Powertrip Radio is saddened to learn of the passing of rock legend Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister. Lemmy was the lead vocalist for Motörhead, which performed multiple WWE entrance themes, including Triple H's "The Game," Evolution's "Line in the Sand" theme and the "King of Kings" music, which debuted at WrestleMania 22 and typically plays The Authority to the ring today. Motörhead also played "The Game" live at WrestleMania X-Seven and WrestleMania 21 before Triple H's matches against The Undertaker and Batista, respectively.
Ian Fraser "
Lemmy"
Kilmister (24 December 1945 – 28 December 2015) was an English musician, singer, and songwriter who founded and fronted the
rock band
Motörhead. His music and lifestyle was a distinctive part of the
heavy metal genre.
Lemmy was born in
Stoke-on-Trent and grew up in
North Wales. He was influenced by
rock and roll and the early
Beatles, which led to him playing in several rock groups in the 1960s, most significantly
the Rockin' Vickers. He worked as a
roadie for
Jimi Hendrix and
The Nice, before joining the
space rock band
Hawkwind in 1971, singing lead on their hit "
Silver Machine". After being fired from Hawkwind, he founded Motörhead as lead singer, bassist, songwriter and frontman. Motörhead's success peaked in 1980 and 1981 and included the hit single "
Ace of Spades". Lemmy continued to record and tour regularly with Motörhead until his death in December 2015.
Aside from his musical skills, Lemmy was well known for his hard living lifestyle and regular consumption of
alcohol and
amphetamines. He was also noted for his collection of
Nazi memorabilia, although he did not support Nazi ideals. He made several cameo appearances in film and television.
Early life
Lemmy was born on
Christmas Eve in the
Burslem area of
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
[1][2] When Lemmy was three months old, his father, an ex-
Royal Air Force chaplain, separated from his mother. His mother and grandmother moved to nearby
Newcastle-under-Lyme, then moved again to
Madeley, another nearby town.
[3] When Lemmy was 10, his mother married former footballer
George Willis, who already had two older children from a previous marriage, Patricia and Tony, with whom Lemmy did not get along.
The family moved to a farm in
Benllech on the Welsh island of
Anglesey,
[4] with Lemmy later commenting on his time there, that "funnily enough, being the only English kid among 700 Welsh ones didn't make for the happiest time – but it was interesting from an anthropological point of view".
[5] He attended
Sir Thomas Jones' School in
Amlwch, where he was nicknamed Lemmy, although he was unsure why; it would later be claimed that the name originated from the phrase "lemmy [lend me] a
quid till Friday" because of his habit of borrowing money from people to feed his addiction to
slot machines.
[3][6][7] He soon started to show an interest in
rock and roll music, girls, and horses.
By the time he left school his family had relocated to
Conwy, still in northern Wales. There he worked at menial jobs including one in the local
Hotpoint electric appliance factory, while also playing guitar for local bands, such as the Sundowners, and spending time at a horse-riding school.
[3] Lemmy saw
the Beatles perform at
The Cavern Club when he was 16, and then learned to play along on guitar to their first album
Please Please Me. He also admired the sarcastic attitude of the group, particularly that of
John Lennon.
[8]
At the age of 17, he met a holidaying girl called Cathy. He followed her to
Stockport, where she eventually had his son Sean, who was put up for adoption.
[3] In the 2010 documentary film
Lemmy, Lemmy mentions having a son whose mother has only recently "found him" and "hadn't got the heart to tell him who his father was", indicating the boy – perhaps Sean – was given up for adoption.
Drugs and alcohol
Lemmy was well known for his intake of alcohol. In the documentary
Live Fast Die Old, it was revealed that he drank a bottle of
Jack Daniel's every day and had done so since he was 30 years old.
[31] In 2013, Lemmy stopped drinking Jack Daniel's for health reasons.
[32]
During his time with Hawkwind, he developed an appetite for
amphetamines and
LSD, particularly the former. Before joining Hawkwind, he recalled Dik Mik, a former Hawkwind sound technician, visiting his squat in the middle of the night and taking speed with him. They became interested in how long "you could make the human body jump about without stopping," which they did for a few months, until Mik ran out of money and wanted to return to Hawkwind, taking Lemmy with him.
[6]
I first got into speed because it was a utilitarian drug and kept you awake when you needed to be awake, when otherwise you'd just be flat out on your back. If you drive to Glasgow for nine hours in the back of a sweaty truck you don't really feel like going onstage feeling all bright and breezy... It's the only drug I've found that I can get on with, and I've tried them all – except smack [heroin] and morphine: I've never "fixed" anything.[6]
In November 2005, he was invited to the
National Assembly for Wales as a guest speaker by Tory member
William Graham. He was asked to express his views on the detrimental effects of drugs, and called for the legalisation of heroin: "I have never had heroin but since I moved to London from North Wales in '67 I have mixed with junkies on a casual and almost daily basis," he said. "I also lived with a young woman who tried heroin just to see what it was like. It killed her three years later. I hate the idea even as I say it, but I do believe the only way to treat heroin is to legalise it." He stated that legalisation would eradicate the drug dealer from society
Death
On 28 December 2015, four days after his 70th birthday, Lemmy died at his home in
Los Angeles, California, at 16:00 PST from an "extremely aggressive cancer."
[44] Motörhead announced his death on their official Facebook page later that day. According to the band, his cancer had only been diagnosed two days prior to his death.
[45]
Reviewing his career after his death,
The Guardian said:
Over the years as guitarists and drummers passed through Motörhead’s line up, Lemmy remained the grizzled heart of the machine. His bronchial rasp – directed into a towering microphone tilted down into his weather-beaten face - was one of the most recognisable voices in rock, while his Rickenbacker guitar recast the bass as an overpowered, distorted rhythmic rumble.[46]
In his 2002 autobiography
White Line Fever, Lemmy had written:
"People don’t become better when they’re dead; you just talk about them as if they are, but it’s not true! People are still a--holes, they’re just dead a--holes! ... I didn’t have a really important life, but at least it’s been funny.
