“Lemmy put a pig’s head in my case”: the time Motörhead pranked their support band with a decapitated animal head just to get a reaction
Girlschool’s Kim McAuliffe has revealed that Motörhead frontman Lemmy once put a pig’s head in her suitcase while the two bands were on tour together.
Speaking in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, which is a star-studded celebration of all things 80s, singer and guitarist McAuliffe looks back on touring with their friends and sometime musical collaborators Motörhead in the early 80s – and the unexpected surprises that came with it.
“Touring with Lemmy was always brilliant,” she tells Classic Rock’s Dave Ling. “We shared a bus with them on our first major tour. Imagine my surprise upon opening my case just before going on stage and Lemmy had put half a pig’s head in there just to get a reaction.”
McAuliffe adds that Lemmy’s prank didn’t quite have the desired effect: “I gave it back to him with the words: ‘I think this belongs to you.’”
The friendship between Motörhead and Girlschool stretched back to the early 80s, with the two bands collaborating on 1981 St Valentine’s Day Massacre EP, released under the name Headgirl. Speaking to Classic Rock, McAuliffe jokingly blames Lemmy for Girlschool’s reputation as a hard-drinking band.
“It was all down to Lemmy and his bloody Special Brew,” laughs McAuliffe. “And then there was Elephant beer. It was horrible stuff. One of the worst stories was in Germany when our crew introduced us to Jägermeister and we lost two hours of our lives.
In the same interview, McAuliffe expresses surprise that Girlschool are still going 45 years after they formed in London in 1978. “Had somebody predicted Girlschool would still be around 45 years later, I’d have told ’em they were stupid,” she says. “In our 20s, I remember the four of us promising that when we hit 40, no matter where we were in the world, we’d all meet up again and celebrate – nobody thinking for a moment that the band could still be going.”
Read the full interview with Girlschool in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, out now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door.
