Well, I have just arrived from Sweden to help Lemmy doing all the press and I only slept 40 minutes last night. I`m doing fine, but a bit tired as you`ll understand.
What about the title from the new album? And the album in general, what`s different than the ones before?
You can get hammered in two ways; by listening to this record or by going to a pub and getting pissed. That`s all there is to say about the title really. We just loved the word, it`s a powerful expression. As far as the songs on the album are concerned, I think there`s a lot of melody in them. It`s not as agressive and fast as "We Are Motörhead". This album is again a step forward, that`s what it is.
How do you guys compose the songs and who wrote the lyrics on this record?
Most of the songs are composed in their rough versions by Phil and myself. Later on, Lemmy comes in and writes the melodies and lyrics. A Motörhead album is composed in a very spontaneous way, which means it all depends on the moment and the feeling we have at that particular moment in time. This album would have sounded very different if we`d recorded it next year, you know? This time, things were kind of moody. We entered the studio on the 10th of September, the day before the terrorists attacks at the WTC. Of course these events influenced us in how we were feeling while recording "Hammered".
What`s your main goal with this cd?
Our main goal? Just to keep on doing what we do best and that`s playing rock`n`roll! We have to improve ourselves. We can`t relax and say "let our Motörhead history do all the work for us". It`s all about challenging yourself as a band. It doesn`t feel right, taking the easy way. We still want to work very hard to earn our success.
I suppose people ask you a lot of questions about your time with King Diamond and Dokken. How do you deal with these questions?
It`s okay to ask. These bands are a part of my musical history. Also questions about the old Motörhead are fine by me, it`s no problem. It`s like with Deep Purple when they got David Coverdale as a singer instead of Ian Gillan. He had to deal with the same kind of questions.
OK. Wasn`t it difficult for you to change from being a drummer with a technical style in King Diamond to the more straight forward approach in Motörhead?
Oh yes! I was used to doing all kinds of difficult patterns and other technical stuff when I was with King, while Lemmy just wanted me to lay down a straight forward rock`n`roll beat. This was very hard for me in the beginning, I`ll tell you that! Just listen to "Abigail" from 1987 and this new Motörhead album, you`ll hear what I mean. Ever since 1986, Lemmy must have asked me to join his band more than 5 times. When I finally said "yes" I wanted to put something from my technical skills into the Motörhead sound which you`ll also hear on the new record.
Have you already heard the "Abigail Part II" album which has just been released by King Diamond?
No I haven`t. I was supposed to do the drums at that record, but it didn`t work out with my schedule being in Motörhead. Too bad. I would have loved being the drummer at this part II thing.
Do you think there`s a young audience for a band like yours?
I don`t THINK so, I KNOW that that`s the case. When we played 2 fantastic shows in Paris last year, I talked with a lot of fans outside the venue and most of them were only 15-20 years old. They`d heard about us and wanted to see us live on stage. These are the facts. We`re a band with different generations coming to our shows which is cool. We just have to play, that`s what we do best. Once we get bored on the road, we enter the studio and record another album after which we start touring all over again, haha!
What about touring this year?
We are going to tour a lot this year. In April and May we`ll do the US together with Morbid Angel. Kind of a strange bill but we`ll manage, haha. June, July and August will be our European tour with some festivals here and there. September is about hammering South-America and Asia after which we`ll return to Europe in October for some big arena shows like the Heineken Music Hall in your country.
Mikkey, thank you very much for your time. Any last comment for the Dutch Motörhead fans?
We`ll shoot a video from the "Brave New World" track of the new album. This is a song we`ll also plan on playing live this upcoming tour. See you around at one of our gigs this year!
