The rough voice, the Mutton Chops beard, the cowboy hat, and the hanging microphone ...
Here are some interesting facts about the sharpest ace in the deck of cards - Lemmy Kilmister.
(Photo: Robert John)
1. He was born on December 24 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England as Ian Fraser Kilmister.
2. When he was 3 months old his parents divorced. When he was 10, his mother remarried a footballer named George Willis.
3. After the marriage the family moved to Wales where Lemmy attended a Welsh school, as a single Englishman. It made him experience a sense of alienation.
4. The nickname Lemmy was given to him at the same Welsh school. Some say that nickname came from the phrase "Lemmy (lend me) a quid", as Lemmy used to lend money, even though he stated that he did not remember the origin of the nickname.
5. At school he noticed a boy with a guitar and many girls surrounding him with. That was enough to make him decide to take his mother's guitar to school, even though at first he did not know how to play at all.
6. He later taught himself to play the guitar. And after his family moved to Conwy he was a member of several local bands, including "The Sundowners".
7. One of Lemmy's hobbies as a child was horseback riding. He even took riding lessons.
8. At the age of 16, he attended the "the Beatles" show at the famous "Cavern" club in Liverpool. Following that performance, he learned to play their entire first album, "Please Please Me" from beginning to end, on the guitar.
9. He later moved to the town of Stockport in the Manchester area and played in the band "the Rainmakers", of which he was a member for 3 years.
10. In 1965 Lemmy joined the band "The Rockin' Vickers" which released 3 singles after signing a contract with "CBS".
11. In 1967 he left the band and moved to London. During this time he shared an apartment with Noel Redding the bassist of "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" and with Neville Chesters the band's road manager. It helped him get a job as a stage worker and as a roadie of the Jimi Hendrix and "The Nice", which Keith Emerson was a member of.
12. In 1968 he joined the psychedelic band "Sam Gopal" under the name Ian Willis. They released the album "Escalator". Lemmy wrote some of the songs, played guitar, and sang.
13. In 1971 he successfully auditioned for the position of guitarist in the Space Rock band "Hawkwind". On the eve of his first appearance with the band, the original bassist left abruptly, so Lemmy shifted to the bassist position, without any prior experience playing the instrument. Despite his inexperience, Lemmy did great and became the band's regular bassist for 4 years.
14. On May 14, 1975, Lemmy was fired from "Hawkwind" after being caught with drugs on the Canadian border. Lemmy said it was just an excuse to fire him and that the real reason was the band singer's jealousy that the song "Silver Machine" in which Lemmy was a lead singer became a hit.
15. Rumor has it that in revenge for his dismissal from "Hawkwind" amid a tour of North America, he returned to England and slept with all the band members' spouses.
16. In 1975, when he was 30, he formed the band "Bastard which" quickly changed its name to "Motörhead", as the name of the last song he wrote and sang in "Hawkwind".
17. He wanted the band to be fast and mean and sound like the "MC5". On another occasion, he noted that the goal was for the band to be so loud that the neighbor's lawn would die when they played.
18. The original line-up included Lemmy on vocals and bass, Larry Wallis on guitar, and Lucas Fox on drums. This band recorded its debut album in 1975, but the record company was not satisfied and the album was shelved and released only after the band's success in 1979 as "On Parole".
19. The band's first official album called Simply "Motörhead", was released in 1977 and already included the classical lineup of Fast "Eddie Clarke" on guitars and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor on drums.
20. The band's big break came on the fourth studio album - "Ace of Spades" from 1980, which included the theme song that became a metal anthem.
21. In 1981, Lemmy and "Motörhead" collaborated with the girl band "Girlschool" as part of the mini-album "St. Valentine's Day Massacre".
22. In 1982, after the recording of the album "Iron Fist", guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke abruptly left the band. Lemmy recruited guitarist Brian David Robertson who was a member of "Thin Lizzy", but he did not match the style of "Motörhead" and after recording one album - "Another Perfect Day", he left the band.
