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Motörhead: Speed, Sex, and Revenge · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
0:03
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information.
0:07
Speaker 2: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:21
Speaker 2: story about Motorhead, a band that influenced some of the
0:25
Speaker 2: most important acts in heavy metal and punk rock history,
0:30
Speaker 2: a band who invented a sound in a style that
0:33
Speaker 2: didn't exist before their three founding members went into the
0:36
Speaker 2: recording studio for the first time. But this is also
0:40
Speaker 2: a story about speed and revenge, about good and evil,
0:46
Speaker 2: about a brutal murder, and about some of the greatest
0:50
Speaker 2: and meanest rock and roll music ever committed to tape.
0:55
Speaker 2: Great music unlike that music I've played for you at
0:58
Speaker 2: the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That
1:02
Speaker 2: was a preset loop from my mellotron called bangan Orgasmotron
1:07
Speaker 2: MK two. I played you that loop because I can't
1:11
Speaker 2: afford the rights to he Don't Love You Like I
1:14
Speaker 2: Love You by Tony Orlando and Dawn. And why would
1:18
Speaker 2: I play you that specific slice of mustache and mullet cheese?
1:23
Speaker 2: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:27
Speaker 2: song in America on May eighteenth, nineteen seventy five, and
1:32
Speaker 2: That was the day that let Me Kill Meister was
1:34
Speaker 2: fired from the band Hawkwind, a fateful turn of events
1:38
Speaker 2: that directly led to the creation of one of the
1:41
Speaker 2: most uncompromising and influential bands of all time.
1:46
Speaker 1: On this episode.
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Speaker 2: Speed Revenge, Good and Evil, a brutal murder mustache and
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Speaker 2: mullet cheese and Murderhead.
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Speaker 3: I'm Jake Brennan and this is this Graceland.
2:33
Speaker 2: Music's so loud, it's like your brains are being forced
2:36
Speaker 2: down your nose. Music to perform lobotomies too, the best.
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Speaker 1: Worst band in the world.
2:45
Speaker 2: These are the kinds of things the UK press set
2:48
Speaker 2: about Motorhead when their self titled debut album was released
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Speaker 2: on Chiswick Records in nineteen seventy seven.
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Speaker 1: The so called three.
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Speaker 2: Amigos who made up the band at the time, Killmeister
3:00
Speaker 2: on bass and vocals, Fast Eddie Clark on guitar and
3:04
Speaker 2: Phil Taylor aka Filthy Animal on drums, could give a
3:09
Speaker 2: shit what anyone said about, the least of all some
3:13
Speaker 2: pencil pushing an egghead at a London rack, sticks and stones.
3:17
Speaker 1: And all that. In fact, the band wore.
3:20
Speaker 2: Bad press like a tight leather jacket, just like Lemmy
3:24
Speaker 2: wore that tattoo.
3:25
Speaker 1: The Ace of Spades on his.
3:26
Speaker 2: Forearm, the one was born to lose and live to
3:30
Speaker 2: win written on either side. It was the year of
3:33
Speaker 2: the sex Pistols and of the Clash, a year in
3:36
Speaker 2: which rob visceral rock music took aim at disco and
3:40
Speaker 2: the Osmonds and fired away. But unlike their punk rock contemporaries,
3:45
Speaker 2: Motorhead had no social message. Their only message, as fast
3:50
Speaker 2: Eddie put it, was to quote get pissed, get stoned,
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Speaker 2: fucking chick unquote.
3:56
Speaker 1: Lemmy in particular.
3:57
Speaker 2: Wanted his new band to be fast, brutal and mean,
4:01
Speaker 2: as mean as the umlaut above the second oh and
4:04
Speaker 2: Motorhead two dots put there for no other reason than
4:08
Speaker 2: it made the band's name appear more vicious than.
4:10
Speaker 1: It really was. And when that name was written out.
4:13
Speaker 2: On the cover art of their debut album, the Germanic
4:15
Speaker 2: bold font hovering above the image of something called the
4:18
Speaker 2: war Pig aka snaggletus, part bear, part dog, part wolf,
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Speaker 2: shining metal board, tuss a metal chain, snarling teeth, the
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Speaker 2: obvious question on your mind was what the hell is
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Speaker 2: a Motorhead?
4:36
Speaker 1: Let me kill meister? Was a Motorhead, part speed freak
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Speaker 1: part sex.
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Speaker 2: Freak, rock and roll, animal mutton chops, facial moles, bullet belt,
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Speaker 2: black jeans, custom.
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Speaker 1: Embroidered boots, no wedding ring.
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Speaker 2: Not ever, all badass, all mean, related to the rest
4:55
Speaker 2: of us humans by biology and evolution and all that,
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Speaker 2: but nonetheless a speed onto himself, so much so that
5:02
Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty, the year the Motorhead finally broke into
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Speaker 2: the top ten in the UK, Lemmy's blood was no
5:09
Speaker 2: longer human blood. At least that's what the doctor told
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Speaker 2: him when let Me found out he was not eligible
5:16
Speaker 2: for a blood transfusion. So many drugs, so many pills, Dexa,
5:21
Speaker 2: dream Mandrex, Black Beauties, and of course cocaine, LSD, mescalin,
5:26
Speaker 2: Jack Daniels, a steady diet of hard living. It turned
5:30
Speaker 2: Lemmy's blood toxic, so toxic that pure blood would literally
5:35
Speaker 2: kill him if introduced into his body, or so the
5:39
Speaker 2: story goes. Whether or not that story is actually true
5:43
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. It fits the image of Lemmy and of
5:47
Speaker 2: Motorhead to a t, and maintaining that image is largely
5:51
Speaker 2: what motivated Motorhead to never change their sound, not really anyway.
