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---:MOTOR DOC16-Feb-81

Question:

Phil:

MOTORHEAD INTERVIEW

]Oin1ng Motorhead?

Go on, Lemmy, tell him.

FEBRUARY 1981

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Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

Phil:

Lemmy:

Phil:

Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

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lIll precis it for you. I left school and I was inseveral bands wearing grey suits and little stepsdoing Shadows numbers. And then I . grew my hairlong in 1964 and tried to be the Beatles.

What - on your own?

Yeah - it was hard.

No wonder it failed.

Well, I figured Ild play left-handed bass with myleft hand, you know, and guitar with my right, butit never worked out. And, let me see, then in 1967in 1967, I grew my hair even longer, grew beads, grewsome acid and went down to London - and er got nowherevery fast. I was in the Rocking Vicars before that,wasnlt 11 Yeah.

Course you were, you fool.

I was a fool. A rocking fool.

The Foolish Vicars.

Yeah - I was in the Rocking Vicars. Then I went toLondon and I was in a band called Sam Gopal . AndI was in.P. P. Arnold's backing group.

Tell me about Hendrix.

Oh yeah - I was roadie with them for six months orso. Just lifting gear, you know. Most illustrativeas a guitar player - soon after that I gave up playingguitar, because there seerned no point after he'd doneit all, you know. And I became a bass player suddenlyin 1971, because Hawkwind didnlt need a guitarist - theyonly needed a bass player. 50 I overnight became a bassplayer. And everything after that is just toothpaste.

Why were you fired from Hawkwind1

Lemmy: I got busted going into Canada.acquitted. That was all right,that I would possibly be a blotfuselage.

Mind you, I gotbut they thoughton the group

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Phil:

Lenuny:

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Phil:

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Phil:

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B~ot on the landscape.

Yes - so I was sacked. 50 I got Motorhead together.

Phil, how did youcome to get the nickname PhilthyAnimal Taylor?

Originally - it was quite funny - you see when Iwas very small I used to go out, as small boys do,and get covered 'i n mud and muck and stuff like thatand I used to come in, and one of my grannyls favouritesayings was "Eugh, God, honestly, youlre a filthy littleanimal, you are, covered in it". And when I was livingwith the now famous, legendary motor-cycle Irene - whenI was living with her, I told her this story once, yousee, and she, I think she coined it really, she decided,she thought it would be a good idea to call myself Philthyspelling it PHIL - you know, like that - instead ofFILTHY - filthy animal, and the an~?l bit sort of comesfrom my sexual deviations, I suppose, and the way I attackwomen in general. And that's basically where my name camefrom, and ' other p eopLe say it I s like animal from theMuppets and that, which is a great compliment. And oneof my greatest influences is animal from the Muppets.G-r-r-r-r.

Talking of influences, is it true that you were taughtdrums by Trevor Moray 01 the Peddlars?

Well, the way that happened was that my Dad was alwaysa very big .mu s i c fan. Hels always liked organ and drumsand bass combos and things like that. And he was a verygreat fan of the Peddlars when I was - like - still atschool, and afterwards as well. And when I startedplaying the drums, the Peddlars were playing one timefor two weeks in a cabaret club in Leeds, and Ild metthem before, you know, but this was before I played drums.And my Dad gave me a bit of time off work, because I wasworking for him at the time, because Trevor said I ifhels serious about it, send him up the club in the after­noon' - because Trevor used to sort of just practise on hisown in the club, you know - 'send him up and 1'11 give himhis first few lessons, you know '• So, for about a week orso, Trevor gave me a few lessons in this night club inLeeds - this was before I went to Leeds Music College,and Trevor said to my Dad 'Well, I think hels got the,hels definitely got the rhythm for it, so I think ,youshould try.and get him into music college for somelessons', which is what happened. And to this very day,since then, I havenit seen Trevor at all. Well, I have

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Question:

Phil:

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Lemmy:

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s~en him, but live not spoken to him. He wouldnltrecognise me anyway, because itls getting on for twelveyears aga now. So, one of these days, Ishall bump intohim, and hopefully he'll be quite pleasantly surprised,I should think, you know, I mean it would give me quitea kick to see somebody twelve years on that Ild sort ofstarted off, you know. Hels a brilliant drummer, thatguy, he was brilliant then, and hels even better now.

