all our deals we signed our fucking lives away. We signed away all the tapes and all the albums you see? Did have someone look into it last year because they were trying to revamp the “NO SLEEP TILL HAMMERSMITH” and put all the outtakes with the old album and all that which I thought was a fucking travesty because I think that album was a classic album. It is just the business doing what they do with everything, rehashing all of it. I am trying to put a block on it at the moment so that they don’t destroy the album because I think that it is a good album as it is.

DL: That was your only number one album, wasn’t it?

EC: That’s right and I think that it should stay the same and they want to change it and repackage it and all that. I think that a classic album of that nature should not be fucked with. I told my people, “Whatever it costs!” When I spoke with Lemmy I said, “we will raise the money somehow” because you know Lemmy ain’t got a lot of money either, I mean, we all have enough to get by but we ain’t got oodles of cash knocking about, rent and gas, that kind of thing but there are times like this when you really need some. I had a letter from the guy that is doing it only the day before yesterday and he said that he is having a lot of trouble getting the contracts out of ‘em or reading the contracts, it is all about the small print really. It is all down to whether or not they have the right to include old material when they already have the finished product if you see what I mean. You see, they have got all the outtakes from the other gigs and they are thinking of throwing a whole gig out with “NO SLEEP TILL HAMMERSMITH” and messing it all up. Of course it won’t have any overdubs on it like the original did so it is a bit like that.

DL: There are later FASTWAY records that you did after CBS that I would imagine you have more control over?

EC: “ON TARGET?”

DL: Yeah.

EC: Oh, that is another story, have you got time? (laughs)

DL: Plenty! (laughs)

EC: The problem with “ON TARGET” was that Lea (Hart) and I got together to do that and it all got a bit screwed up by the business demands. I wasn’t finished with it and Lea ended up having to get someone to do a lot of the guitars and keyboards on it. He (Lea) kind of took over because I was a bit ill at one point and he got his teeth into it and I couldn’t get his fuckin’ teeth out of it! (laughs) I mean, we are great friends and I understand where he was coming from but I couldn’t do anything about it. So, the album came out with all of these keyboards on it and not a lot of me, I felt, so what I did was I bought it back off of ‘em a couple of years ago, we actually got the rights back, and I took all of the guitars off and all of the keyboards off and put all of my guitars over all of it. Have you not heard that?

DL: No, neither version actually.

EC: Oh, that is “ON TARGET: REWORKED.” So I have got all the keyboards off of it and I said, “OK, roll tape!” and off I fuckin’ went. I was full on in this warehouse and the fuckin’ guitar sound was magnificent! They just put down everything that I did and so the album is now called, “ON TARGET: REWORKED.” (laughs) It was something that I had to do really because at the time when I did it I was getting a bit fucking ill and I thought that I was going to snuff it. What I thought was that Kids are going to buy that when I am not here anymore and think that I am sort of a major player on it and it is not fare. Not fare to me or to them, to have this album where they think that they are listening to me and maybe it isn’t me. So, I thought that I would rectify that before I went toes up, so that is what I did.

DL: But then you fuck it all up by living on to do another record anyway! (laughs)

EC: Yeah! (laughs) That was good, I enjoyed that one because I got a bit morbid in the last few years. I said, “I am all over, it is finished and that is the end.” It must have been the pot that I was smoking or something! (laughs) The I thought about this new album that I should do a, “Best of me” thing, you know, “the History of me” but with me picking all of the tracks that I thought had the best solos on them and all of the best tracks that I liked doing best live. So if a fan bought it he could say, “Oh, that was his favorite solo” you know what I mean, because it is not fucking “Ace of Spades” or “Say What You Will” it is the ones that the kids wouldn’t know. A lot of the questions that I do get asked have to do with “What is your favorite solo” and that and if I wasn’t here then nobody could answer that, you know what I mean? (laughs) I was going to pre-empt the whole thing and get my “best” record out before I died! (laughs)

DL: Right, save your biography for an epitaph and let the family cash in! (laughs) But then there is no family, right?

