By Kyle Harcott
When the call finally comes and you’re traversing those last few steps into the hallowed-hall dressing room, to interview a living legend, do try not to overthink it. Overthinking tends to lead to missteps, stuttering, and tripping over your own dick. That said, though, you could do worse than choosing Lemmy Kilmister as the living legend in question. Having launched a thousand ships with the dirty-dungaree vernichtungsgedanke of Motörhead, he’s answered every possible interview question ten thousand thousand times before, and there’s nothing new you can ask him – but still he never comes off as bored or uninterested. There’s no wonder that nearly every halfway-decent rocker of the last 30-odd years tended to have more often than not sprung from Motörhead’s shadow. Metaphorically speaking, Lemmy’s the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins of bastard-child bands – you can’t count the number of bands formed from the Motörhead seed. Yet, in spite of being the coolest guy in the room, the elder statesman of rock’n’roll is ever gracious, always quick-witted, and unerringly patient. And you can see it – there’s still a bright twinkle in those 63-year-old, road-warrior eyes as he sets up the punchline to another dirty joke.
First things first, though. I proffer expiation to His Lemness; butter-up-the–interview-subject gifts of Maker’s Mark and Kinder Surprise eggs (yes, big bad Kilmister: keen on Kinders), for which he thanks me. The god is pleased by the offering, as evidenced by the big grin: “Shall we have a drink?” How could I possibly say no? Refuse communion from the hand of god himself? And damn my soul to an eternity of rock’n’roll hell – where the only music played is Pat Boone, and pastels are all you can wear?! He pours me a generously full solo cup (seven-eighths booze to one-eighth cola. If it’s from Lemmy, would it be a ‘black snaggletooth grin’?), lights up a Marlboro Red, and we get down to solving the world’s problems.
I ask Lemmy what he thinks when he hears about teeny-queens like Hilary Duff bopping around Rodeo Drive in a Motörhead t-shirt… is he aghast at the thought of the Disney dimp rollin’ all ‘core in Snaggletooth duds, or is it all just free advertising? The answer, of course, is unerringly Lemmy: “Well, I think she’s got nice tits, basically! You’d have to go a long way to make me aghast anymore. I mean, Kate Moss wore one as well, didn’t she? There’s all kinds of people that wear them. I don’t mind – it’s flattering. But [Hilary] probably doesn’t know who the fuck we are. On the other hand, she might be a closet Motörhead freak, you never know.” One can only hope, Lemmy. Have your people call Disney. I’ve got one HELL of an idea for a duet. Imagine – the two of them banging out a ProTools’d, dance-remix version of “I’ll Be Your Sister” for the kids: Hilly’s vocals pitch-corrected to shit; Lemmy backed by a dursh-ticka-dursh-ticka dance track. Christ, I shudder. But, moving on…
Speaking of free advertising, you could be forgiven at this point for automatically associating the word icon with Ian Fraser Kilmister. To date –in addition to being Daddy to many a great metal band over the last thirty years- he’s an action figure, a video game character, and yes, even a species of fossilized worm’s jaw bone (no shit- look up Kalloprion Kilmisteri sometime). So at what point did he realize he’d reached iconic status? “Well, [pointing to the infamous muttonchop-stache] if you have to get up and shave this every morning, you don’t think you’re some icon, you know? I think it’s funny – [people] still don’t buy the albums, though. [Iconoclasm] doesn’t pay the rent. People just stop buying the albums if you’re a legend, like, innit, ‘cos you’re supposed to be dead. If you’re a legend, right? All the best legends are always dead.” So what would he prefer – ‘legend’ status or massive album sales? “Well, I’d prefer ‘em to buy the albums. Not for the money thing, I’d just like ‘em to actually hear the music that they pretend to like.”
