The
Interview
What drew you to rock’n’roll? When I saw Buddy Holly play in 1958, I was there looking for girls. At that age, you want to get laid. I saw this English rock singer, Billy Fury, and he was surrounded by all these chicks rubbing his crotch. I thought, “That’s the fucking job for me!” I took a guitar to school and was immediately surrounded by women. I couldn’t play it, but with all due respect, you do have to learn a couple of chords eventually. Not too many, though—that can ruin you.
outside his dressing room. It was like, “Take a number and wait.”
What were your earliest music milestones? I saw the Beatles play the Cavern in Liverpool when I was 16. They had attitude: Onstage, they were like a four-headed monster.
Who inspired you to actually join a band? I remember playing Conway Twitty’s record “It’s Only Make Believe” over and over, wondering, “How do they get that sound?” Elvis inspired my sideburns, but Little Richard inspired me for vocals. He had the purest, most joyous rock’n’roll voice. And he liked a little booty, didn’t he? He certainly wasn’t into girls—he was the king and queen of rock’n’roll. There was great music
You yourself became a rock star in the early ’70s when you joined Hawkwind. I was living with these three girls. One of them picked up [Hawkwind keyboardist] Dik Mik one night and brought him back to the flat. We got talking and realized we had a mutual interest in seeing how long amphetamines could make the human body jump about without stopping. He brought me into the band as his pill-popping buddy. They said, “Who plays bass?” And Dik Mik went, “He does.” I’d never picked one up in my life. Hawkwind was a complete blitz: We had projectors shooting images all over the place, fireworks going off, nude dancers—we were fucking fierce. We’d dose the audience with acid, lock the doors so they couldn’t leave, then send them into epileptic fits with subsonic frequencies and strobes. Those were the days. I would never have left if they hadn’t fired me.
have thought we were a punk band. I remember going down to the [London club] Roxy one night just to see what the punk thing was all about. I was standing at the bar, and this bush behind me said, “I used to sell acid at [Hawkwind’s] all-night shows in King’s Cross.” And I turned around and it was Johnny Rotten. I remembered him: He used to have long hair, with pockets full of drugs. It’s funny, though—I never liked the Clash. They sounded like old music, dressed up as punk. The Ramones were geniuses, though. Joey especially had a nose for rock’n’roll, and we were friends, although we weren’t close when he died. I hate to see people on the way out; I prefer to remember him as he was.
Why did they do that?
I got busted for drugs in Canada in 1975, but it was more that I was messing with the “wrong”
I haven’t asked you yet about Motörhead’s biggest hit, “Ace of Spades”— Good. That makes a change. All people seem to know is “Ace of Spades.” It’s backfired at me ever since ’cause the ace of spades is a bad-luck sign—so naturally I’ve always felt an affinity with it. Damn the dark card! For two years I’ve sung “eight of spades,” and nobody noticed. Not even the rest of the band.
then, and it all seems to have gone to shit now. I know it sounds like I’m an old, miserable, crotchety bastard—and believe me, I am—but it’s true. It’s much more fun to be full of hope than pessimism, any day of the week.
drugs. Everybody was doing acid; I was just doing speed with it, too. Even in the drug culture, there was this snobbery: “Oh, you’re taking that awful speed?” Well, fuck off, then. I can’t be bothered with people’s class awareness.
What was it that cemented the reputation of Motörhead’s legendary lineup that produced “Ace” and classics like Overkill and Bomber? What people really liked was our attitude—our fuck-you-ness—and our breakneck speed: Any lineup of Motörhead could play anything. You can witness it on the covers we’ve done: We even got a Grammy for one [Metallica’s “Whiplash”]. Of course, they poisoned it for us by giving us one for somebody else’s song. We didn’t get to go to the real Grammys ’cause we’re distasteful: Us and the Mexican jazz bands all had to line up and get our stuff the previous afternoon.
You were present at so many key musical moments, you’re like the Forrest Gump of rock. You were even Jimi Hendrix’s roadie. In 1967, I was 21, and the only guy I knew in London was Neville Chester, a roadie who worked with the Who. I rang him up and said, “Can I crash on your floor?” He was sharing a flat with [Hendrix bassist] Noel Redding. So when Hendrix needed an extra guy, I was right there. To see Hendrix play was magic—the things he did with a guitar have not been equaled to this day: He played rhythm and lead at the same time, under his leg, behind his neck, behind his back, left and right, upside down—fucking amazing. God bless Eddie Van Halen, he’s nowhere near. Hendrix did it all, and when he died, it stopped.
You told Sounds in 1975 that Motörhead would be “the dirtiest rock’n’roll band in the world. If you moved in next door, your lawn would die.” I stole that quote from Dr. Hook. In truth, if you lived next door to us in those days, you probably would’ve never stopped to see if your lawn was dead—you would’ve just moved out because of the fucking racket. Basically, I wanted to be the MC5, playing fast, loud rock’n’roll. We were never a metal band. Judas Priest and Black Sabbath were metal, but we were never like them.
Metallica has always cited Motörhead as a major influence. They came down on my 50th birthday to the Whisky and played 45 minutes of old Motörhead songs! I always thought Metallica were good from day one. But when I first met Lars Ulrich, he was a horrible mouthy brat, same as he is now. He was head of Motörhead’s West Coast fan club; what he didn’t tell us was that he and Cliff [Burton, Metallica’s original bassist] were the only members! Lars is a true friend. I’d hide him even if he were charged for murder. And Jimmy [James Hetfield] is frickin’ funny as shit. I wish he wouldn’t take everything so seriously, though. It seems to be messing with his head.
Were you and Hendrix friends? Not really, but I’d score acid for him. I’d get ten tabs, and he’d take seven and give me three, which I thought was very reasonable. He was great, a perfect old-school gentleman: If a girl came in the room, he’d shoot to his feet. If you wanted to see some athletic fucking, Jimi was the boy for it. I’d never seen anything like it: There were always lines of chicks going nuts
Indeed, you may be the only rocker to use the word parallelogram in a song [on the band’s namesake anthem, “Motörhead”]. I’ve always been very wordy; I’ve got a great vocabulary. In England, they teach you words. Over here, they don’t seem to do that—or people don’t want to learn them.
When Motörhead first appeared, you were as embraced by punks as by metalheads. Like the punks, we just swept all that tedious ’70s Rick Wakeman, artsy-fartsy, yellow bell-bottoms, caftans-and-sandals shit aside. If you hadn’t seen what we looked like, you would
Who’s your most surprising fan? Jude Law. He came to a show we did in England at the Royal Festival Hall. He showed up backstage while I was still covered in sweat and told me he loved it. He was really nice. I was surprised—you don’t think of actors liking music.
So, you’re officially an icon: There’s a movie being made about your life, and your likeness has been transformed into a doll. It’s supposed to be an action figure, although
CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEF T: NEIL LUPIN/NEILLUPIN. COM; MICHAEL PU TLAND/RE TNA; ANDRE CSILLAG/REX FEATURES; ALL AC TION PIC TURES/RE TNA; MICK YOUNG/RE TNA; NEIL LUPIN/ NEILLUPIN.COM; LOUISE WILSON/GE T T Y IMAGES; ANNA HRNJAK
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