EC: Right, there is no family. It would all go to my museum what I haven’t got yet! (laughs)

DL: No kids then?

EC: I never did that. I was too rock and roll really I didn’t settle down or get married or anything.

DL: Who are you going to leave all your guitars too then?

EC: Well, I don’t know! I was thinking of getting a museum going over here and dumping them in there because I have got quite a few. (laughs) I don’t know what to do, have you got any suggestions?

DL: That’s easy, send ‘em to me! (laughs)

EC: (Laughs)

DL: Typically American of me eh? (laughs)

EC: Yeah, “I’ll take ‘em off your hands.” I had to show some of my guitars the other day to a friend who asked if I still had them all. So I had to take him up to the roof of the house and get all the dust off of them and move all this stuff, it took about an hour just to get to them! (laughs) I have about ten guitars, a little collection, a few Gibson’s that I have collected through the years.

DL: There is a fine Michigan product!

EC: Yeah, they are still really my favorite guitar. The Strat was more for MOTORHEAD because MOTORHEAD was such a raunchy kind of a sound that I needed something to kind of cut through but the Les Paul has always been my thing. You know that is where I came from, Eric Clapton-John Mayall sort of thing.

DL: Now that you have blown the dust off are you feeling back in the groove yet with the playing?

EC: Well I started playing again and I am playing every day, which is quite good. I have got my electrics out and I am just having a little bumble about.

DL: Does it feel natural to you or are you relearning a lot?

EC: Yeah, it is a bit like riding a bike but the only thing is that my fingers get a little sore when I don’t play for a while because I put thicker strings on now to sort of get my fingers hardy but I love it. I love playing and when I do pick it up I get lost in it for hours. I think, “Fuck me, I enjoyed that!” The worst thing is now I think, “Oh that is a good idea maybe I should put that down on a bit of tape” and now I have to find the tape machine! Of course I have to root around and find the wires and the blank tape and all that, it is like trying to find the stone in the pond, you know! (laughs) But, I will get organized because this is the new year thing for me.

DL: Do you have the same excitement for it all that you had when you first picked up the guitar?

EC: Naw. No, it is different in a way. I don’t know really. When I first picked up the guitar I was searching for things to play, to get better, you know? Now, after playing for so many year, you play virtually the same things, like all the same finger things and all that and the only way to get any sort of creativity is to actually forget yourself and just strum away, just play. It isn’t the same, it is a different buzz. I will tell you what when I was on stage with Lem again I felt like I was ten years old again. When you are sitting at home playing that is all very well but you are sitting at home with a little sound but when you get out there with a couple of hundred watt Marshall’s behind you, that is still just the same, rock up your ass! I was standing there playing, just a couple of notes and I said “Yeah, that’s a nice fat one” and I kept doing it! (laughs) We had a nice long soundcheck which was nice.

DL: How many songs did you do with MOTORHEAD that night?

EC: I only did two on stage but we did three at the sound check and had a bit of a jam so it was enough for me to give me the taste back. It was all that I needed.

DL: Did they have to give you the hook to get you off the stage, sounds like you might not have wanted to leave! (laughs)

EC: No, I am not that fucking, I would rather bow out gracefully you know! (laughs) Yeah, I did feel sad leaving when I had gone down so well! (laughs) I left them to get on with it because Lemmy is a fucking masterpiece really the way he works. He works so fucking hard. He never stops really except when he falls over and has to have a rest! He is getting on now, he is well into his fifties and he hasn’t had a break! I am fucked and I have had a break! He has just carried on.