5:56
Speaker 2: Long after fast Eddie and Filthy Animal left the band,
6:00
Speaker 2: Lemmy was still soldiering on with other players, all of
6:04
Speaker 2: them motivated by that trademark meanness, but Lemmy himself was
6:09
Speaker 2: also motivated by something else, revenge. Nineteen seventy five, Motorhead
6:18
Speaker 2: was not yet the name of a band, but instead
6:20
Speaker 2: the name of a song a B side Lemmy had
6:23
Speaker 2: just written for Hawkwind, the psychedelic prog rock group that
6:27
Speaker 2: he'd joined on bass four years prior. And he think,
6:31
Speaker 2: given that Lemmy wrote the song Motorhead about speed, and
6:34
Speaker 2: also given that the song's A side was called Kings
6:37
Speaker 2: of Speed, that Hawkwind as a whole were into the
6:41
Speaker 2: drug known as speed, but you'd be wrong. Lemmy was
6:46
Speaker 2: the odd man out. LSD was what.
6:49
Speaker 1: Hawkwind were into, not that Lemmy didn't partake. After all.
6:53
Speaker 2: One of his earliest gigs was as a roadie for
6:55
Speaker 2: the Jimmy Hendricks Experience, which meant he was responsible not
6:59
Speaker 2: only for hauling around Jimmy's guitars, are for scoring Jimmy's
7:03
Speaker 2: drugs and Jimmy Hendrix, being the generous guy that he was,
7:07
Speaker 2: generous with his time, generous with his music, and even
7:10
Speaker 2: generous with the lowliest employees on his payroll. Jimmy Hendrix
7:13
Speaker 2: would gladly take the ten hits of LSD, then let
7:16
Speaker 2: me procure it for him, and then hand three hits
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Speaker 2: back to Lemmy as a thank you. That was then,
7:23
Speaker 2: but right now, the guys in Hawkwind were driving from
7:27
Speaker 2: Detroit into Canada for a gig in Toronto, and Lemmy
7:31
Speaker 2: was wired on speed. Now, there are two ways to
7:37
Speaker 2: enter Canada from Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit
7:40
Speaker 2: River where the Detroit windsor Tunnel under the river. The
7:44
Speaker 2: easier play, at least in nineteen seventy five, was over
7:48
Speaker 2: the bridge. Border patrol in the tunnel was notoriously difficult,
7:52
Speaker 2: not that Hawkwinn knew this, or maybe they just didn't care.
7:56
Speaker 2: At first, however, it was smooth sailing through that tunnel,
8:00
Speaker 2: But as their cars approached the border, the custom agents
8:03
Speaker 2: fixated on Lemmy, leaning back in his seat, head bobbing,
8:07
Speaker 2: mouth wide open, his eyes, too long, hair, dirty denim,
8:13
Speaker 2: devilish mustache. Just as quickly as the cars were being
8:17
Speaker 2: waved through, they were ordered to stop, and everyone was
8:21
Speaker 2: told to get out, and then they were searched, and
8:24
Speaker 2: Lemmy was found hiding a baggy of white powder stuff
8:27
Speaker 2: down his pants. The simple drug testing equipment on site
8:31
Speaker 2: said that that white powder was cocaine. By the time
8:35
Speaker 2: it was determined that the substance was not cocaine, but
8:38
Speaker 2: in fact amphetamine sulfate, Lemmy was already in jail. Then
8:42
Speaker 2: the band posted his bail and flew him out to
8:44
Speaker 2: Toronto for that night's show. Little did let Me know
8:48
Speaker 2: it would be the last time he'd appear with Hawkwind.
8:51
Speaker 2: The only reason he'd been allowed to play that night
8:54
Speaker 2: is because his replacement hadn't shown up yet. Lemmy had
8:57
Speaker 2: been kicked out of the band, sacked good and all
9:02
Speaker 2: because he was a motorhead and a band full of
9:04
Speaker 2: acid heads. God forbid that Hawkwind be associated with a
9:07
Speaker 2: drugs low brow as speed. Let Me kept insisting that
9:12
Speaker 2: that was the reason that he was fired, some weird,
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Speaker 2: classiest attitude against the type of drug that he did
9:19
Speaker 2: compared to the type of drug that his bandmates did.
9:23
Speaker 2: Let Me insist it this is true, even years later,
9:25
Speaker 2: long after other members of Hawkwinn said it was actually
9:27
Speaker 2: because of his difficult personality and that the arrest was
9:30
Speaker 2: just the last straw. But let Me wasn't gonna stop
9:34
Speaker 2: being let me. He'd been here before, kicked out of
9:37
Speaker 2: a band, kicked out of a gig, eating nothing but
9:40
Speaker 2: a slice of bread soaked or whatever congealed fat was
9:42
Speaker 2: left in the skillet for lunch, a bottle of Jack Daniels,
9:47
Speaker 2: a pack of Marlboroughs, squatting in someone's apartment, having a
9:50
Speaker 2: go with just about any able and willing female.
9:52
Speaker 1: Because truth was, That's why let me did what he did.