What about some of the bands Vou were with beforeMotorhead?

I only ever did four actual live gigs before I joinedMotorhead. That's what you could term as garage bands,I was in, you see, stuff like this. Like when I was~iving in Leeds and playing in bands there, all themusicians in Leeds were university students, becauseit's a big university city, Leeds, and every time theholidays would come along, the whole band would disappear- they'd all go off, you know, and they werenlt seriousabout it, so I moved down to London ,. and came down here,and I didn't sort of know anybody at all, so for a fewyears I was working. I played with a few bands. I playedin a band - the only band really that was any good that Iplayed in before Motorhead - was a band that I was in witha guy called Ray Owens, a black guy, who was the singer onthat Juicy Lucy single - "Who do you Love". That 'wa s agood band, but unfortunately Ray's personality andtemperament didn't allow the band to go anywhere becausehe had such-a bad reputation, nobody would touch us.And then, after that there was really about two years ofdoing nothing be fore I just suddenly was swept away byLemmy into .joining Motorhead.

Lemmv, Motorhead originallV started in 1975, but Vou arethe onlv surviving member. What happened to the otheroriginal members?

Yes, ~hat's ·t r u e . I had Larry Wallis and Lucas Foxat the time - on guitar and drums respectively. Larryused to be with The Fairies, and Lucas didn't. And itdidn't really work out because Larry thought that weshould do more or less what he wanted and I thought weshould do more or less what I wanted, seeing as it wasmy band. And Lucas sort of took it all a bit seriously,and got a bit twisted in the brain, so we had to let himgo.

...

, .Question: But were you not recording at Rockfield Studios at the

time?

Lemmy: Yeah, yeah. We were half way through the album.

Phil: No, you'd completed it all, apart from one track. Infact, no, you had one all the tracks ..

Lerrany: Except for "Fools" right?

Phil: Except for "Fools " •

Question: Was this the album which was only released recentlyeven though you recorded it in 1975?

Phil: Yes, it was a cash in on the part of United Artiststo retrieve some of the money that we owed them fromthe recording costs, which as far as Lemmy and I wereconcerned was pretty well all right, really. It wasanother way to get rid of another debt, so, you know,we didn't mind, but I mean the musical content obviouslywe hated with avenom. . .

Lemmy: Pretty nil.

you camein at the end.

Because it's not really representative of what welrelike now, but there you go, a cOllector's item, I 'suppose you could call it.

rSo that album was recorded with Larry and Lucas, and

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Question:

Phil:

Phil: No, what happened was when I joined the band, they'dactually finished all the album apart from one track- "Fools". And they didn 1t like the drumming, you knowand they decided to get rid of Lucas. And when I wentdown to Rockfield, all I did was I ·ov e r dubb e d all thedrums, which is quite rare, you know - you don't hearvery often of things like this happening. - I overdubbedall the drums apart from two tracks - and that wasbecause I got nicked by the police when we came backto London, and was unfortunately detained for a fewweeks by Her Majesty's hostelry. And that's why limonly on all the tracks except two.

Question:«

Lemmy, did Eddie Clarke actually join the band whileLarry was still a member?

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Lemrny:

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Yeah - Larry always wanted another guitar player, yousee. Sol found Eddie through Phil - well it wasn1tthrough Phil. I found Eddie and Phil already knew him.We both found Eddie - so we have to take equal blarne.

What had Eddie done before?

He played with Curtis Knight for a while, in a bandcalled Zeus.

Curtis Knight was the man who claimed to have

No - no.

Not really no - not on that album, no. But obviouslyone of Eddie's main influences was Hendrix and EricClapton, you know . ' I don't quite know the exact historyof how he got to join Curtis Knight, I don't reallyremember that.

No - he was also in a band called Blue Goose, which hadan album released on Anchor Records, but Idonit thinkit did all that.

So how long did a four-piece Motorhead last?

One rehearsal.

Then did Larry dec ide he didn't like the idea?

No

Well, he didn't even like it then. What happened was wecame back from Rockfield and there was a few weeksactuallya coupleof months really, wasn't it - sittingabout. And -a t the time, me and Lemmy were squatting ­this was in the days of squatting, you know, when itwasn't illegal - and me and Lemmy were living in thesame squat and Eddie was living in another one quite closeby. But Larry lived way down in ••

Camberwell.

