Archive Interview With Lemmy Kilmister: ‘There’s No Point Thinking About Dying, Because It’s Going to Happen Anyway’

This interview originally ran in September 2015; Yahoo Music is running it today as a tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, who died at age 70 on Dec 28.

In a 2012 interview for his autobiography, hard-living Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen said there would be three men standing when the rest of the world comes to an end: him, Keith Richards, and Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister.

For decades, Kilmister has boasted about his affinity for wine, women, and song… Actually, he’s been more of a posterchild for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. He’d roll out of bed in the early afternoon, don his cowboy hat, light a cigarette, and pour a half glass of Jack Daniel’s with a splash of Coke. Then he’d repeat the process throughout the day, frequently at one of his favorite hangouts, the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Hollywood. Pity those who have tried to keep up with his imbibing.

“I meet all these guys in bands who are fans, and so many of them think they can go drink-for-drink with me,” he says in a raspy, at times indecipherable English accent. “I don’t know why they do that. So many of them have wound up on the floor or throwing up all night.”

Recently, the 69-year-old rock legend has cut back substantially on the partying, and some recent health scares have left fans worrying about their hero. On Aug. 27, just three songs into Motörhead’s set in Salt Lake City, Kilmister felt ill and had to cancel the rest of the gig.

“My back was killing me and I got short of breath,” he reveals in a rare interview over the phone, the day before a concert at Jones Beach in Wantagh, New York. “It’s just one of those things, you know?”

Motörhead put the kibosh on an Aug. 28 show in Denver as well. A statement from the band’s management said the high altitudes in those two cities affected Lemmy’s ability to breathe. Kilmister took the stage on Sept. 1 in Austin, but a few songs in he told the crowd, “I can’t do it,” and walked off. Shows scheduled for Sept. 2, 4, and 5 in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, respectively, were canceled as well.

“I feel really badly about that, but it couldn’t be helped,” Kilmister says. “We’ll have to go back and redo those shows.”

The string of cancelations was alarming to fans because of the medical conditions Kilmister experienced two years ago. Suffering from an irregular heartbeat, he went under the knife and doctors inserted a mini-defibrillator, which jumpstarts his heart if it doesn’t seem to be beating normally. In reaction, Kilmister cheekily named Motörhead’s blistering 2013 album Aftershock.

Kilmister didn’t bounce back as doctors had hoped, due to complications from diabetes, with which he was diagnosed in 2000. He also suffered a hematoma, which caused the cancelation of several European festival shows. He gave up smoking for two years and switched from drinking whiskey and Coke to vodka and orange juice, which contains a more easily digested type of liquor and a healthier mixer. He also smokes a pack of cigarette per week. “Those are harder to quit than heroin,” he insists.

Despite the setbacks, Motörhead’s ringmaster says he’s feeling pretty good for a man his age and that fans should relax and get ready to enjoy upcoming shows. The band is currently touring behind 22nd studio album Bad Magic, which came out Aug. 28 and debuted at #17 on the Billboard 200, marking the band’s best-charting album in the U.S. The record, a barreling, bluesy rock ‘n’ roll excursion, with a brief stopover for the reflective ballad “Till the End” and a full-fisted cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” should keep fans bounding through the moshpits at least until Motörhead return to the studio.

YAHOO MUSIC: Bad Magic debuted at #1 in Germany, Finland, and Austria, and at #2 in Switzerland. Do international chart numbers mean anything to you, or is it just industry hype?

LEMMY KILMISTER: Well, it means we get played a little more, and that’s good. We’ve never been a hit band in America. We’ve never been in the charts. So it’s good for the band and it’s good for the business

You’re playing summer sheds and larger venues than you’ve played in recent years. Is it satisfying to see that there’s more of a demand for fans to see Motörhead live?

Yeah, we played Jones Beach before with Judas Priest, but we were opening. It’s nice to be doing our own show there. It just seems like we get more popular every eight years or so. For some reason, it becomes cool to like Motörhead again.

Did you want to make any sort of definitive statement with Bad Magic? The aggression and attitude in the songs makes it seem like you’re shouting, “Don’t count us out! We can still rock as hard as anybody.”

No, we make the same sort of album every time. It’s Motörhead music. If you listen to Aftershock or the one before it, that’s more or less the same sort of stuff. We always play like that.

This feels more personal and introspective. The song “Till the End,” for example, is a great, heartfelt ballad with some personal lyrics such as “There ain’t no rules to follow, you can’t predict tomorrow/I know just who my friends are, the rest can turn to stone.” Did you write about what you see when you look in the mirror?

Kind of, in a way, I suppose. I’m writing about things that have occurred. It’s just a song about myself, for a change.

Was there ever a point where doctors said you shouldn’t do another album after Aftershock?

No, they didn’t actually say that, because I would have done it anyway.

With Motörhead, you haven’t spent a lot of time on self-examination. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who dwells on the past.

No, because you can’t change it. I don’t know, I’ve always written songs that are mainly about attitude, not me personally.

You’ve always grabbed life by the throat and gotten on living and living your way.

Yeah, that’s the only way I know.

Do you think it’s better to get busy living than to spend too much time thinking about dying?

Well, there’s no point thinking about dying, because it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it? I don’t waste my time worrying about that. I just keep going to my job.

Does it make you think more about mortality when you have a string of serious health issues? Or does it make you embrace life even more?

A little of both, I suppose. But when you’re dealing with heath issues, you might as well cheer up and forget it and carry on.

You seem determined to stay on the road as much as possible. Does playing shows keep you feeling young and take all your aches and pains away?

It does when you’re younger. I’m no longer younger. When you get up there, it’s different. You’re in a different spot and you have to deliver because the audience has paid for it.

Is it harder to get through shows these days?

