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from RIP magazine, September 1992
[This article was written two or three years before Lemmy and I began collaborating on his autobiography, but it's clear that the band and I were already fast friends. We bonded after the release of 1916 (well, how could a band not bond with a journalist who gave their album an A+ in Entertainment Weekly?). I was, and still am, a huge Motorhead fan. The interesting thing about this particular piece is that it was written not long after the 1992 L.A. riots, and the band talks about it in the story. I still think Lemmy may have been onto something with his own solution of hiring 5,000 hookers instead of sending out the National Guard with no ammunition. His humor was welcome right at that time; for me, the riots had been a harrowing experience since I had to drive through the thick of it to get home from the RIP offices. But that tale is for another time.]
Motorhead guitarist Phil "Zoom" Campbell is in stress-out mode. He's nervously pacing outside one of Soundcastle's spacious recording studios, muttering about the goings-on inside. Things are winding down on Motorhead's new album, March or Die, and one of the finishing touches is adding Ozzy Osbourne's vocals to the song "Ain't No Nice Guy." Ozzy has been behind the mic for most of the evening, matching Lemmy's already-recorded voice word for word, and Phil's concerned that the platinum-selling artist isn't getting the treatment he deserves.
"Ozzy's working so hard to get everything just right," he frets, "and Lem's in there just givin' him a hard time. I know he is!"
My curiosity piqued, I go inside and find out that Phil's right. Lemmy's leaning against the soundboard, listening intently as Ozzy sings a line from the ballad. The take is perfect, beautiful.
"Not bad for a young fella," Lemmy grunts.
The next line doesn't go quite as well, and Oz flubs it, screaming in frustration.
"You're so excitable when you're pissed," says Lemmy with a casual shrug.
Ozzy, a consummate pro and longtime pal of Lemmy's, takes the jibes in stride, and within a short period of time the already-moving ballad becomes something of epic proportions. It has the kind of honest, world-weary lyrics that only someone like Lemmy or Ozzy has the right to sing.
If "Ain't No Nice Guy" sums up the hard knocks and tough introspection of Motorhead's career, the rest of March or Die fills in the blanks. I first heard the record a couple of weeks before Ozzy's guest appearance, sitting with various members of the band in their once-plush rental car and going over the rough mixes on the vehicle's tape deck. Guitarist Wurzel played me the brazen "Jack the Ripper," which carries Motorhead's deliciously wicked bounce, and "Asylum Choir," with its gruff melodicism. When Phil put on the fast and furious "Name in Vain," I headbanged so hard, I practically sent him flying through the car's windshield. A few moments later, Lemmy got in with "You Better Run," a very down-and-dirty blues number that features Slash on guitar (he also contributes his chops to "Ain't No Nice Guy"), and the album's title track, a gruesomely foreboding song about the horrors of war.
"Imagine all the murdered soldiers in all the wars there ever were marching away into the smoke in which they died, dragging their severed limbs behind them," Lemmy suggested.
"It's sort of like a dark counterpoint to '1916,'" I remarked.
"Yeah," Lemmy replied with a nod. "'1916' is how it felt like; this is how it looks." With that, we all went into the studio for further conversation.
1916 was a creative triumph for Motorhead. After a decade and a half of too many bad managers and too many bad record deals, the quartet finally got a chance to spend some real time in the studio and prove their mettle. From the wild, rockin' "I'm So Bad" to the Chuck Berry-influenced "Going to Brazil" to the wrenching title track, 1916 transcended all boundaries and false labels of "thrash" and "heavy metal" and showed that Motorhead was a great rock 'n' roll band with no peers. The album ended up earning the guys a much-deserved Grammy nomination.
"I was at the Grammys, sitting among all them tuxedos with this on," Lemmy told me, tugging his ragged denim vest. "I think I had the only bare chest in the house... except for a few of the ladies."
With so much in their favor, 1916's sales should have gone through the roof. But they didn't.
"We sell more T-shirts than we do albums," Phil asserted.
Lemmy chimed in — rather, Lemmy took center stage — "If everybody involved in the promotion of Motorhead did their job as well as Motorhead did, then we wouldn't have any fucking grounds for complaint whatsoever! And if we did our job the way they do theirs, there'd never be a show, 'cause we'd be waiting for the check to come through or somebody to send the invoice!"
This griping was not unwarranted. Motorhead has been victimized by rotten contracts with past labels and lousy business decisions, and to this day music fans, many critics, and even the powers that be at their present label, WTG, mistakenly consider them a one-dimensional thrash band when one listen to the music would prove just the opposite.
An example of, as Lemmy calls it, "the Motorhead stigmata," was the Operation: Rock & Roll tour. "Our management dumped us three days before the tour started," the singer informed me. "We did it on our own, with our out-front soundman acting as our manager. I'd like to put that in — David Hilsden saved our ass. And Leslie Hollie from WTG saved our bacon. They got us on that tour. Nobody would talk to us, though, because we had no manager. And yet, we got over that one."
"If we can do that without any management or record company backing, if they give us the help, imagine what we can do!" Phil added.
"Well, we had good treatment from the crews," Wurzel interjected. "They thought the band was great. They gave us all the lights. They were sneaking extra lights up there!"
"Yeah," said Lemmy. "They were all finishing their meals early, the other band's crews, and going out to do our shows — for nothing. It was fuckin' excellent." With a shake of his head, he came up with one of his earthy insights: "There's only two kinds of people in the world: the people who fuck you up and the people who help you out. That's the only two kinds around, and it doesn't matter what color they are or what their dad does for a living or anything like that."
We continued to discuss the power trips people play, and I mentioned that this kind of attitude can be found anywhere, not just in the music business.