9:56
Speaker 2: The music, the image, all of it just to get
10:00
Speaker 2: laid and not just here or there when the opportunity
10:04
Speaker 2: presented itself, But the opportunity was constant, with as many
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Speaker 2: different women as possible, upwards of one thousand at least
10:11
Speaker 2: during his lifetime by his own a count, which is
10:15
Speaker 2: exactly what he was doing now back in London. But
10:20
Speaker 2: the women Lemmy was sleeping with were now carefully selected.
10:24
Speaker 2: Let Me rang up the girlfriends and three of the
10:26
Speaker 2: guys in hawkwind seduced them and then slept.
10:29
Speaker 1: With them while Hawkman finished their tour.
10:33
Speaker 2: Then he got to work forming a new band, his
10:36
Speaker 2: band with Power to Spare, a power trio that laid
10:41
Speaker 2: waste to psychedelia and prague and anything else that had
10:45
Speaker 2: the misfortune to get.
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Speaker 1: In his way.
10:49
Speaker 2: Motorhead took its name from the Hawkwind song because fuck hawkwent,
10:54
Speaker 2: which Lemmy gladly did well their girlfriends anyway, and then
10:58
Speaker 2: he put that screw you feeling into the music Motorhead
11:00
Speaker 2: as well. Loud, fast, brutal and mean, Motorhead was a
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Speaker 2: sound of a revenge fuck. Nineteen sixty two, Manchester, England,
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Speaker 2: Seventeen year old let Me Killmeister was obsessed with music
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Speaker 2: It's getting laid, and with doing a lot of speed,
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Speaker 2: which he had recently been introduced to. His friend Robbie
11:47
Speaker 2: showed him how to work the needle under the skin
11:50
Speaker 2: and shoot it right. But the only needle let Me
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Speaker 2: wanted touching his arm was the needle on a tattoo gun.
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Speaker 2: So instead of shooting that first dose of speed, it
11:59
Speaker 2: is all into a cup of hot cocoa.
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Speaker 1: The rush was immediate.
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Speaker 2: Suddenly Lemmy's whole world was in hyperdrive, as fast and
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Speaker 2: propulsive as.
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Speaker 1: The music that he would later make with Motorhead.
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Speaker 2: Speed the very word a perfectly succinct description for how
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Speaker 2: you now felt running gunning one minute sitting next to Junkie,
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Speaker 2: Robbie and Man City, and the next scurrying out west
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Speaker 2: to Liverpool, falling down a flight of stairs into a
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Speaker 2: dank underworld. Were on the tiny stage of the Cavern Club.
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Speaker 2: Four lads were twisting and shouting. But you weren't watching
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Speaker 2: this band. You were watching the girls, and they were
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Speaker 2: losing their fucking minds all because of this music. But
12:44
Speaker 2: one of those girls said she lost her virginity to
12:46
Speaker 2: Beatle John. You couldn't be sure, but you never let
12:49
Speaker 2: a good story get in the way of a good time,
12:52
Speaker 2: and a good time is what you had. More methyl
12:56
Speaker 2: amphetamine hydro chloride down the hatch, nine shots of liquid speed,
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Speaker 2: and a single glass of orange juice, and that shit rotted.
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Speaker 1: Out your teeth, the speed, not the OJ but you
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Speaker 1: didn't care.
13:09
Speaker 2: It made you feel superhuman, unlike the atropine sulfate that.
13:13
Speaker 1: Someone gave you by accident.
13:15
Speaker 2: That one time, Bella Donna nightshade poison. That stuff sent
13:20
Speaker 2: you to the hospital and the doc said if you'd
13:22
Speaker 2: shown up an hour later, you would have been dead,
13:24
Speaker 2: but you didn't care. You were practically born dead, or
13:29
Speaker 2: so your mom always told you. A baby with a
13:32
Speaker 2: perforated ear drum and whooping cough christened on day one
13:36
Speaker 2: out of fear that there would be no Day two.
13:39
Speaker 2: But look at you now, Day thirteen thousand or something,
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Speaker 2: not just alive but thriving. Anyone who ever said speed
13:47
Speaker 2: kills never saw a heroin anecdo d in the bathtub.
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Speaker 1: But you did.
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Speaker 2: And she may have been the love of your life too.
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Speaker 2: Now you'd never know. You didn't have time to wonder
13:58
Speaker 2: about it anyway. You were too busy making that first
14:00
Speaker 2: Motorhead album.
14:02
Speaker 1: It did all right.
14:04
Speaker 2: The next one, Overkill, did even better. And then your
14:07
Speaker 2: third bomber hit number twelve on the UK charts. That's
14:12
Speaker 2: in spinning distance of the top ten. You wanted it
14:15
Speaker 2: the big time, just as bad as you wanted some
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Speaker 2: speed and your blood scream and a bird going down
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Speaker 2: between your legs, and you got there. Ace of Spades
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Speaker 2: the album fall nineteen eighty, number four on the UK chart.
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Speaker 2: Ace of Spades, the song seemed to be your calling card.
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Speaker 2: That went to number fifteen for a loud, vicious, mean
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Speaker 2: band that was no small feat. Let Me kill Meister
14:44
Speaker 2: drank up all his success, just like he drank up
14:47
Speaker 2: all those bottles.
14:48
Speaker 1: Of Jack Daniels.