If you’re reading this, you probably already know that Lemmy Kilmister is a major history buff, especially of the First and Second World wars. And that one of his major hobbies is collecting war memorabilia. And that a fair portion of his massive collection is devoted to memorabilia from Nazi Germany. Growing up in post-war England, Nazis would hold a certain morbid fascination for Kilmister, much as they would for most post-war kids. I mean, who are the ultimate villains of world history? It’s not a stretch to understand why the bad guy always holds a thrall. One also has to consider the outlaw biker aesthetic [more bad-guy fascination]. Wearing a Nazi symbol is the ultimate fuck you to society, which is why the bikers adopted it – ultimate shock value. Unfortunately, for Lemmy, a lot of the time the press can’t get over it – they see his biker image, and the Iron Cross around his neck (or Blue Max, which he wore when I spoke to him), disregard his armchair-historian’s wealth of knowledge on the subject, and he winds up taking a lot of shit for having what amounts to a fascinating collection of conversation pieces. “Well, too bad for them! I can’t help it if they’re idiots, really. [WWII] was the most important event in world history so far. I mean, everything else pales into insignificance. It changed everybody’s life. It changed how you live your life now, everywhere.”
So, with the caveat that I’m not about to go the ‘shame-on-you, how-could-you’ route, I tiptoe onto the subject. He’s said the Luftwaffe officer’s dress sword (that fetches in the mid-five-figure price range in the online auctions I researched!) is the prize of his collection, what are the pieces that got away? “Well, thousands of them, really. I mean, I haven’t got the money to buy the really big stuff. This isn’t… cheap, this shit. There’s a dagger belonging to Hermann Göring’s brother-in-law –the brother-in-law had two matching daggers made, one for Göring, one for himself- and [for] the brother-in-law’s dagger, [bidding] started out at a hundred thousand dollars, and ended at a billion! So, heh-heh, that one got away.” So, would he consider his collection complete at this point, or are there other pieces he’d like to acquire? “Actually, funny enough, I’ve come across quite a few of the pieces I first saw in reference books, in Manion’s Auction, and I’ve bought about five pieces I was looking for out of there. There isn’t actually… I mean, you see something first, and then you’re looking for it. I get catalogues, and if something catches my eye, and I can afford it…” How did the hobby start? “Somebody gave me an iron cross, and I thought ‘that’s the best design I’ve ever seen.’ And it’s a bastardized form of the Christian cross, as is the swastika.”
Switching gears back to music, I mention that there are certain records that every child should be forced to listen to from the age of ten onward. Three of them being Ramones, High Voltage, and most certainly Overkill, but what would Lemmy add to that list? “Well, certainly, Little Richard’s Greatest Hits… Meet the Beatles… Abbey Road… Evanescence…” Yep, Lemmy’s a big, big fan of Amy Lee & Co. “I LIKE ‘em. I picked up on ‘em from hearing the first single on radio. I think both albums are fuckin’ excellent. Production, great arrangements, I mean, the band is really good. Easily as heavy as anything that goes under the name ‘heavy metal’. Their guitars are really dirty. I don’t know why more people don’t…” He answers his own question, sighing “Well, genre, I suppose. Genre’s stupid. There’s a lot of people who’ll try to stop you hearing the music you like out there already, without stopping yourself listening to it.”
