Mouth: Mind if I just clip on?

Lemmy: Sure, go 'head.

M: That CD does has have some good tracks, like the Rockin' Vicars. I heard that there is a whole CD of old Rockin' Vicars stuff. (This was the first band Lemmy was ever in).

L: Yeah, but I'm not on most of it. I was only on about five tracks.

M: You didn't play much with them?

L: Not on record, no. [The track on the comp "It's Alright" does feature a young Lemmy on guitar] Those were the days.

M: Do you remember from your early days what influenced you to get into music?

L: Little Richard — Lucille and Good Golly Miss Molly. That's what got me.

M: Or was it just the fact that your father was a vicar himself?

L: No he left when I was three months old. I never knew him. Fuck 'im.

M: Did your mother raise you?

M: How long did the Rockin' Vicars last?

L: Two years, or maybe a bit less. From 66 to middle 67. Then I went to London and got into Opal Butterfly and Sam Gopal. Sam Gopal first, actually. Neither of them was much of a thing. When I joined Opal Butterfly they were already on the way out.

M: That was all with you on guitar?

L: Yeah, rhythm guitar in both. I'm good at rhythm guitar, see, I'm no good at lead.

M: I've always considered you a rhythm guitarist rather then a bassist.

L: I'm not one. I'm not anything, really. I'm me. I'm what I do. I'm not catergorizable.

M: What prompted you to take up the bass guitar. I read that it was because you were a roadie for Hendrix and realized he was the best.

L: No. It happened when I went to Hawkwind as a lead guitarist and they didn't need one, but they needed a bass player. The old bass player, like a twat, had left his bass in the van so that was it, I took his job [laughs].

M: Once you joined Hawkwind, that band really changed quite a bit.

L: What's he playing for? He's not even on the fuckin' stage! Noisy bastard! Probably Mikkey, is it? He likes hitting things.

M: It was here in Canada that Hawkwind dumped you in l975.

L: In this very city. Got busted at the border, spent the night in Windsor in a prison.

M: What exactly happened with that bust?

L: They charged me with coke but it was speed so they threw it out of court. But I was guilty [he laughs and chokes at the same time] — guilty of getting caught!

M: What did you do after that?

L: Motorhead was formed immediately and on the road within two months.

M: It's true that you wanted to call the band Bastard but the record company wouldn't allow it?

L: They would have let me but they pointed out that we wouldn't get a lot of TV in England, which is true, after all.

M: There was a German band in the 70s that was called "Bastard" but they didn't deserve it. You guys deserve the name.

L: Thank you. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not. [Now I'm laughing]

M: Did you do the Hawkwind 25th Anniversary show last year?

L: No. We were out on the road. Now that I live over here, [in LA] it's more difficult.

M: Didn't Fast Eddie (original Motorhead guitarist) also leave the band in Toronto?

L: No, he quit in New York.

M: But he was upset with the song you recorded with Wendy O Williams [a cover of "Stand By Your Man"]?

L: Yeah, but he stayed with us a couple of months to finish the tour. The last show was in New York at the Palladium.

M: I thought that maybe Canada wasn't one of your favourite places to play because of the stuff that had happened to you here.

L: No, I like Canada fine.

M: I've always been curious about how you write songs.

Quick Draw Lemmy: With a pen. [I break up and give him a verbal drum role to accentuate his pun. He laughs and says "Yeah, right".]

M: You strike me as someone that writes all the time, not just when the record is going to be done.

L: I write words all the time but we write songs in rehearsals before the recording. It's if the mood strikes you. Sometimes you write nothing and sometimes you write 25 and only use five.

M: I always like the way you write about life and religion and not letting anyone take you down.

L: If you do, you're done. You can't afford to, can you?

M: You have to understand how gratifying it was to listen your music in high school when you got beat up or had no friends.

L: It would bring you right back up.

M: That's how it worked for me, because sometimes you have no friends.

L: I was the only English kid in seven hundred Welsh. I didn't have any friends either.

M: Did you get in a lot of fights?

L: Hmm. Yeah, I lost most of them because there was always another Welsh kid waiting.

M: People have tried to put Motorhead in different categories like punk and metal and...

L: Bullshit. It's Rock'n'Roll. I remember it before metal or punk. I came up with Elvis Presley and Little Richard the first time round. They got no right to put me into a thing that came up 20 years later. Fuck 'em, I don't fit into any category. I'm Lemmy and I play what I play and that's it. That's the only category I'll accept.

M: I try to tell people to listen to your songs like "Don't Waste Your Time" — it's pure Chuck Berry!

L: Piano orientated, saxophones, the lot.

M: You write about real things, not this Lucifer shit.