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Speaker 2: Wide awake for days at a time, no sleep, no rest,
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Speaker 2: not for the wicked, not for a guy who mixed
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Speaker 2: business with pleasure, the guy who once received the blowjob
15:00
Speaker 2: while performing on stage. Coax and that signature snarling rickenbacker
15:05
Speaker 2: bassed guitar tone came easy, just like letty himself came
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Speaker 2: easy when the woman treated him to swell on stage.
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Speaker 1: Off stage didn't matter.
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Speaker 2: Let me get his rocks off while he was rocking out,
15:18
Speaker 2: and he would sleep when he was dead, which that
15:21
Speaker 2: vampire blood of his might not ever happen, that is
15:26
Speaker 2: until he collapsed up for three straight days. No More
15:32
Speaker 2: motor and Way too Much Head now splayed out on
15:36
Speaker 2: the floor backstage after passing out halfway through Motorhead's performance,
15:41
Speaker 2: The hammer Smith odeon London Fast Eddie and Filthy Animal
15:45
Speaker 2: were pissed. Twelve thousand fans waiting for him in the venue,
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Speaker 2: a crucial venue, no less, four straight shows, always the
15:53
Speaker 2: cap of their UK tours. Eddie for wanted, turned down
15:56
Speaker 2: numerous offers of cocaine.
15:58
Speaker 1: In fact, he only.
15:59
Speaker 2: Allowed himself one singular Heineken in the days leading up
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Speaker 2: to this, so that he could perform a show that
16:04
Speaker 2: the people deserved. And here was their fearless leader, not
16:07
Speaker 2: technically dead, but dead enough dead to the world anyway,
16:12
Speaker 2: and what was the difference anyhow? Let me let them
16:14
Speaker 2: all down fast, Eddie, Filthy animal the fans passing out
16:19
Speaker 2: in the middle of a fucking show to say that
16:22
Speaker 2: his bandmates were pissed as an understatement, not that Filthy,
16:29
Speaker 2: for one, hadn't been right where Lemmy was before, seemingly
16:32
Speaker 2: incapacitated at the very moment that duty was going to
16:34
Speaker 2: call on him.
16:35
Speaker 1: It was Filthy, after all, who went after some noisy.
16:37
Speaker 2: Asshole mucking it up outside of squat nodding hill that
16:41
Speaker 2: on the eve of a Motorhead tour. No less Filthy
16:44
Speaker 2: entered that confrontation fist first, slamming his knuckles into the
16:47
Speaker 2: guy's face. It was like lightning struck his hand. He
16:51
Speaker 2: felt the bones and his fingers go gooey, and then
16:54
Speaker 2: his entire hands swelled up like a melon. Filthy knew
16:58
Speaker 2: better than most that the show he must go on,
17:01
Speaker 2: as it was scheduled to the very next day, But
17:04
Speaker 2: since he couldn't actually hold the drumstick in his broken hand,
17:07
Speaker 2: he instead played the entire tour with the stick literally
17:11
Speaker 2: attached to his fingers, using nothing but Dafford tape, and
17:14
Speaker 2: no sooner was his hand healed than he found himself
17:17
Speaker 2: going head over heels down a flight of stairs, fucked up,
17:21
Speaker 2: out of his mind, of course, maybe pushed by someone
17:24
Speaker 2: who was equally fucked up, but honestly it was a
17:26
Speaker 2: fool's errand trying to tell the difference. Sometimes Filthy started
17:30
Speaker 2: at the top and ate shit all the way down,
17:33
Speaker 2: a different part of his body, hitting each subsequent step
17:36
Speaker 2: until he reached the bottom floor, where he landed on
17:39
Speaker 2: his head and snapped his neck. Just like the last
17:42
Speaker 2: tour where he played with a drumstick taped to his hand.
17:46
Speaker 2: For this one, Filthy wore a neck brace. But the
17:49
Speaker 2: point was he showed up, He sucked it up, He
17:53
Speaker 2: did what he had to do. He got on stage
17:55
Speaker 2: and he played. Unlike our guy Lemme, hear able to
18:00
Speaker 2: get to the band's show at the Hammersmith, and thanks
18:03
Speaker 2: to that very public display, word got around. Soon the
18:07
Speaker 2: drug squad was knocking down their front doors, all of them, Lemmy, Filthy, Eddie,
18:12
Speaker 2: their manager, their crew. And what did Filthy get for
18:15
Speaker 2: being good for keeping it to one measly heineken? He
18:19
Speaker 2: got arrested and subsequently fined for a little over two
18:22
Speaker 2: grams of cannabis. Lemmy and Eddie were lucky they weren't
18:27
Speaker 2: home when the police showed up. Lemmy, for one, was
18:29
Speaker 2: out on the town upright, this time, resurrected just like
18:33
Speaker 2: he'd ben as a newborn, looking punk as fuck in
18:36
Speaker 2: his standard rock and roll uniform, a uniform which included
18:39
Speaker 2: that big iron cross dangling from his neck, the same
18:42
Speaker 2: iron cross that was an old military decoration in the
18:45
Speaker 2: Kingdom of Prussia, later co opted.
18:47
Speaker 1: By the Nazis. And why did let me wear this?
18:52
Speaker 2: Well, in Lemmy's own words, it was a joke who
18:56
Speaker 2: was meant to shock and provoke, just like those London
18:59
Speaker 2: punk were sporting swastikas alongside their safety.
