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SXSW interview: Lemmy
5 p.m.
Phil Freeman, journalist Lemmy Kilmister, bassist/songwriter, Motorhead, living legend
The gist: An interview with Lemmy. Nuff said.
A quick spin through Lemmy’s history, from his time seeing the Beatles (“The Stones were just dressing up, Beatles were from a hard city”) to his time with Hawkwind (“You couldn’t see us for the lightshow….we had this naked women, 6’2” in her socks, 52 inche breasts, dancing. Lad would paint her before the show”) to forming Motorhead at the age of 30.
On punk: “My first take was ‘That guy can’t sing.’ Then I realized he wasn’t trying to sing, he was trying to be obnoxious. I was OK with that.”
On firing producer Ed Stasium: “He didn’t even ask if (he could put other instruments)> So he was outta there.”
On working with Bill Laswell: “He (expletive) the record anyway. Bad mix. So much for jazzmen….
On rocking vs. producing: “The only thing I ever got offered was free lunch. I’m not in that mold, you wouldn’t look at me and think, ‘there’s a budding producer.’ What advice could a 64-year old give a 20 year old? Make your own mistakes, (expletive).”
On writing: “We never write before we start rehearsing for the next album. I write on the clock. When Mickey joined he was horrified: ‘You can’t write like this?’ ‘Yes, I can. I’ve got a pen.’”
On songs that don’t sound like Motorhead: “A selection of madrigals by Motorhead? I come from Little Richard and Buddy Holly.”
On collecting conventions: “Every industry has these things where they get together and pat each other on the back.” (See also SXSW?)
On 360 deals: “Oh yeah, that’s a good deal, innit? It’s another con.”
On the movie: “I said ‘Just do something we can watch.’”
On having diabetes: “I just take the pills and keep drinking. You’ll pretty much die of something you like anyway.”
On the next record: “I have no idea. We haven’t started rehearsing yet….a month rehearsing, a month in the studio. We’ve got European festivals in the summer, England, Germany,”
And we’re done. About 30 minutes.
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Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: SXSW 2010
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By My3Cents
March 17, 2010 6:57 PM | Link to this
Lemmy is awesome. Too bad you only had 30 minutes with the dude. I heard he was once one of the roadies with Jimi Hendrix. Bet he has a bunch of stories to tell about that.