L: Or elves and dragons and all that bollocks! Ronnie James Dio! He does what he does and he does it very well, so why not? I just don't do that. I never saw any fairies at the bottom of my fuckin' garden, they were all out front at the pub (laughing).

M: You have a great ability to turn a phrase, like when you write something like "Love Me Like a Reptile".

L: I amuse the shit out of myself sometimes. When I was writing "I Won't Pay Your Price", I fell off my chair laughing.. "Don't stop me/don't even try/gonna stick my finger in your eye". It was fuckin' hilarious.

M: I always liked the beginning of "I'm So Bad Baby I Don't Care" — "Sleeping on a bed of red hot irons/dancing with mountain lions...

L: ...my bed's a mess of rattlesnakes". Some chick in the Melody Maker in England said that was a sexist song. She took it all very seriously. There's no joy in her life, is there? No whimsicality at all. All she sees is doom, feminism and food. So fuck her.

M: That was the other thing that attracted me to your music, your sense of humour.

L: Gotta have a sense of humour or you're dead. These people nowadays, the politically correct, they have no sense of humour. What the fuck is politically correct, anyways? Do you know what they call Chernobyl now? "A super-prompt critical power excursion." Makes it sound like they're at the fuckin' beach. Nuclear meltdown is what you want to call it, that's what it was.

M: Your comments about Hitler being the perfect guy for the 90s, because he didn't drink or smoke and he was a vegetarian, put a new prospect on that type of thinking.

L: Didn't drink or smoke, vegetarian. Nice smart uniform, nice short hair. Perfect guy. Accepted completely in any American home, right now. And he slaughtered a quarter of the world. Any questions?

M: What about some of your movie acting like in Eat the Rich, Hardware and Airheads?

L: Eat the Rich is the only one I liked.

M: What about the new one, Tromeo and Juliet?

L: Oh, I'm not in it. I just wrote the intro thing for it. They used to have a guy that introduced the acts of a play in Shakespeare's time and it was like that.

M: I liked the part in Airheads where they asked the question, If God and Lemmy were in a wrestling match, who would win? [The answer: It's a trick question because Lemmy is God]

L: That was funny and it was nice of them to do it but I've seen God on acid — he's taller. [Laughs]

M: As far as the band goes, you're back to the three piece. How does that feel?

L: It's better. There's more room on stage and we get more money.

M: What happened with Wurzel? [He left the band].

L: Wurzel started listening to other voices, what can I tell you. I don't know, you'd have to ask him really. He just upped and split.

M: Was it anything to do with his performance?

L: Well, he was getting worse. At the end he was hardly playing. He only did two solos on the last album. Before, him and Phil would have been fighting for each solo.

M: Did he just lose interest?

L: Familiarity bred contempt, as it so often does.

M: How do you keep that from happening to you?

L: It's easier for me, it's my band. I get to do more interesting shit. But there again, he could have done whatever he wanted in this band but he chose not so he's playing with Crusher Jewel out of the Kerrang paper now. It's some electronic bullshit.

M: What did you have in mind when you brought in the two guitarists over 10 years ago?

L: I just couldn't choose between them. They worked well together for a long time. Jealously started putting its head in and shit. There's no way you can do anything when he's got a hate against you. Whatever you say they turn it round on you. I wish him luck anyway. He was a good friend to me much longer then he was an enemy.

M: This is the first time since the Orgasmatron tour over ten years ago that you guys have been the headlining band.

L: We don't get to headline because we don't sell records, you see.

M: It just pissed me off the one time you toured with Slayer. I thought for sure Motorhead would headline and Slayer would open for you. What bothers me is that would be no fuckin' Slayer if it wasn't for you guys.

L: Slayer weren't very good on that tour, either. But you see, I don't mind. I say good luck to them. It's not bad luck for me. I'd liked to have been more successful, but there you go, it didn't happen. It's just one of those things. It's life.

M: You do seem to have a good perspective on the whole situation.

L: You can't be bitter about it man, it'll eat you up. We're doing alright, I'm making a living. I've been to all continents of the earth and screwed chicks of all colours, sizes, shapes and political and religious persuasions. What have I got to complain about? I lead a life that people dream of. I'm quite happy with that.

M: You're very upfront about your not wanting to get married because you love to chase women.

L: I haven't found one that'll stop me doing that yet. When I do, I'll marry her [laughing]. She'll probably say no!

M: Have you read some of the articles by people like Mick Farren that are running you down?

L: That asshole!

M: He said you had too much Nazi shit in your apartment. Did you read that article?

L: I remember him dressing up as a Nazi with The Deviants. I didn't see him having any problem with it then. I don't know what happened to him. He used to be alright. I ain't got nothing bad to say about him but he didn't need to do that article. That was just cheap shit yellow journalism

M: I couldn't understand what his point was.

