LEMMY

Rip It Up, Issue 167, 1 June 1991, Page 4

LEMMY

It’s no easy task to become an icon of modern culture. Usually it involves dying a dramatic death or being at least martyred in some way. For Lemmy and Motorhead it’s been the hard way to

becoming household names in the more discerning households — a 17 year haul through the crazy

world of rock’n’roll. Staunchly singleminded in their musical vision and stylistic approach, Motorhead are the ugly flipside to the Protestant work ethic.

~ The Motorhead story goes back even further beyond that notorious day in March 1974 when Lemmy was talked out of calling his new band Bastard and so Motorhead (a technical term for an experimenter in amphetamines) was born. The story goes back fo a young lan

Kilminster, gentleman horsebreeder in Wales who, after hearing Little Richard, sold up, bought a guitar and was off into the wild world of pop. It's sort of strange to imagine Motorhead’s roots lying fundamentally with Little Richard. “Yeah, well, | loved that stuff and | still do now.” Which sort of explains the track ‘Going To Brazil' on the new album. “Ha ha ha, yeah, that's a pure Chuck Berry thing.” This inspiration led to time in a number of rockin’ sixties combos of extremely dubious nature (anyone remember the Rockin’ Vicarse). As the sixties travelled their path Lemmy evolved through Flower Power and hanging out with one of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s roadies into some serious drug use and a place in Hawkwind, the tripped-out progenitor to a lot of today’s metal. Lemmy spent four years as guitarist for Hawkwind and was partly responsible for the classic ‘Silver Machine’. He parted ways with the band in 1974 after being

busted for amphetamine possession on the Canadian border and then started the legendary Motorhead. As the man himself says, “If this band moved in next door your lawn would die.” Motorhead have had some serious peaks over the last seventeen years. ‘Overkill, "Ace of Spades’ and ‘No Sleep Till Hammersmith' could all be described as classics of sorts. They've also had a few lows. Some ill-advised duets with the likes of Wendy O. Williams and a couple of recent albums that verged on self-parody and were not exactly inspired musical moments even by Motorhead’s own three-very-loud-chords standards. However, with the new meisterwerk 1916 all that has changed. It's not only a return to classic form for the band but they've let new elements creep into their sound. There’s hints of melody and sort of conceptual tracks. The first single ‘1916’ even boasts some very fine cello lines filling out what is basically an

anti-war ballad. “Well, we're getting older and everything, so what the hell. | don't see why we shouldn't do something different, we've been doing the same stuff for years. We just thought why not do something new?” But 7916 still retains that classic Motorhead thrash sound though. A personal favourite has to be ‘Ramones’ which is a tribute to the band themselves. “Yeah, they've always been favourites. Joey really likes that track too.” If's sort of cool that Motorhead would do a tribute to the Ramones, as Motorhead themselves have been inspirational to so many punk and thrash bands. “Alot of them do say that, don't they2 | suppose everybody has influences and if's nice to be credited, even by them! Ha ha.” Another sort of un-Motorhead move is the band’s relocation to LA. Lemmy just doesn't strike me as the Hollywood type. “Its just great here, especially

after London. | mean, if's always warm here, the chicks wear a lot less and everything’s half the price I'm used to. What more could you want¢” Well, | certainly couldn’t argue with that. So now to the million dollar question. Are you going to tour down this way? “We've just finished a three month tour in Europe so we're sort of resting, but we are coming down that way in June.” Which is decidedly good news for those of us who witnessed the last onslaught. It was sheer utter power, and a definite eye-opener fora cynical little punk rocker like myself. Now, some seven years on, Motorhead are going to do it all_ again. Ifs nice that there’s some consistency left in the world.

KIRK GEE