23. The record company did not like the revolving door of the guitarists in the band and pushed Lemmy to release a compilation album. Lemmy was very worried that this was the end of the contract with the record company and insisted that the compilation album would also include new songs to show that the band was not "dead". He enlisted guitarist Phil Campbell and they wrote two new songs for this collection released in 1984, called "No Remorse". The hit "Killed by Death" and the song "Snaggletooth".
24. The clip for the song "Killed By Death" was boycotted by MTV because of "excessive violence". The clip shows Lemmy driving through the wall of his girlfriend's house mounted on his motorcycle, to the amazement of her parents, riding away on the motorcycle. In the clip, Lemmy was shot by police, after a quick chase and later executed in an electric chair, only to return from the dead as he rushes from the grave on his motorcycle.
25. By the way, one of the nicknames for the band's icon that appears on most of their albums is "Snaggletooth", as the name of the second song written especially for the 1984 "No Remorse" collection.
26. There's a "Motörhead" song that even appeared in SpongeBob's movie "Spongebob Squarepants Movie". The song "You Better Swim" which is a remake of the song "You Better Run" from 1992.
27. Lemmy was a fan of the punk band "The Ramones". He wrote the song "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." From the album "1916" on them. "The Ramones" later recorded their version of the song and Lemmy joined them on stage to perform the song during their last show held in 1996.
28. Who wrote lyrics to four songs on Ozzy Osbourne's "No More Tears" album.
(Photo: Metalsucks.net)
29. He noted that he received more royalties for the song "Mama, I'm Coming Home" he wrote for Ozzy, than for all the songs he wrote for "Motörhead".
30. He recorded the song "Hellraiser" which he wrote for Ozzy, and also for "Motörhead" "March Or Die" album from 1992.
31. During his days at "Motörhead", Lemmy was also part of a side project called "Head Cat", along with drummer Slim Jim Phantom from the band "Stray Cats". This is a rockabilly band that played songs by Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, and Buddy Holly.
32. Lemmy sings with a very high microphone while his head tilted up. He said he got used to singing like that and that initially, it was to allow him not to look at the fans during the show.
33. In the 1970s, Lemmy was asked to teach Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols how to play the bass guitar. After several lessons, Lemmy gave up saying that Sid is a lost cause.
34. On Lemmy's 50th birthday, members of "Metallica" surprised him when they appeared before him at the "Whiskey A Go-Go" club in Los Angeles, as a tribute band called "The Lemmy's", playing songs by "Motörhead". The four songs played that evening were recorded by "Metallica" during rehearsals and were released as b-sides for the single "Hero Of The Day", which was released in 1996, and later also in the "Garage Inc." collection from 1998.
35. This was not Metallica's only tribute to Lemmy. They dedicated the song "Murder One" from their album "Hardwired ... To Self-Destruct" to himת as well as the clip released for it.
36. In 2006, Lemmy participated in a tribute album to his beloved band "The Beatles", called "Butchering the Beatles: A Headbashing Tribute". He covered the song "Back In The USSR" along with John 5 and Eric Singer.
37. Lemmy has collaborated with many artists like Slash, "Ugly Kid Joe", "The Damned", Wendy O. Williams, Nina Hagen, Doro "The Ramones", as well as Dave Grohl's "Probot" album.
38. Lemmy has a large collection of World War II items, including Nazi Memorabilia. He noted that the bad guys' uniforms are always more beautiful.
39. Lemmy's last appearance with "Motörhead" took place in Berlin on December 11, 2015. Two weeks later he passed away
40. Lemmy passed away four days after his 70th birthday, on December 28, 2015, as a result of complications of violent prostate cancer. He learned that he was ill with the disease only two days before his death.
41. To allow as many fans to say goodbye to Lemmy, his funeral ceremony was broadcast online through the band's YouTube channel.
42. During his 40 years of activity as part of "Motörhead", Lemmy has released 22 studio albums (23 if you take into account the album "On Parole" which was recorded in 1975 and was shelved). After Lemmy's death, the band released the album "Under Cöver" in 2017, featuring cover versions performed by Lemmy and "Motörhead" covering artists such as "the Rolling Stones", "Twisted Sister", "Metallica", Ted Nugent, David Bowie, "Judas Priest" and more.