L: His point was that he spent 3/4 of that afternoon on his knees in front of my toilet talking on the big white telephone. Then he came out and he thought that I'd been trying to pull his chick. Believe me, I didn't want her. She was rough as three fuckin razor blades. I did pinch his ex-bird, a long time ago, which is probably where all this comes from. But I didn't pinch her against her will, you understand, they have to wanna go with you. He should have tried harder to keep her. So fuck it.

M: How do you like living in LA now?

L: Much better then the UK. Chicks wear less clothing and everything's half price.

M: Do you ever envision a day when there is no Motorhead?

L: After I die, there'll be no Motorhead because you couldn't get a singer to do this or play bass like that. You probably could but it wouldn't really work. Mikkey Dee (the current drummer) is like that. Phil Campbell is almost there too. People that you just can't replace. I'll continue until I drop fuckin' dead.

M: I hope that I'm at the concert where Lemmy drops dead.

L: [laughing] Lets hope that I fall with some grace. I'll probably land on some ugly tattooed woman.

M: I also heard that you were really into pinball.

L: Well, I play 'em. But I'm no big fan, I don't follow the new machines coming out.

M: It's just that someone told me not to talk about music with you, just pinball.

L: What a strange person. People are weird, aren't they? They'll say anything. You should never, ever listen about anybody from anybody else excepts themselves, 'cause you don't know. People will say any fuckin' thing. They say that I was a Nazi. It's really weird. There are very few people less Nazi than me on the face of the earth. So I thought I'd wind people up and dress up like one cause that really gets them. I've got three girlfriends in LA and they're all black. If they can get along with what I got in my house, you ain't got nothing to talk about at all. My manager's half Jewish and half Italian, so that takes care of that. There's no way that someone that writes a song like "1916" is a Nazi.

M: That's a great song. Do you ever do that one live?

L: Never had. I don't see how we would do it.

M: You have got some flak from diehard fans abut ballads like "1916" or "Love Me Forever".

L: Fuck 'em! I ain't playing for those people. See, they wanna keep me in a box that they made. It's not my box and I ain't gonna get in it. Ill play what the fuck I want. I was raised on early rock 'n roll and the Beatles, where you did anything you liked. Every time a Beatles LP came out, it was like a different band. You had to really work on liking it and it was worth it too because you found different things in there. I don't want to be obvious. Fuck 'em. [laughing] I'm saying that to a lot of people, aren't I?

M: Don't worry, this interview will get played late at night [on my radio show].

L: [Snickering] Oh well, asterisk them!

M: I play Motorhead every week on my show.

L: There's probably a secret society against you in the university [laughing], but then again...

L & M together: FUCK 'EM!!!

M: A lot of people that started to listen to my show from the beginning weren't familiar with your music. About three or four months in, they would call up and tell me how they never thought that much of Motorhead until I exposed them to it. I don't just play "Ace of Spades" over and over again.

L: I'm sick of that song. We play it first just to get it out of the way. I mean, lets face it, there is plenty of tracks to choose from. There's 18 bloody albums out there. If you have to play "Ace of Spades" all the time, that killing us, killing us dead. We've got no chance of ever progressing beyond that point if that's all they'll ever play.

M: I really hate it when I mention Motorhead to someone and they say....

L: Ace of Spades, dude! Just say 'I'm not a dude, muthafucker. I'm a real cowboy!' And you know that half of them have never even heard it, it's just a catch phrase. I thought it was a really good idea when I wrote the bloody thing and it's backfired on me ever since [laughs]. I always thought it was a joke because of the tap dancing bit in the middle. Me and Phil always used to tap dance to that in the studio.

M: You have a lot of great songs and I like all kinds of music. But really, it's you and Frank Zappa that do it for me.

L: Now a lot of people would say that those would be incompatible with each other. If you like one, you can't like the other. That's how dumb people are. You can like anything. There's all that music out there. Listen to it all and make up your own mind, no matter what your friends fuckin think. Stick up for the music you like!

M: People are so intimidated by stuff they haven't heard before.

L: You don't have to hear something before to like it. I like the Everly Brothers, Abba, the MC5, any fuckin' thing. As long as you like it. Hell, it doesn't even have to be good, as long you like it. People can be so fuckin' stupid, they have to be told what to like. They can't exercise that much control in their own brain. Bad news, innit? [using dolt voice] 'I don't know what I like. Would I like this one?' What the fuck is that? [again] 'I don't know if I like this or not till I hear it on the radio. I'm stupid I'm sorry'. [laughing]

M: Well, on that note, I'll say thank you very much for letting talk to you and, more importantly, allowing me to meet a musical hero. So I'll let you ....

L: ...go chat up that barmaid.

M: (laughing) I wouldn't want to curtail your later activities.