DL: He is pickled. He will never die just decay I suppose! (laughs)

EC: Well he must be because he is still going and he is still lucid. It is not like talking to a plank of wood or anything he is still all there so it is fucking nice. Whenever I see him I always get a nice warm feeling to see that he is OK because the thing that we had between us, me Phil and him was so special. You realize later just how special it was and that it really only happens once in your life, that sort of camaraderie where it is you against the world and you haven’t got any money and you are fighting everybody but you are doing it together. As long as the band is OK you have got something. You have a few fans in the beginning and then they grow and become an army and in the end you have to say, “Well, yeah, MOTORHEAD are here” because we just were not going to go away. I realized after FASTWAY that yeah, we were friends but they shat on me, like musicians do, but the Phil and Lemmy thing was so special that it was like being in the Army I think. You know, when you are in a war situation and there are three of you there and you have got to watch each other’s backs. The survival of each one depends on the other and it was just something real special and I never found it again.

DL: When you joined on with Lemmy and Phil in MOTORHEAD the music that you were playing was far away from the Blues type stuff you had been doing previously. Was there a bit of, “Well, this will keep me busy until the next gig” or was MOTORHEAD something that you felt a commitment to straight off?

EC: Yeah, it was a total change. I didn’t have anything on at the time and Lemmy had a bit of a reputation so it was a chance for me to be in a band that already had a foothold. You do think a little bit like that because when you are doing fuck all, you know. So, I took the gig without really considering the music side of it. I knew that it was sort of Hard Rock or Heavy because they played me the album that was just done and wasn’t released and I was going to be rhythm guitarist originally so at the time I just wasn’t thinking like that. I thought, “Yeah, this would be great just to be playing!” When I did finally get there and we settled down into a three piece, I mean, to play the way that we played was because of Lemmy’s sound, that is what changed it all. He plays like a lead Marshall amp with all the treble up and all the bass down and he also plays a Rickenbacher bass so if you can imagine the sound that you would get form that it is kind of like a rhythm guitar more than a bass. When I played with MOTORHEAD everything that I knew went out the window. It is like a whole new set of rules and Phil found the same thing because you are kind of islands within the band in a kind of way, does that make any sense?

DL: Perfectly.

EC: I think that is what gives it its unique perspective. We were all trying within these difficult circumstances, at first, to adjust and to fit with each other. A lot of bands had that, bands like THE POLICE or even U2 and bands like that that had a weird sound, well, they sounded weird at first but after they got it cornered it started sounding really good. After about a year and a half it started sounding really good because you get good at this new thing. Even when I got up with them the other day I had forgotten what it was like to play with them because it is like playing without a bass guitar so when I am playing a solo it is kind of like I am playing on the bass drum and this rhythm noise if you know what I mean. When I joined with Pete Way to put FASTWAY together, that was the first thing that I did after I left MOTORHEAD, we had a rehearsal and I thought, “Fuckin’ eh my guitar sounds good!” and it was because it had bass underneath it! I was talking about this with someone the other day and we did a gig in Beaumont Texas supporting Ozzy, this is with MOTORHEAD, and MOUNTAIN were going to do the opening and when they came along they just flew in on this little jet and they used our amplifiers and they sounded fucking awesome. I said to my roadie, “why don’t I sound like that?” And it wasn’t until I played with Pete Way afterwards that I realized that it was just what you were playing on. If you have got a big fat bass there you can kind of lose your guitar a bit. It takes the edge off of it and makes it sort of nice and warm but when you are playing with Lemmy and the drummer it just sort of makes it really hard and cutting so you can’t really relax with the MOTORHEAD sound. You are forever having to keep your eye on it and hold it down as it were. I mean, the drugs might have had something to do with that, I am not sure! (laughs) I don’t want to get too philosophical here, I must remember what state I was in at the time, we all were! (laughs)

DL: MOTORHEAD has always been interesting in that it was one of those bands that crossed over between normally disparate factions of music fans, the Punks and the Metal-Heads, at least here in America anyway.