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Cemberwell. 50 hels not a great socialite, Larry, yousee, 50 we kept - we arranged lots of rehearsals whichhe said he couldn't make it to, and eventually wemanaged to get him to come down for one, for which hewas about five hours late or something. And when heeventually came down, he came down - because at thetime, you know, Eddie had tiny little speakers alllinked up together, you know, it looked like sewingmachine and a washing machine powered by an electricpop-up toaster, 'y ou know. And Larry came down withhis huge stack, and like completely began to blasteverybody out, you know, he was just playing away andyou couldnlt hear anything of what was going on. Andthere was no rapport at all betwen him and Eddie - andLarry didn't even really want to know, you know. Andafter jamming for about an hour or 50, Larry just pickedup his guitar, put it away and walked off. And that wasthe last we ever sort of saw of him .

Yeah - it was the last time we saw him.

50 then we thought, well OK, if that's the situation,well welll go it as a three-piece, because during thefive hours of waiting period, waiting for Larry, usthree, me, Lemmy and Eddie were ja~ing together, andit was getting quite good, 50 after Larry did that andhe went, we . said well, sod it, .we'll try and make it asa three-piece.

Because it's more money shared between you.

Easier to make decisions, too.

Question: Then you recorded a singleshortly after this?

'Leavln' Here ' - for Stiff

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Phil:

Lemmy:

It wasn't that short actually. It was about a yearor eighteen months after that, wasn't it? It was quitea long time."

Yeah, yeah. We paid for it to be recorded because Jakewas always going on at me about how we should join Stiffbecause it was the coming thing, you know. 50, we madethe thing at our own expense. All he had to pay for wasthe finished tape. And he paid for it, and he got it.And that was the last· anybody saw of it until last year.And that was released .last year as well, wasn1t it?

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Phil: 7~. Was it 79?" ~

Lemmy: The year before - yeah.

Phil: Yes - 79 it was released.

At that time, you were playing Heavy Metal, when it wasanything but fashionable. Why didn't you change yourstyle?

Because people kept coming to see us and telling us howgood we were.

Lemrny:

Question:

Phil: And also - us three - it's not in our sort of chemistry,it's not in ourmake-up, so to speak, to change justbecause it's fashionable and because there's an oppor-tunity to make more money if you change and get yourhair cut, and dye it green and orange, you know, andwear leather trousers and tie your legs together.

Lemmy: Yeah.

Phil: I mean we weren't interested in that. We did have amanager who tried to say, well, look, you can't wearlong hair and all these leather jackets and stuff likethat - it's just not hip, man, I mean you won1t getanywhere. And we just saidwell, sod that, we'redoing what we enjoy doing and there's a lot of peopleout there that enjoy listening to it, so we're notgoing to conform to what's popular at the moment.50 we justcarried on as we were.

Question: Your first proper ly released product was the Motorhead

Lemmy: Well, I phoned up Ted because he was the other guy thatwas always asking us to record for him, and I called himup. We were going to break up, you see, and our lastgig was at the Round House. Was that the one supportingthe .•• ?

Phil: Damned.

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Lernmy:

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The Damned - yeah. The adverts had Motorhead and thenthe Damned ...•.. that was a funny evening. However, hesaid he'd come down and bring the mobile studio with him.And he came down without it, but he saw us and he thoughtwe were ever so good. So he said, I'll put you in thestudio to make a single. So we went down to the studio ­The Speedy Keen. And we had two days to make two sides,and we put down eleven backing tracks. And then we ranghim up and said, come down and listen to our single, Ted.And he came down, and we played him eleven backing tracks.

And he went wobbling made

Wobbling with joy, he was. So he gave him another coupleof weeksto finish the album, and we did the album andthat was it.

So with a minor hit album and sinCJle, yon were snddenJyin demand?

Well, we were in demand be fore around the country withthe kids, but we couldn't get gigs and things before,you ~ s ee •

.~We couldn't get record companies - for some reasonrecord companies seerned to be very afraid or, I donetknow, either afraid of us or .••

They just didn't want to know.