19:02
Speaker 1: Pins and union jack's.
19:05
Speaker 2: And speaking of swastikas, let me had those two not
19:09
Speaker 2: so much in the early eighties, but gradually over time
19:12
Speaker 2: that joke became a fascination, an obsession with military history
19:16
Speaker 2: and war memorabilia, specifically Nazi gear, an obsession which inspired
19:21
Speaker 2: him to curate an oversized collection later in his life.
19:25
Speaker 2: His apartment was full of keepsakes from the Third Reich. Yes,
19:30
Speaker 2: all of this is more than a little fucked up then,
19:35
Speaker 2: and now to wear the iron cross to hang up
19:38
Speaker 2: a swastik, or to put one on the cover of
19:39
Speaker 2: your album, which if you look closely at the first
19:41
Speaker 2: pressing of Motorhead's debut you will find one. To decorate
19:45
Speaker 2: your house with Nazi flags and pennants and medals, to
19:49
Speaker 2: wear a Gestapo uniformal spanking and naked chick's ass with
19:52
Speaker 2: a riding crop, if that story told by ministries au
19:55
Speaker 2: Jurgensen is to be believed.
19:57
Speaker 1: But that's a little off topic.
19:58
Speaker 2: But even if you make a p to routinely reject
20:01
Speaker 2: the ideology of all of these symbols, still to have them,
20:05
Speaker 2: to display them, to collect them, it is all super
20:08
Speaker 2: fucked up.
20:09
Speaker 1: But that was Lemmy.
20:12
Speaker 2: He didn't care about being super fucked up, and he
20:15
Speaker 2: didn't care what you thought about the things that he
20:18
Speaker 2: found to be esthetically pleasing, and even better if you disapproved,
20:21
Speaker 2: because that meant he can use it to fuck with you.
20:24
Speaker 1: Weary that iron cross around your neck day in and
20:27
Speaker 1: day out. Well you can take a toll because when
20:30
Speaker 1: you fuck with something like that with evil, evil in
20:34
Speaker 1: turn fucks with you right back. We'll be right back
20:42
Speaker 1: after this. We're We're We're.
20:51
Speaker 2: Fall, nineteen eighty one, England, Andy Elsmore returned home to
20:56
Speaker 2: his flat and immediately an unsettled feeling over. He couldn't
21:02
Speaker 2: quite put his finger on it. His roommate let Me
21:05
Speaker 2: wasn't at home, which wasn't unusual. Lemmy was often on
21:09
Speaker 2: the road with Motorhead, or down at the pub or
21:12
Speaker 2: who the hell knows where. It didn't bother Andy in
21:14
Speaker 2: the least. The two men barely knew each other. They
21:17
Speaker 2: weren't friends strictly roommates, and despite his commercial success as
21:22
Speaker 2: of late, including Moterhead's new live album To Sleep Till Hammersmith,
21:25
Speaker 2: which finally sent them to number one, let Me needed
21:28
Speaker 2: a roommate. Too much money going out and not enough
21:32
Speaker 2: coming back in this arrangement with Andy was good for
21:35
Speaker 2: Lemmy's bottom line. But tonight Andy was having trouble finding
21:40
Speaker 2: the good in anything or anyone. There was someone inside
21:45
Speaker 2: their shared flat. He could feel it, more specifically, could
21:49
Speaker 2: feel that someone's presence was ominous, foreboding.
21:54
Speaker 1: And then I materialized evil in Karnie.
22:00
Speaker 2: First it was shadows, something scratching the floor in the
22:03
Speaker 2: next room, over the sound of feet scampering across the ceiling.
22:08
Speaker 2: Nothing made sense, not to Andy, not in this moment. Alone, afraid,
22:14
Speaker 2: his own senses playing tricks on him. Suddenly there was
22:17
Speaker 2: a man, or multiple men, it was hard to tell.
22:21
Speaker 2: They were jumping from the walls, tackling Andy to the floor.
22:24
Speaker 2: A knife came screaming from the darkness, slashing, spilling his blood.
22:29
Speaker 2: He felt razor sharp steels sliced.
22:31
Speaker 1: Open his face, his neck, his chest, over and over.
22:34
Speaker 2: No part of his body was spared, and the pain,
22:37
Speaker 2: like the blood, was everywhere.
22:39
Speaker 1: It was excruciating. He felt a burning sensation, first from
22:43
Speaker 1: his ass.
22:44
Speaker 2: And then in his groin, and now there was a
22:47
Speaker 2: different kind of heat emanating from the walls. His and
22:50
Speaker 2: Lemmy's flat was on fire. The flames licked his bleeding body,
22:54
Speaker 2: searing his battered flesh. His attackers were long gone, and
22:58
Speaker 2: he knew he would be soon, but he had a
23:01
Speaker 2: little life left in him, enough to get to a phone,
23:03
Speaker 2: perhaps to call for help. He crawled on his hands
23:07
Speaker 2: and knees, making his way slowly down the corridor to
23:09
Speaker 2: the TV room. His arms buckled trying to hold his
23:12
Speaker 2: body upright. The blood was everywhere. Andy didn't make it
23:17
Speaker 2: to the TV room. Andy didn't make it to the
23:19
Speaker 2: phone either. He took one last labored breath before falling
23:23
Speaker 2: to the floor and succumbing to his injuries. According to
23:29
Speaker 2: Lemme Killmeister's autobiography, his one time flatmate was stabbed fifty
23:34
Speaker 2: two times in the face, neck, and chest before the
23:37
Speaker 2: knife was shoved up his rectum. But it gets worse
23:43
Speaker 2: if that's possible. His murderers also cut off his penis
23:47
Speaker 2: and stuffed it up into the same place that moments
23:50
Speaker 2: before had been penetrated by a blade, and then they
23:54
Speaker 2: lit the flat on fire to try and cover their tracks,
23:57
Speaker 2: leaving Andy to die. Why Andy was killed is a mystery.