Not even going anywhere near the illegal-download debate, I ask if Lem’s online and see where it leads. “I haven’t got a computer. I don’t like ‘em. I’d rather if the FBI wants my address, they can come and fucking find me the old-fashioned way, on foot.” Huh. Interesting. So, has he seen the Zeitgeist films? “Yeah, I liked the Zeitgeist stuff, that’s very good indeed. Very smart. But probably [it’s] ‘crying in the wilderness’.” And his take on the virulent opposition to the whole ‘truth movement’? After all it’s out there, but… “Yeah, but nobody’s said a word! Well, people can’t stand to believe that their government are crooks! It’s very difficult for anyone, especially someone who’s been in the armed forces, to admit that they’ve been fighting for an asshole. For his ‘personal agenda’. How could you tell yourself that, if your best friend had been shot dead right next to you, [that] he died for nothing? I remember Grenada, and Panama, [Noriega] was a bagman for the fucking CIA! But I dunno where you start blaming people, and where you stop. It goes all the way up, yeah? How many people [in power] are honest dupes, and how many are really criminal? Dick Cheney springs to mind, immediately.” Though he’s called Los Angeles home since 1990, Lemmy is not a US citizen, and doesn’t vote in US elections. “Who ya gonna vote for? I probably would have voted for Obama. I think he’s a good man, but he’s getting sabotaged from all sides. He’s never gonna get anything pushed through though, unless somebody puts their hand up and says ‘yes’ and supports him. People are dying for him to fail. The guy’s trying to do his best.” But, would he have said the same of Bush? Lemmy chuckles, “He was doing his best, all right. Just wasn’t the same motives.” Would it be ignorant, then, to say that no matter who the President, they all serve the same masters? “That’s the hard part Obama’s gotta get through. The vested interests are huge, we’re talking mammoth amounts of money. To fight them you have to know the rules, and [Obama] certainly didn’t know them going in. He thought he did. He thought that by becoming president, he’d immediately get supreme executive power, but it’s not true. And these people play dirty. We’re not talking about guys lobbying.”
The conversation leads to drugs, although I make it clear it’s not Lemmy’s done-to-death personal drug history I’m interested in. He breathes a sigh of relief. His legalization stance on heroin is surprising though, considering his absolute loathing of the damage heroin’s caused in its wake: “It‘s the only way you can control it, and it’s the only way you can stop people overdosing accidentally, and it’s the only way you stop people selling each other poison. It’s a terrible thing to say ‘legalise it’. I hate the fucking stuff. [But] it would cut out all that dealer shit, and get a lot the guns off the street. They’ve tried throwin’ the police at it for years, and it hasn’t worked. There’s more smack on the streets now than ever.” I briefly describe heroin’s blight on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and counters such as InSite to Lemmy. “Yeah, great, but out of how many thousands of junkies? I can’t believe people are still doing it. How many dead bodies do you need to lay out before people realize it’s not a good idea.”
This segues into a discussion about the death of the Sixties. As Lemmy’s name is often mentioned in the same breath as Jimi Hendrix, one of the decade’s most beloved icons, I ask him of memories around that time surrounding one of the decade’s most hated, Charles Manson, whose name popped up in the news earlier this month when his chief knife-girl Susan Atkins passed away. “Yeah, about time too. I don’t know if the Manson killings were the death of the sixties, I would say Altamont more. That was more to do with the music. Manson wasn’t anything to do with the music, although he claimed to be. He just led a bunch of murderers with his own private score to settle. Altamont was the real surprise. Supposedly, that guy was going for Jagger with a fucking gun – so would you rather have him kill Mick, or what?” And Lemmy’s friends in the Angels (“A couple, here or there.”), do they ever talk about Altamont? “No, Jagger’s the only who thinks they were after him. Hey, if the Angels were after him, they’d have got him. It’s like that old joke about the CIA: ‘How do you know the CIA weren’t involved in the Kennedy assassination? He’s dead, isn’t he?’”
After that, it gets a little lighter. Bits and pieces: I ask Lemmy about this rumour that he’s been asked to give away Samantha Fox at her upcoming Siberian wedding to her manager. “Nah, nah. She hasn’t even phoned me. That’s just a media trick. Like last year when the media reported I was arrested for wearing an SS hat in Germany. It just never happened. I mean, like you would do that?!”
I was curious to hear Lem’s thoughts on Dubai, where Motörhead headlined the Desert Rock festival in March. What was his take on the Middle East? “Well, it seemed more or less to me like it was a huge building site. And there’s no bars, except in the hotels. It actually seemed like a pretty dull place.” Bars? In a Muslim country? I thought alcohol was verboten. Who drinks in Dubai? “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t, if you were Muslim, since it’s against your religion, and especially because the bartender’s no doubt going to tell everyone the next day anyway. Having said that, there are lots of people from supposedly-Muslim countries who do drink, in Dubai, and Abu Dhabi [UAE]. A lot of them guys go abroad and go fucking crackers on booze, as soon as they get into another [laxer] country.” Kind of like the Amish kids, who leave their territory for the first time, and get exposed to the secular world? “Oh, have you heard that one?” I shrug. “Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, BANG!, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop…” Sorry, come again? “Amish drive-by.”