I donet know what it was exactly. There -was just avery sort of cold climate, as regards record companiesand us. I mean we couldn't even get people down to gigsto see us .•••

Yeah .- we were a dirty word in the music business.

I ·mean, for a long time, everyone hated us. If Motorheadwas ever mentioned in the press, it was because we wereso ugly and greasy and snotty - the nastiest band in theworld.

Yeah - Zig Zag never wrote about us. Couldn't get areview in Zig Zag .

But, as they say, any press is better than none at all.So we didn't really care, you know. Wow wow, look, theysaid Lemmy's the ugliest person in the world - great, youknow. Philthy Animal's the most disgusting pervert onearth - I thought it was great.

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How did you come to sign with Bronze Records?

Douglas Smith, our manager, got us that. Came up hereand said "1'11 give yo~ 50 quid if you sign Motorhead".

Well, no, that's not exactly the whole story. Actually,what it was was that at the time that we joined Bronze,Howard Thompson was the A & R - he was A & R, was he?

Yeah.

And he'd previously - before Bronze - he'd been withIsland and for about a year, eighteen months, he'd beenwanting - he'd seen us and in fact he was about the onlyguy that really wanted to sig~ us. And Island, when hewas working for Island, they didn't really want to know,and I think he was with someone else before Bronze as well,wasn't he? I'm not sure, anyway, so when Howard Thompsoncame to Bronze, he' obviously continued trying to gee upthe situation with Motorhead. 50 I think, really, we gotthe deal with Bronze, mainly due to Howa r d Thompson, ' whoin turn influenced Dave Betteridge - you know they're veryclose - and obviously Douglas approached Bronze. 50 whenDouglas approached Bronze, they were really happy aboutit. 50 it was more or less a combined effort, I think,between Howard Thompson, Dave Betteridge and DouglasSmith, as well.

Since then, things have qone from strength to strenth,starting of course, with Louie Louie. Can you tell meabout this?

Yeah - that ·was something we had to give them to signus up.

Yeah - that was more of a ..•

That was a trial .••

Yes -it was like a trial single, sort of thing. At thattime, we just signed for the one single. And if it didwell, then we'd see how it went. And it did do well, 50

it went.

And then we got to meet Gerry Bron.

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Phil:

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Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

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Y.eah.

The first Bronze album was Overkill, produced by JimmyMiller. How did this come about?

David Betteridge and Howard got him. Brought him downto a gig at St. Albans - no ..•

High Wycombe.

High Wycombe. And he saw us and he had great misgivings.But we came in here, anyway, and we did the album withhim. And it was very good, I thought, especially for thetime. Because Idonit think we're heavy metal, you see,I think welre hard rock. Idonit think we have anythingin common with most heavy metal. I mean you canlt put usin the same category as people like Styx, you know.

I think we're a bit too fast and energetic and over thetop to, be called Heavy Metal. You know, like H-E-A-V~Y

M-E-T-A-L.

I think we're idiot rock, actually, idiot rock.

The second album was Bomber in 1979. What changes, if'. any, did you make for that album?

None, none whatsoever, welve had the same producer, samestudio.

Different numbers.

Same idiots.

~ut you had experienced a large amount of success by thistime, had it changed your attitudes in any way?

•Nothing has every changed our attitudes actually. No, itreally hasn I·t. Why should su~cess change our attitudes?

Well, suddenly you can pay the rent.

Well, it changed the attitude of my landlord.

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phil:

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Oh yeah, I mean that was quite good ..• actually oursuccess came at quite a good moment. It came at aboutthe time that sqatting became illegal. That was aboutthe best thing .• that was about the major change it madeto us I think, because we were, as you say, we were nowable to actually pay rent and the electicity bills, and wedidn't have to move out of squats whenever the finaldemands came, you know. So I think that's about the onlyreal difference it made to our lives.

The police didn't come round anymore.

And we could pay all our debts back. We could walk downthe Portobello Road with our heads high instead of goinground picking up vegetables and bits of carrots for stew,you know. You may laugh but its all true.

How do vou feel about the fans in the UK who havecontinued to support you?

Thats why we haven't changed you see - that's threequarters the reason why we haven't changed.