24:04
Speaker 2: He ran a porn theater in the back of a
24:06
Speaker 2: bookstore and Motorhead's manager called him a scuzzbag, and Lemmy
24:10
Speaker 2: was convinced it was a hate crime due to Andy's
24:12
Speaker 2: sexual orientation and the manner in which he was murdered,
24:17
Speaker 2: But the paper said it was a drug slang, and
24:19
Speaker 2: they insinuated that Motorhead was somehow involved, given that the
24:23
Speaker 2: victim was roommates with the band's notorious frontman, whose very
24:27
Speaker 2: lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock and roll courted evil
24:30
Speaker 2: of all stripes, evil that some would say hung from
24:34
Speaker 2: Mettally's men around Lemmy's neck good evil. Let me didn't
24:40
Speaker 2: pretend to sort one from the other. That was someone
24:43
Speaker 2: else's job. His job was to seek and find pleasure,
24:48
Speaker 2: which in his mind was divorced from any sense of
24:51
Speaker 2: good or bad as long as one's pleasure wasn't hurting
24:54
Speaker 2: anyone else. Pleasure was amphetamines. It was full tilt.
24:59
Speaker 1: Rock and roll.
25:00
Speaker 2: It was a snort, It was a fuck a low
25:02
Speaker 2: eastring vibrating through a fuzzed out speaker cone, but the
25:06
Speaker 2: chase always being better than the catch, to paraphrase a
25:09
Speaker 2: Motorhead song. But in the wake of Andy's murder, Motorhead's
25:14
Speaker 2: manager put an emphasis on the band's safety. He moved Lemmy, Eddie,
25:18
Speaker 2: and Filthy into a shared house together that was not pleasurable.
25:23
Speaker 2: If you've ever been in a band, you know that
25:25
Speaker 2: the old cliche is true that it's like a marriage,
25:28
Speaker 2: but you're married to more than one person. And as
25:30
Speaker 2: we've already established, Lemmy was not the marrying type. Being
25:34
Speaker 2: that close all the time began to grate on everybody.
25:38
Speaker 2: Filthy started smoking Heroin with the road crew fast. Eddie
25:42
Speaker 2: was annoyed by Lemmy's creative direction, perhaps not unlike Hawkwind
25:46
Speaker 2: had been all those years ago. He thought that Lemmy
25:49
Speaker 2: was off as not recording Tammy Wynett's stand by her
25:51
Speaker 2: Man as a duet with plasmatic shockrocker Wendy o' williams.
25:56
Speaker 2: Eddie refused to play on it. Even Motorhead's next out,
26:00
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two's Iron Fist, felt a bit rope, if
26:04
Speaker 2: not to the public, then definitely to the group. It
26:07
Speaker 2: was the last record to feature Motorheads classic lineup. Fast
26:11
Speaker 2: Eddie bounced first. He was quickly replaced by Brian Robbo Robertson,
26:15
Speaker 2: formerly of Sin Lizzie. Robbo brought a new energy to
26:19
Speaker 2: the group, and not just in terms of his guitar style.
26:22
Speaker 2: I'm talking to tequila and cocaine vibe. He also liked
26:25
Speaker 2: to wear shorts on stage, like the shortest Adidas running
26:29
Speaker 2: shorts he could possibly find. See how short shorts were
26:33
Speaker 2: in in the nineteen eighties, those real plumb smugglers. Not
26:37
Speaker 2: that Lemmy didn't wear shorts, because he did, and there
26:39
Speaker 2: are many accounts of Lemmy's proclivity for cutoff jeans, including
26:43
Speaker 2: one from scott Ian of Anthrax in which he remembers
26:45
Speaker 2: getting more than he bargained for when let me bent
26:47
Speaker 2: over in front of him wearing a pair of the
26:49
Speaker 2: shortest Daisy Duke's known to man. But I'm digressing here.
26:52
Speaker 2: On stage was a whole other thing. Shorts did not
26:55
Speaker 2: belong on stage, not when you're representing Motorhead. Shorts weren't mean,
27:01
Speaker 2: Shorts weren't vicious. There was an image to maintain toxic blood,
27:06
Speaker 2: iron crosses, snaggled tooth the war pick Jim Shortz did
27:10
Speaker 2: not fit in with that at all. Robbo barely made
27:13
Speaker 2: it eighteen months before he and his plump smugglers hit
27:16
Speaker 2: the bricks. Let me tell the next guy, I trust
27:19
Speaker 2: you musically one hundred percent. Play what you feel is right.
27:22
Speaker 2: Just don't wear fucking shorts on stage. Even if rock
27:27
Speaker 2: and Roll by design didn't play by the rules, there
27:30
Speaker 2: was still a dress code, and for Lemmy's Motorhead there
27:33
Speaker 2: was a code code as well, not that one for
27:36
Speaker 2: all all for one horse shit. Lemmy may have been
27:38
Speaker 2: a collector of military history, but he was no sentimentalist.