"But the music industry's the only one in the world where they can steal all your money as well, and get away with it with no union backup," Lemmy pointed out. "The musicians' unions in these countries are fucking rotten! If we were factory workers, man, and we got treated like we've been treated the last 17 years, our union would go nuts! They'd be all over them like a fucking wet suit! Where's the musicians' union fighting for us? I've never met a person from the American Musicians' Union."
"Your crew from 17 years ago is probably already on retirement," I said.
"If they're still alive," Wurzel mused.
"Well, I'm not gonna let them retire," Lemmy grunted. "I have to fight to the last man. I mean, I haven't even been to Moscow yet — that's gonna be a tough one. Napoleon and Hitler, they both failed! Do you realize this bands' been going four years longer than Nazi Germany? Five years longer!"
"We were waiting for the Nazi's to be brought in!" Phil said. "Every 12 minutes today he's been into that."
To avoid a long discourse on the history of Nazi Germany — something Lemmy knows inside and out — and in an attempt to keep the conversation closer to home, I mentioned, "Well, you guys had a war out here a couple of weeks ago you got to witness," meaning the Los Angeles riots, which happened during the recording of March or Die. Not surprisingly, they all took the bait.
"I was photographing it from my roof!" Wurzel told me.
"You could see fires everywhere," Phil added.
"It was scary," said Wurzel. "When it started going northwest [towards Hollywood], I got just a little bit worried!"
"We were in a fucking recording studio down on Selma and Cahuenga," explained Lemmy, "and it started. It was on TV, and you could look out the window and see the other side of it. You'd be seeing one angle from here, and another angle from over there!"
"The first night we were there till 3:30 a.m.," Wurzel related, "because we wanted to make sure we could still drive back. There was a curfew on, and we weren't sure."
"I braved the curfew a few times," Phil manfully proclaimed.
"I braved it the first two nights," Lemmy added. "The next two nights I stayed in, because the Rainbow was closed."
Of course Lemmy couldn't resist putting his two cents in about the way the riots were handled. "The National Guard — how much good were they? They were sending 'em out without any fucking ammunition, for crissake! They should spend the same money and have 5,000 hookers! There's a guy running down the street with a tire, right? And the chicks go, 'Hey, babe.' That's it! Frozen, you know! He ain't gonna go, 'cause he's found love, right?"
The rest of the guys thought this was a great idea, too, but since there was a lady in the room (um... me), Lemmy qualified his position. "Don't think I'm being... I'm not saying nothing about women, right? Because I know women, and I know a lot of women. I've known as many as I can find!" This got a smile from me. "There are different kinds of women, and some of them will do that job — for a twisted reason or a straight reason or whatever reason — but there are women that will do that job. It's a service to the community, because it stops people from going out and raping little kids if you have a state brothel. Germany and France have them, and there are hardly any sex crimes in those countries. We don't have them in England, and we are the worst in Europe for sex crimes."
"Plus they get tested regularly, so it cuts down the risk," Phil sagely added.
"Yeah," agreed Lemmy. "The government tests 'em and makes sure they ain't got a disease, so the chicks are better off, too, than working undercover. It's silly. It's like abortion. They will outlaw abortion and send chicks back into the alleys with a rusty coat hanger. I remember when there was no abortion legal anywhere, and there were chicks dying of hemorrhaging because of having some old woman in the back streets do 'em. I think every woman should be free to do with her own body what the fuck she wants — especially rape victims. They're trying to make rape victims have the baby! How about that for freedom for women, eh? That's equality for you. A man rapes 'em and then another man makes 'em have the kid. Then they won't help to support them. Fuckin' wonderful, isn't it? It's just disgraceful! This country has really got to watch out. If this country gets enough scared middle-class people in it, they'll vote that shit in!"
Even without the help of Nazi Germany, we seemed to have gotten off track, so we went back to the matter at hand — March or Die. Wurzel and Phil wrote the music after last year's tour, then Lemmy gave the songs his twisted lyrical insights. "And we do all the arranging," he said, "chopping that bit out, putting that halfway up. We fight like cats and dogs, but it's all right."
"We're all passionately into the music; that's out trouble," Phil insisted.
"We all hear a different drummer, obviously," nodded Lemmy. "In this case he's known as Mikkey Dee!"
Yes, Motorhead has a new drummer. Longtime member Philthy "Animal" Taylor has faded into the past. Mikkey, who has worked with King Diamond and Don Dokken, was an old friend of the band's.
"Well, he owed us money, so we said he could play until he paid us back," Lemmy jested. "I've known him since before these guys," meaning Phil and Wurzel, "were even in the band."
As for Taylor, "I don't think Philthy had his heart into it towards the end," Phil reasoned.
"He sort of lost the belief, and you need that belief," Lemmy claimed. "You don't count on people with the good luck we have! I mean, this band has the worst fucking luck in the world!"
It's a pity, too, that Motorhead has had so many tough breaks. Out of all the bands that have influenced the history of hard rock, these guys probably have the least to show for their efforts. When they should be headlining packed arenas, they're still struggling for a good middle slot. When people think of Motorhead, they think of "Ace of Spades," not even realizing that the band can come up with something as positive and melodic as "Stand" or as unblushingly romantic and sentimental as "Too Good to Be True." Still, they persist, making great music, hoping that finally people will open their minds and hear. For anyone who loves Motorhead, it's a frustrating situation. And it's even worse for the band itself.
"You believe in our songs," Phil told me. "You do your bit, Janiss. People listen to you."
Well, maybe they do; but I'd rather they listen to the grandiose strains of March or Die, because one Motorhead song is worth a thousand of my words.
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