“I might be killed by death. I might be killed by too much Booze, Women or Music, but it’s not a bad way to die.”
-Lemmy Kilmister

Pioneer, rock star, iconic. You can attribute any of these words or more to describe the gravelly sounding man who truly embodied the Rock and roll lifestyle, but I think this word sums it up best:

 Legend!

I could go on and on about his career, detailing the various bands he played in or with, the albums he had released, the songs he had wrote but if I did that I could not really do it much justice because whilst I was a fan of the music, I wasn’t necessarily a fan of the bands. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the in your face, amphetamined up rock and roll of Motörhead – they have wrote some tremendous songs and are easily some of the most recognisable tracks of the past seventy or so years, but I can honestly say I have never been really into them musically when it came to listening to full albums by them, preferring to listen to the greatest hits or live albums instead for a more rounded experience. Perhaps this makes me miss the point of a lot of Motörhead, maybe miss out on some hidden gems or under the radar classic album tracks which rarely saw the light of day… But they’ve just never had the same draw for me in the way they have done for a lot of my friends.

I do however share their pain… We all do. Lemmy despite saying he saw Motörhead as just a really loud rock and roll band was in a way, along with Tony Iommi, one of the godfathers/creators of metal as we know it. Iommi gave us the art of riffing and what would eventually become doom metal and stoner metal… Richie Blackmore laid the foundations for shred and virtuoso playing which wasn’t in the realms of Jazz… And Lemmy gave us the attitude and the sound. Fusing the anger of punk with a hefty dose of speed and some real intense loudness, Lemmy created what would ultimately turn into thrash and speed metal… And being a thrasher at heart, to have woken up this morning and found out that the father of thrash had left us hit me where it hurt.

His vision, his pioneering sense, his use of wild distortion, playing the bass like it was a guitar. Politically charged lyrics which were often deeper than what they appeared to be on the surface. There was always more to Lemmy than what met the eye and if you looked past the cowboy hat look, you found a deeply intellectual man who to put it bluntly, couldn’t have given a shit about what anyone thought of him because he stuck to his beliefs.

My first live experience of Motörhead was at Download 2005. A nineteen year old me was stood on the hill, waiting for System Of A Down to come on the main stage on a cool Sunday night when all of a sudden, a wall of noise erupted from the second stage. This wall of noise, monstrous and uncompromising turned out to be Motörhead‘s opening tracks. They did a fantastic job of reminding everyone there was still another band or two playing and in hindsight, maybe I should have ventured over to catch them then, but already possessing tickets to see them in Liverpool later in the year I stayed put.

Actually seeing Motörhead though and experiencing them live properly for the first time… I honestly don’t think my ears will ever recover from it.

Bringing along In Flames (back when they were good!) and Girlschool, the night was one to remember for me – I’d actually met Lemmy and had him sign the ticket #0001 for that show… Yes, I own the first ticket for a Motörhead show in Liverpool with Lemmy’s signature scrawled across it!

I managed to get to the front rail for Motörhead, acting as a kind of buffer for my girlfriend at the time who stood in front of me and little did we realize, but we were right in front of Lemmy’s Bass stack… Needless to say, we were blown away with the noise, noticing it going up and up between or even during a track. It was a full on aural demolition job which left me wanting more and over the years, despite not seeing them again indoors, I did manage to catch them at several festivals, with the full main stage sound system backing them… And that was phenomenally loud!

I’m fairly certain that if you spoke to any metalhead who was born in the 80’s or early to mid-90’s, they will have a Motörhead story to share or have actually met Lemmy somewhere down the line and they will all probably say the same thing – he had a drink in one hand, and a smoke in the other. When I met him, he’d just dropped £10 on the fruit machine in the Guild of Students!

It’s always hard when someone of significance dies. Whether they had a small or massive impact on your life, you feel it and deal with it in different ways. As I type this, shelves in off licenses and supermarkets and liquor stores worldwide are probably being stripped of all the Jack Daniels. Streaming sites and YouTube will have the number of hits on Motörhead related uploads intensify dramatically, and many a metalhead will have a raging hangover in the morning.

We all said Lemmy was immortal and he, along with cockroaches would survive a nuclear apocalypse, but sometimes, even Gods can die… But is he really dead? His legacy, a career which spanned five decades will forever live on. Sure, there will be no one who can truly take up the mantle from him. Lemmy was an original. Many have tried to copy him and all have failed. I mean the closest thing we have to Lemmy now is Keef Richards, and that’s purely because he too is an aging man who seems indestructible… But fuck Keef Richards, he’s not a rockstar and his band are shit!

Lemmy was one of the forefathers of the metal we listen to and love today even if he never saw himself as a metal musician. He wrote some of the most iconic songs in recent history and he wrote some of the greatest lyrics ever (Mama I’m Comin’ Home off Ozzy’s epic No More Tears album is the first which springs to mind).

He left a legacy which will forever live on as long as people continue to love and support it. The old guard has to stand aside for the next generation to take over and full credit to Lemmy, he carried the Old Guard to his grave, refusing to give up performing because of his deteriorating health and there will never be anyone as influential and as unique as him again and we just know, wherever he is now, it’s certainly got a lot rowdier and louder than ever.

In short, the man himself said it best:

“Death is an inevitability, isn’t it? You become more aware of that when you get to my age. I don’t worry about it. I’m ready for it. When I go, I want to go doing what I do best. If I died tomorrow, I couldn’t complain. It’s been good.”

Thanks for everything Lemmy.