27:42
Speaker 1: If fast Eddie or Robbo or Filthy Animal or whoever
27:46
Speaker 1: wanted to leave, let him leave. If they wanted to
27:48
Speaker 1: come back, like Filthy did for a bit. They could
27:51
Speaker 1: do that too.
27:54
Speaker 2: Lemmy's code was the code of the odd man out,
27:58
Speaker 2: the one who would still be there no matter or
28:00
Speaker 2: who hung on or who fell off, who quit, and
28:03
Speaker 2: who was fired. Time itself was irrelevant. Could be nineteen
28:07
Speaker 2: eighty five, nineteen ninety five, or two thousand and five,
28:10
Speaker 2: could even be twenty fifteen, the last year of Lemmy's life.
28:14
Speaker 2: Let me kill Meister, and thus Motorhead were resistant to
28:18
Speaker 2: time and to compromise, unfazed, unchanged, stand your ground and
28:24
Speaker 2: have faith in your credo, that one in the song
28:27
Speaker 2: and the same one tattooed.
28:29
Speaker 1: There on your arm. Born to lose, Live to win.
28:37
Speaker 4: Seller Seller Slower, Sloller Sroller Slower, Seller Slller.
28:50
Speaker 2: Sroller Slower, January two thousand and six, West Hollywood. The
29:02
Speaker 2: VIP reception at the Rainbow Bar and Grill was at capacity.
29:06
Speaker 1: Be real.
29:06
Speaker 2: If Cypress Hill was passing around a joint, the smoke
29:10
Speaker 2: wafted past Dave Grohl, passed Glenn Danzig, past porn star
29:14
Speaker 2: Ron Jeremy, whose Ghouls Night Out T shirt seemed to
29:17
Speaker 2: be a little too on the nose. Some kid from
29:20
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania know him back in his small town as the
29:23
Speaker 2: guy who spray painted Lemmy is God on the side
29:25
Speaker 2: of a mountain, tried to gain access and rub elbows
29:29
Speaker 2: with fellows super fans, making sure everyone saw the ink
29:32
Speaker 2: on his chest, a gnarly tattoo of Lemmy riding a tank,
29:37
Speaker 2: and everyone in attendance did see it, but not the
29:40
Speaker 2: man of the hour himself, because let me kill meister
29:44
Speaker 2: have been, to quote a Motorhead song, killed by death
29:47
Speaker 2: about a week prior, and not by pills or other
29:51
Speaker 2: drugs or alcohol, but by cancer, just days after he
29:55
Speaker 2: turned the Big seven zero. Although Lemmy and thus Motorhead
29:59
Speaker 2: were no longer among the living, his spirit was, as
30:03
Speaker 2: the celebratory collective at the Rainbow could attest. And I
30:07
Speaker 2: don't mean that in some cheesy way either, like oh,
30:10
Speaker 2: we can all feel his spirit. What I mean is
30:13
Speaker 2: the unteachable spirit of Lemmy the man and Lemmy the concept,
30:18
Speaker 2: both of which was what people were celebrating on this
30:20
Speaker 2: particular night, a man who for the last twenty five
30:24
Speaker 2: years had made his home in Los Angeles, just a
30:27
Speaker 2: quick walk up the street from the Rainbow Bar and Grill.
30:30
Speaker 2: If Lemmy wasn't touring or making another Motorhead record, which
30:33
Speaker 2: he did, right up until the end. You could find
30:36
Speaker 2: him here playing video trivia on a small TV screen
30:39
Speaker 2: at the end of the bar, nursing a stiff jack
30:41
Speaker 2: and coke, and gladly talking to anyone who approached him.
30:46
Speaker 2: The modesty of this scene is a large part of
30:49
Speaker 2: why the next generation worshiped Lemmy. From Dave Navarro Jane's
30:53
Speaker 2: addiction in the Red Aunt Chili Peppers, and Dave Grohl
30:55
Speaker 2: and Hairvana and Foo Fighters to Slash from Guns and
30:58
Speaker 2: Roses and Nicky six from All the Cruz. Forget Metallica,
31:01
Speaker 2: who have said on numerous occasions that they wouldn't even
31:03
Speaker 2: exist if it wasn't for Motorhead. But the other reason
31:06
Speaker 2: both the punks and the metal heads claimed Lemmy for
31:09
Speaker 2: their own was his authenticity.
31:11
Speaker 1: He didn't just talk the talk, he walked it at.
31:14
Speaker 2: Twenty years old, at fifty years old, at sixty five,
31:18
Speaker 2: and even at seventy, he was the same guy he'd
31:21
Speaker 2: always been, the odd man out. He still played loud,
31:26
Speaker 2: vicious and mean, and that meant no ballace, no frills,
31:30
Speaker 2: no bullshit, and look.
31:33
Speaker 1: Rock and roll is all bullshit.
31:36
Speaker 2: The Standell's you know, dirty Water Boston near my home,
31:40
Speaker 2: Those guys weren't even from New England. See bullshit. And
31:43
Speaker 2: that's just one of a gazillion examples I can give you.
31:46
Speaker 2: But with Lemmy, what you saw was what you got.