Motörhead also sponsors a girls roller derby team in Lincolnshire, the Bombers. “Oh yeah, well, they sent us a video, asked us to sponsor ‘em, we said ‘Fine’. It don’t really cost us that much. Besides, I like to see girls kick the shit out of each other now and again; them roller derbies are fucking crazy. [Those girls are] fucking brutes, man!”
The band will be heading home to the UK in November, as is tradition the last few years, touring with Girlschool and the Damned, and then Germany in December. “Germany’s still our biggest market, and it’s kind of funny, my hobby coinciding with our German fanbase. Neither one is because of the other. But they’re very loyal, German fans. It’s inset into their psyche that you should be loyal. Loyalty’s a great asset to your personality in Germany. Although, I don’t know why Germany is in denial about a major period of their national history. It is illegal to display or own any of that stuff [from WWII] in Germany to this day.” Well, since we’re back on the topic, is Lemmy of the mindset that WWII was a war fought for the greater ‘good’, in the sense that it was fought only to defeat Hitler and free Europe from his tyranny? “I read a great book about the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, who America and Britain said, for years after the war, that he’d gone over to [work for] the Russians, that he’d been seen in Moscow. And he wasn’t. He’d been working for the FBI since 1948. There’s books of his interviews with the CIA. And the guy had no fucking remorse whatsoever. He was working for the American government from 1949 until 1970, had an office in Washington… so he got five medals off Hitler and six medals off the US! [He] died completely unrepentant and really, really rich in 1970!” Kind of like Werner von Braun, whom the NASA program was started by? “Yeah, and [it was] finished by him too! He put the US on the moon! [WWII] was a good war in that it got rid of Hitler, but they didn’t get rid of all [racism], did they? I mean, how can you say you got rid of all of it when you’re coming home from the war, having freed the Jews, but you still prohibit blacks from drinking out the same drinking fountains [as whites]? I mean, that [overt racism] was not over until ’65 or so, how can you pretend that you’re against racism when stuff like that continues to happen in your country? It wasn’t that ‘good’ of a war because it didn’t really stop anything, it just stopped Germany doing it. Everybody else carried on for years!” Was it simply a war to make the rich richer? “Well, ask Bell helicopters about Vietnam! There’s so much money tied up in war that it’s definitely desirable to the people who are never going to have to fight it!” Like the aforementioned Mr. Cheney, et al? “Well, all those cunts. Look at the money Halliburton’s walked into. Indecent, that is. Obscene. You want to talk about obscenity, look at that. Don’t tell me about tits on the telly screen. Janet Jackson, what the fuck was that? Talk about blowing things up out of all proportion!”
Finally, taking Lemmy back to a bit of local lore. In 1982, Motörhead played a concert at the Kerrisdale Arena (“Did we? Okay.”). Legend has it that Motörhead was so loud, that the politically-connected local residents [read: judges and lawyers] pressured the city and got them to kibosh rock concerts at the arena ever again (although the Clash also played there about a month later). “Uh, oh, sorry about that. Maybe it was the Clash that did it.” Any outstanding memories of the show? “Uh, no. Not one. ’82 ‘s a long time ago.”
And with that, we were done. Having solved the world’s problems in twenty minutes’ time, Lemmy Kilmister proceeded to take Motörhead to the stage and blow the doors off the Vogue Theater, much to the raving delight of the packed house legion of fans old and young. But he was wrong when he said ‘All the best legends are always dead’ because that night, Motörhead once again proved there’s a whole lotta life left in the old warhorse, and that legends never truly die.
(special thanks to Ace Trump, Rhonda Saenz, and Motörhead’s main man Dan Halen)