EC: Yeah. Well here it wasn’t so bad it was more like when the rocker crowd got involved, “longhairs” as I called them in the Punk times because that was the difference between them really, the length of their hair, they all had leathers on and stuff. I think that we were always very accepted by the Punks here and I think that when we got in the Provinces it was more the Bikers so the Punks were kind of outnumbered but it all stayed pretty calm. I have always found that if you give Bikers an egg they will turn around and do it but they don’t necessarily incite it whereas the Punk people used to spit at people and cause trouble. That happened one time when we were supporting THE DAMNED so you can imagine what sort of Punk audience was there. We go onstage, I think it was about our third gig, and I am still shitting myself and we are playing away and one kid spat at Lem! Only one kid and then all of these elbows were going up in the fucking crowd because obviously Lem had a lot of fans you know. Then when THE DAMNED came on they were slipping all over the fucking stage with spit so I think that we got off lightly there! (laughs) That was the sort of fans that we had, very close. We always chatted with our fans and went out and had drinks with them. Without them there was nothing anyway because the business was crap and we had no dough. All we did have was our fans and our music, which are great things to have. I would rather have those two things then all the tea in China because without that you ain’t got nothing.

DL: Now and again there will be a rumor posted here or there about a band that would be called “FAST AND PHILTHY” with you and Phil Taylor, was there ever any plans to do something like that?

EC: Speaking of Phil, I was talking to him last year and he was maybe going to come over and do this reunion thing and I had thought of maybe putting something together with Phil but he has disappeared! (laughs) I know it sounds mad but in November a friend of mine was going to go and see him and called him up and he (Phil) said to my mate, “Listen, I have got to get out of here and I will call you later.” And that was the last we heard of him! And his phone has been cut off so he is obviously not at that place anymore but he was there for many years. So, I am a little concerned because I don’t know where he is. We had the same business people and I spoke with them to see if he was in touch with them about money things because he has got some different stuff from when he rejoined the band and that but they haven’t heard from him either. In fact they said that they have got a check for him and they can’t find him to give it to him and that worried me! (laughs)

DL: Maybe he has taken the Peter Greene route and got a job digging graves somewhere?

EC: (Laughing) No, not Phil. Do you know what? He is the same the day that I met him. The last time I spoke with him we were on the phone for hours just babbling. That Phil is a funny fucker!

DL: Last I spoke with Lemmy it was kind of surreal. We were on about everything for about four and a half hours and all he took in was cigarettes and Jack Daniel’s with a little Coca Cola to leaven it all out! (laughs) that is a rock and roll guy right there! (laughs)

EC: Yeah, he loves to fucking drink. See, I don’t drink anymore. I got really fucking ill back in ’89 and it all went to shit and I got let down by a few things. I sort of hit the bottle and got to this “I don’t care” attitude and I was locked up in my flat and eventually my fucking stomach blew up and there was blood coming out. I was one of these, “I don’t care, I am going to die drinking!” types, you know what I mean? Once this happened I was on the phone to my Doctor! (laughs) I thought, “Now that is fucking heroic now isn’t it!” Here I am giving all this bullshit saying how I was going to die doing this and as soon as a bit of blood shows itself I am on the phone to the doctor! (laughs)

DL: “Hell, I don’t want to die yet, I am not done drinking!” (laughs)

EC: Yeah, that’s right! Well, I had to have it all repaired and I went in to this place and in the end I thought I might as well stop drinking. I took the opportunity to do that because it was just damaging my body too much. Once you get your body damaged... I was always one of these people who liked to party a lot. I used to drink lots of water before I went to bed so that I could keep partying the next day, you see there was a logic to it all! I figure if you go at it all at once you are only going to last a few months anyway but if you plan it well you can last a long time! (laughs)

DL: Ah, I see, you are a graduate of the Keith Richards School of Rock and Roll?

EC: Well, it kind of is, yeah. It is the sensible rock and roll thinking but of course you tend to get so carried away with it that you kind of forget. I was pretty good until the late eighties so I did quite well. (laughs) Did you hear that Lem had a little scare at Christmas?

DL: Yes I did, do you know how he is doing?