31:48
Speaker 2: Even the shocking bits and especially the problematic stuff. The
31:52
Speaker 2: antithesis of a rock star like Keith Richards, a so
31:56
Speaker 2: called rebel who'd long since embraced the lap of a
31:59
Speaker 2: millionaire luxury millions of dollars, wouldn't.
32:02
Speaker 1: Have suited Lemmy. He wouldn't have known what to do
32:04
Speaker 1: with it.
32:06
Speaker 2: So if you lived in or visited Los Angeles in
32:10
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties or in the two thousands, specifically in
32:12
Speaker 2: a small footprint along the Sunset Strip, you had a
32:16
Speaker 2: really good chance of running into Lemmy.
32:18
Speaker 1: And just about everybody did. Hell, even I did. For real.
32:21
Speaker 2: Indulge me for a second, because this is good. This
32:24
Speaker 2: is around nineteen ninety seven. I believe my band Cast
32:27
Speaker 2: Iron Hike was flown out to Los Angeles for this
32:30
Speaker 2: thing called Foundations. It was kind of like the heavy
32:32
Speaker 2: metal CMJ. This was my first time in Los Angeles,
32:34
Speaker 2: by the way, and we weren't at the Rainbow, not
32:36
Speaker 2: yet anyway, where Lemmy was often found. Like I said,
32:39
Speaker 2: nursing a jack and coke. But we were at this
32:42
Speaker 2: hotel where the conference was and I'm standing at the
32:45
Speaker 2: bar and I'm waiting to order a drink and I
32:47
Speaker 2: turn and look next to me, and damn it's Lemmy.
32:51
Speaker 1: He's right there and he orders a jack and coke.
32:54
Speaker 1: So naturally I just lean over.
32:56
Speaker 2: To the bartender and I say, hey, I got that,
32:58
Speaker 2: and I look at him and I say, hey, it's
32:59
Speaker 2: on melpay for man, and he thanks me and he says,
33:03
Speaker 2: I swear to God this is true.
33:05
Speaker 1: He goes, you know why I like you because you
33:08
Speaker 1: look like a young JFK.
33:10
Speaker 2: Now whether or not I actually look like JFK my
33:12
Speaker 2: younger years is up for debate, but I'm just telling
33:14
Speaker 2: you what let me said to me.
33:15
Speaker 1: So I said to him, well, hey, man, thanks a lot. JFK.
33:18
Speaker 1: Fuck Meril Monroe.
33:20
Speaker 2: And Lemmy looks at me and he goes, yeah, well
33:22
Speaker 2: I fucked Raquel Welch and then he walks away. You
33:26
Speaker 2: can't make this up, Like, if you were gonna have
33:28
Speaker 2: an authentic moment with Lemmy from Motorhead, it would be
33:31
Speaker 2: that okay. So when we were researching this episode, we
33:35
Speaker 2: found an interview with Lemmy from Maximum magazine, in which
33:38
Speaker 2: he said that Raquel Welch was his idea of the
33:40
Speaker 2: perfect woman, but that he'd never slept with. It doesn't matter,
33:44
Speaker 2: he said it, Okay, I'm not making it up. And
33:46
Speaker 2: just like that thing with the toxic blood, though, it
33:48
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be the truth. It just have to
33:50
Speaker 2: have the spirit.
33:51
Speaker 1: And Lemmy was into building his own myth. Clearly.
33:55
Speaker 2: I think every rock and roll band, every heavy metal band,
33:58
Speaker 2: they all want to be Motorhead, at least in spirit,
34:01
Speaker 2: or they should. Anyways, back to the Rainbow Bar and
34:05
Speaker 2: grill with Lemmy at his memorial or tribute party, whatever
34:09
Speaker 2: we're calling it. After Lemmy's funeral, his body was cremated.
34:13
Speaker 2: Some of the ashes were packed inside bullet casings and
34:16
Speaker 2: sent to his closest friends. Some were enshrined at the Rainbow,
34:21
Speaker 2: and some were mixed with ink and then tattooed onto
34:24
Speaker 2: the skin of Metallica's James Headfield, specifically onto his middle finger.
34:29
Speaker 2: So for as long as James Hedfield lives, he can
34:32
Speaker 2: flip the bird and give you not only a glimpse
34:34
Speaker 2: of a small ace of spades inside the outline of
34:37
Speaker 2: an iron cross.
34:39
Speaker 1: But a taste of Mortarheads Spirit. I'm Jake Brennan and
34:45
Speaker 1: this is Disgraceland.
35:00
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you for listening to another episode of Disgraceland.
35:02
Speaker 1: Appreciate you.
35:03
Speaker 2: Guys. Listen to Apple podcast listeners. If you do not already,
35:06
Speaker 2: make sure that you have auto downloads turned on. This
35:09
Speaker 2: week's question of the week, guys, what was the first
35:12
Speaker 2: concert you went to that had a massive impact on
35:14
Speaker 2: your motorhead? Was one of mine for sure? Doesn't have
35:17
Speaker 2: to be your first concert ever. Which is the first
35:20
Speaker 2: concert that really impacted you? Let me know six one
35:22
Speaker 2: seven nine oh six six six three eight, give me
35:24
Speaker 2: a call, me a voicemail, send me a text, Hit
35:26
Speaker 2: me up at Disgrace lampod on the socials, Disgrace lampod
35:29
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com, on email. I get to take
35:32
Speaker 2: off until next week.
35:33
Speaker 1: Here come some credits.
35:36
Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
35:39
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35:42
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