Men like Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister tend not to live long lives. Yet he managed to just make it to 70. Sad as it is to hear of his passing, there’s something oddly fitting that he died as fast as he lived. Lemmy celebrated his birthday on Thursday, was diagnosed with terminal brain and neck cancer on Saturday, and as sudden and rapid as one of his songs, he’s dead on Monday.
In Donnie Brasco, when Michael Madsen finds out John Wayne passed away he asks, “How can John Wayne die?” Lemmy was such a larger than life figure and rock’n’roll survivor, I suspect people are asking the same question about him. He was a unique character, to the point where his headstone could say, “You can’t make this shit up.” At the impressionable age of 12, Lemmy actually got to see Buddy Holly in concert in 1958. A few years later, he saw the Beatles at one of their legendary gigs at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, back when, if you can imagine it, they were an up-and-coming band. By the end of the decade, he had roadied for Jimi Hendrix.
Then there’s that surname. The most authentic, intimidating, rebellious, anti-establishment figure in rock’n’roll history, and his last name was Kilmister. Perfect.
In the late ‘60s, the man best known for his deafening bass and gravelly gargoyle shout, played guitar and sang for the psychedelic band Sam Gopal. If Motörhead were like a traffic collision, Gopal were more akin to the band Traffic, with Lemmy singing in a (for him) folkish, mellow tone similar to Steve Winwood at that time. But even back in 1969, when some of the most popular songs were “Get Together” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” Lemmy countered the counterculture with “The Sky is Burning.”
Par for the course for someone usually at the right place at the right time, Lemmy started Motörhead and eventually found a drummer who went by “Philthy Animal.” Together with guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke, they gave new meaning to the term “power trio.”
1979 (and the ‘70s in general) featured an incredible mélange of music; the unrelenting ascension of Donna Summer, Blondie, hip-hop, Elvis Costello, The Clash, and Van Halen, the introduction of Joy Division, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, The Comsat Angels, and The Cure’s dusky alternative/goth/post-punk, as well as Led Zeppelin’s bittersweet, inadvertent last call with In Through the Out Door. And that’s a small sampling.
That same year, Motörhead’s “Overkill,” featuring Lemmy’s bark and bass of doom, the breakneck severity of Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor’s pioneering use of double kick drums, and Clarke’s Dick Dale with motion sickness guitar, sounded like nothing that had come before. In a decade full of musical diversity and innovation, they ended the ‘70s by creating thrash metal, sonic evolution that sounded like revolution.
It wasn’t all darkness and decibels. He wrote the lyrics for his old friend Ozzy Osbourne’s 1991 ballad with balls, “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” And yet, he still managed to fit in the line, “I don’t care about the sunshine.” It was symbolic of the uncompromised life he led, like the warts on his face he never had removed. Ultimately, Lemmy was lucky enough to live life on his own terms. Not many people can say that.
Sadly, Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor preceded Lemmy in death by only a month. The earth was a little more scorched by their presence. Now it’s the sky’s turn to burn.
Matt Leinwohl