They'd be greatly disappointed - thats not, I mean wedon't - I mean thats not something you bear in mind.You don't sort of think to yourself 'Well, we'd betternot change because of the fans.' Its just a natural thingyou know. I think that if we had changed in any way,success had changed us in any way, we would lose a lot ofour fans because they're very loyal and •.•• ..

And we're very loyal to them you know.

I think thåts, thats the least you can •• thats the leastthey deserve. You can remain as loyal to them as they areto us. I mean as long as there are fans that like us, cometo see the concerts and buy the records, then we'll givethem what they want and I mean whatever we give, its whatwe want as well. Imean, when we're making a record wedon't think, 'Well, will the fans like this or not?' Wedo it right, and every time so far we've been lucky andthey really dig what we've been doing. So that's justgreat.

Question:

Lermny:

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Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

Phil:

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Lemmy:

Phil:

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Lemmy:

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Lemmy, therefore, can you tell me about the singles andalbums on Bronze that have been hits.

Well, Overkill was a hit. Welve always had bigger hitswith albums than singles. Bomber was a better job.It went in at 12, which was very gratifying, especially asit stayed there for a fortnight. And then Ace of Spadesastounded us all by going in at number 4. So, you'll getno complaints from me about anything that Bronze, Bronzehave done very well for us.

Turning to Europe, have vou plaved manv European gigsyet1

Yes, welre doing France and Germany, Holland and Belgium.

And how do you go down in Europe?

France and Germany very well, Belgium very well, actually.Holland, we I .v e only done one gig there. Well, one gig anda festival which I suppose, its two gigs. That festivalwas very good actually, wasnlt it. -

Yeah, quite good.

"L o o rrem , Everytime I said 11111111 stand up' and they allstood up. I was astounded.

We did two festivals in Holland. We did .Lochem and thatTT place. And the Paradiso in Amsterdam,

And youlre just about to go back into Europe?

,We" re going to France for three weeks with Girlschool.

We may have two gigs in Selgium, I think. The same twowe did before. But most of the gigs are in -France like.All over really - coast to coast, north to south.Everywhere really.

You have always been regarded as a loud band - why do youplay so loud.

I like it loud. Thats it. And -the kids like it loud aswell. I mean we go on and we think its toe loud and thenall the kids are going at the front'Turn it up, turn itup.' You know, so we can1t be toe loud can we?

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Phil:

Lemmy:

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Lemmy:

Phil:

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phil:

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F~om the point dat when we started, I mean, Il v e alwaysplayed really laud - Eddie's always played laud and he hasas well. I mean we all seem to have the same problemof playing lauder than anyone else in whatever band we'vebeen in. And getting shot down for it - sa it was quitenice when we all came together and realised that we allenjoyed playing as loud as each other. SA it didnltpresent a problem.

Everyone lauder "than everyone e Lse .

Obviously, the more sort of successful we became, andwe were able to afford better and bigger equipment ....

Louder - lauder.

We thought, 'Right, well welll ga for it'. The louder thebetter.

Sa we've gane for it.

Do you enjoy playing European gigs. " Is there, for exampleany language barriers?

No not when we start playing. I aften go up there and sayridiculous things to them in English which they don'tunderstand ....

Like ICa val

Yeah, I keep getting up and going 'Ca val you know, andthey all ga ICa val. They donlt know its the only twowords in French I can speak. I can say une biere andautoroute and all that. But thereis no language barrierwith rock Inl roll. There never has been you know really.

And most people in Europe - we've found anyway. Most ofthe people in Europe that we play to - most of them speakenough English to get by .anyway, because I mean we donltspeak really any languages to any great extent.

Usual lazy Englishmen.

Yeah, well - the English race . d f h'1S renowne or t e1rla~iness in learninq oth~r languages. Whereas the Frenchand most European countr1es are renowned for their ..•..

Lernrny:

Phil:

Question:

Phil:

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/Energeticness

Ability in being able to speak Englisho English is the••• no, French is the main language of the world, Englishsecondo

Are you likely to be playing a major European tour offest1vals th1S year?

In the high summer, we're supposedly doing a few largefestivals in 0.0 maybe ane in France, maybe ane in GermanyWe're not exactly sure where or when, but there are planson the old drawing baard for such things to happen .No dates or towns or cities or anything yet, but weare hopefully going to be doing a few festivals aroundEuropeo

END.

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