EC: Yeah, I was quite concerned. His tour manager called me from Italy because we are close, me and Lem, and he told me that he was OK and not to worry. But then, then I got this fucking phone call form somebody in London who said that they heard that Lemmy was in the hospital in Los Angeles and he was really not well and all that shit. Some fucking drama queen probably high on blow or something but I phoned everybody to see and in the end I said, “I will call Lem himself” and I was relieved because he picked up the phone himself. “Oh, hello Mate! How are ya?” I said “Oh, man you are there.” He said, “Oh yeah, yeah” and he was going to call me back but he didn’t but at least I know that he was at home and he sounded fine.

DL: Had his girlfriends with him?

EC: Well, yeah he probably had a pair of stockings stuck on his head or something, with legs inside them! (laughs) The funny thing about me, Phil and Lemmy is that apart from the fact that I don’t drink we are pretty much the same. We never got married, never had kids. We were real genuine rockers you know and I find it odd that we didn’t stay together really. I am not doing fuck all and Phil is not doing fuck all and Lemmy is doing what he did when I left. It is like the guys in his band now, nice guys and great players and I get on with them fine but they are married with kids and I think that the nice thing about MOTORHEAD was how genuine it was. The only things that really mattered to us was the partying and the music and it is still really the same but Lemmy is the only one with a band to do it in! (laughs) I had always thought that I would die on stage so maybe if I get a band together I will get the fucking chance! (laughs) Lemmy will if he don’t watch out. That really must have worried him.

DL: The quote form Lemmy that was floating around went something like, “Doctors have been telling me for years that I have to slow down and how was I to know that this time they meant it!” (laughs)

EC: Yeah! That is exactly right! (laughs)

DL: If it is your time to go I suppose there are worse ways to go then being on stage in front of your fans.

EC: Yeah, well, that is the only way to go isn’t it?

DL: Then again by the time they move you off the stage someone will have stolen your guitar and that would be one less that I would get! (laughs)

EC: Yeah, and the rings are all gone off your fingers and they have clipped your hair and you only have one boot left! (laughs)

DL: Are you much involved with all of these tributes that Lea Hart is putting together?

EC: No, not really. I try to stay out of that a little bit. He asked me to play on a couple of them and I didn’t really fancy it because I still feel like I have a little bit of life left in me so I left him to get on with it. All I can say is that I think that they fucking sound great. Did I mention that Lea will be producing this record that I am doing?

DL: No, he is?

EC: Yeah, Lea will be producing it so that will be great because as a producer he has really come on, he is great. That is one of the reasons that made it possible for me to do it in the first place because he came along and said “I will do the production and get this, that and the other thing organized.” I went and saw him in the studio last night and I’ll tell you what he was doing and it sounded great was a NAZARETH tribute. It sounded fuckin awesome so I am quite looking forward to doing my thing if he can make my guitar sound like that! (laughs)

DL: this is with the Les Paul and not the Fender?

EC: yeah, it will be the Les Paul and the hundred watt Marshall full up! (laughs) No peddles! I use peddles sometimes on stage to kick in a solo, just a booster peddle, but now all these people have rows and rows of peddles and electronics, no disrespect to ‘em, but for me it seems to cut down the cut of the guitar. I like a really strong sounding guitar.

DL: It has come a long way from when THE KINKS would cut their amp speakers with razor blades to get that fuzz sound.

EC: Yeah or he would put a blanket over it! (laughs)

DL: I have to tell you, this is really a great time for you to be getting back in to this because the music scene is in desperate need of people such as yourself.

EC: I am really looking forward to 2001 man because it is a good year for me to have a crack at it so it could be a bit of fun. Hopefully I will be coming back to America, I mean, I don’t expect to be doing big business but I expect that I will be enjoying what I am doing in small places and hopefully the crowd that is there will enjoy it to. It is all about enjoyment, not money or new songs or fame or anything so if just one person wants to see me I will be there with my guitar!