Occasionally I can feel my age approaching, yeah. But it’s not so bad that I can’t do it. So until it is, I’ll keep going.

What’s the worst part of what you’re doing at this point in your life? Is it all the traveling?

No, I like to travel. I don’t mind that. I can’t really walk a long distance and I have to use a cane, so that’s a f—ing drag. But these things happen to everybody when you get older. You can’t bitch about it. There’s a lot of people my age who are a lot worse off than me.

We tend to view our rock heroes as invincible…

And then they die [laughs].

You played with and toured with the Damned. Sadly, their ‘80s bassist Bryn Merrick died of cancer at age 56 on Sept.12.

Bryn? Really? That’s a drag. I didn’t know that. I don’t think he was headed for old age, though.

What’s your fondest memory of him?

We went into the studio one night after everybody else went to bed and we did “Ballroom Blitz,” [as Motordamn] . It turned up on the B-side of “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today.” And I did a bass solo on it. That was a good time.

This year is the 40th anniversary of your band. Was there a point in your career where you imagined you might still be doing Motörhead at age 69?

Uh, yeah. Last year [laughs]. You know, you don’t think of things like that when you’re starting a band. You just get together with a couple of guys and play, and it goes where it goes. I’m very pleased that we’ve made 40. It’s a big number.

Very few bands have done that and maintained their integrity.

I always swore that I would do what I wanted and not what they wanted. Record companies get a band who sound great and try to get them to sound like somebody else. The whole thing is stupid. Talking to the record label is like talking to the cat.

Do you ever get pressure from people at record labels?

No, not at the moment, because we’re with a German label and they’ve got some brains. But I have been asked to do things differently from time to time and I just tell them to f— off. Maybe that’s why Motörhead have been on so many labels over the years.

How did Queen’s Brian May end up doing a guest solo on “The Devil”?

That was [guitarist] Phil [Campbell’s] thing. He lives near Brian in Wales. He had Brian come in and do a solo at his home studio. So I never saw Brian. I know him, but I never saw him on this record. He did it in Wales and sent it over.

Did you know he’d nail it from the start, or did you have any reservations about Brian May playing on a Motörhead record?

No, I knew he’d nail it. Brian’s a nailer, all right. I thought he got a bit samey at the end of Queen. He’s said that himself. But it was great to have him on the album.

You covered the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on the album. Do you remember where you were when first heard that song?

God, I don’t know. I was probably in some squat somewhere.

Why this Stones song?

There’s no reason. It’s a great song. And I was knocked out by our version. I enjoyed doing that. We did “Heroes” by David Bowie as well. Triple H, the wrestler, asked us to do a bunch of covers for him as his entrance music. So we did those two songs and I was so pleased with “Sympathy” we put it on the album. He might still use it, I suppose. And then I’d like to bring out “Heroes” as the next single, but it doesn’t promote the album, really, because it’s not on there. So I don’t know what we’ll do with it yet.

Are there any lyrical themes to Bad Magic?

I always write about war, love, death, and injustice. There’s plenty of that around, so I never run out of ideas.

You’ve written songs for Ozzy Osbourne, Doro Pesch, and recently Huntress. Do you only write songs for bands you like, or will you write for anyone who asks?

I’ll write songs for anybody who pays. But I gave some riffs to Jill Janus [of Huntress] because she’s good, you know? She’s got a great voice.

You’ve got your second annual Motorboat cruise is happening from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2. The lineup features you guys, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Suicidal

Tendencies, Hatebreed, Huntress, and others…

Yeah, it should be good fun. We know all those guys. It’s like homecoming week. And there’s a casino onboard, so I get to spend a lot of my time in there. Last year I won $10,000 the first night out. By the end of the cruise I took about $4,000 home.

Most people don’t know when to stop gambling.

Well, that’s the trap, you see? You lose what you already won. Then you try to do it again and put your own money in and that’s when they get you.

Are you still working on a solo album?

Yeah, but I’ve been waiting to get the last track together and I never seem to be able to get together with Skin from Skunk Anansie. I can’t seem to get the both of us in the same place. We’re both always touring. When I flew to England, she flew to America. It always seems to work that way. It’s f—ing hopeless. We might end up doing it with MP3s, but I’m not used to this Internet thing. I think it’s going to kill us all.

With the collapse of the music industry infrastructure, it seems like it’s harder than ever for bands to make any money on record sales. They have to tour endlessly just to survive…

The whole record industry was just so stupid. They started off trying to fine people for downloading. How are you going to police that? It’s f—ing stupid. Now they’re all going out of business.

What should they have done instead of trying to protect themselves?

They could have done what they eventually did, which was to join in with it and use it as a tool. But no, they have to follow their own rules. And they persisted in doing that thing where they record people who sound the same all the time. They turn bands into copies of each other and then they wonder why four out of five ain’t doing that good. The music business has been really dumb and now they’re paying the price.

How do you feel about today’s hard rock scene?

The hard rock and metal scene always seems pretty healthy. There’s a lot of good bands now, they just don’t get on the radio. Radio’s weird now. A few people own the whole thing, so what chance have you got? They get told what to play and they never play anything that they like. And they go and lose their jobs because they don’t do anything different. They need to start their own stations.

So, what’s a new band to do?

Aside from start their own stations, I don’t know. I mean, Elvis Presley couldn’t have made a break out now. He broke out from one station to another across the South. That wouldn’t happen today. But the good thing is if you’re not acceptable in America, you can go to Europe and make some money and survive. Germany is the best market for heavy metal and heavy rock.

Do you think you’ve got another Motörhead album in you?

We seem to be putting them out quite frequently. You don’t have to wait very long for a Motörhead album. We’re touring now for the new one, but probably next January we’ll do another one. I’ll keep making records until I drop.