Motorhead

Certain bands can't do without their own showman. It's the leader's charisma that drives them and lifts them off the ground with every new release. But not all showmen are alike: some have the gift of true singularity, while others only have the vocation of a commander. Ian Fraser Kilmister, known to the whole world "simply" as Lemmy, was one of the former. Without him, Motörhead would never have taken over the planet, defining a sound, a way of being and a very precise aesthetic; so much so that the band split up immediately after his passing in 2015. Lemmy was to Motörhead what the holy spirit is to the gospel. And Motörhead were to metal everything that adrenaline is to the human body. Double bass drums, acid-etched bass, supersonic guitar, irreverent lyrics ranging from sex to drugs, from fighting to war to life on the road, of which Lemmy, with a moustache among the most imitated in the history of mankind, is the undisputed symbol.

Speed metal, the purists would say; pure rock and roll, the English band would reply. But the matter runs deeper than that. The history of Motörhead is in fact studded with a series of events intrinsically bound up with Lemmy's character and misadventures. Deeds and misdeeds that begin with the spaced-out Hawkwind, who kicked the charismatic bassist out of the band during a tour of Canada, following his arrest for possession of amphetamines. An emblematic episode of Lemmy's elusive, almost unbelievably turbulent character, one that Motörhead fans have read as providential right from the very start. That's not all. In the farewell to the band that invented space-rock from scratch, there's an aspect as symbolic as it is legendary: Lemmy bid his former bandmates goodbye after writing them one last single, titled, of all things, "Motörhead".

But this is just one of the many strokes of genius from a musical phenomenon that revolutionised a style in its own way. It's thanks to Motörhead's savage violence that bands like Metallica and Megadeth, just to name a couple, would go on to transform a genre that would take off more or less everywhere in the '80s. It's no coincidence, in fact, that the former in particular have acknowledged their debt to Lemmy and co., covering several of their hits in their own style, and even recording a bootleg album with them in Los Angeles in 1994 to celebrate Lemmy's fiftieth birthday, "The Lemmy's a.k.a. Metallica". A title that says it all.

After the dry run of their self-titled 1977 debut, which also features the aforementioned track "Motörhead", the former Hawkwind man Lemmy, along with Taylor and Clarke, are now ready to apply electroshock therapy to rock and roll; that jolt of adrenaline – "Overkill" is precisely the kind of energy that makes whatever it's applied to explode, like a lightbulb blowing out – is spat in the world's face by Lemmy on the opening title track, a legendary one, while the double-kick drums usher in a whole new rhythmic era. It's the single most important song in heavy metal, or thereabouts; the genesis of a sound instantly recognisable among millions of others. A formula that would stand the test of time, and which over the following two decades would define not just a style but also an aesthetic and a mood. A way of life for countless bands holed up in garages before hopping on their Harley Davidsons and tearing the local venue apart. Amid rivers of booze and buckets of drugs, Lemmy's performance here is an epoch-defining act of self-destruction, capable of challenging – and perhaps even knocking out – even the best of Keith Richards. The riff is supersonic, paving the way for the hard-rock riff of the following "Stay Clean", every bit as lethal, another warhorse for reckless riders in the saddle.

Motörhead pound away relentlessly throughout. On "(I Won't) Pay Your Price" the anger is doubled: Lemmy no longer wants to hear about footing the bill for other people. He's already got more than enough of his own mistakes on his plate to afford himself the luxury of taking credit for ones that aren't his.

Move out, it's time for someone else

Quit thinking only of yourself

You’re really a nasty piece of work

You know you thought you were a hero

But you're really just a jerk

On my way You know I won't pay your price

"I'll Be Your Sister" carries within it the genes of a hundred thousand hard rock bands that would emerge over the following forty years. Yet even Motörhead themselves, whether they like it or not, owe a debt to the unmatchable Stooges. The track sounds as if it stepped straight out of "Fun House". "Capricorn", another slab of red meat for hungry fans the world over, instead lays bare a melancholy that curdles into rage and ruin. This time the approach recalls the most escapist side of Black Sabbath, with deranged pauses, cascading solos and razor-sharp riffs.

"No Class", by contrast, is the anthem par excellence; the track fans belt out at the top of their lungs at gigs. Lemmy's mission is to snuff out in the crib any pretension of rising above or boxing oneself into a society where, in his view, what should really matter is simply being yourself. Between one double-kick barrage and the next, a dizzying riff and a bass onslaught, the band presses relentlessly forward, as sudden and decisive as lightning bolts across the desert. The English band knows no pause, no half measures. On "Metropolis", however, they ease off the accelerator for a moment, before closing out the party with yet another assault on the fortress ("Limb From Limb"), led by a Lemmy who never backs down.

Without "Overkill" and Motörhead, heavy metal as a whole would never have undergone its transmigration into thrash. In short, "Kill 'em All" and its first speed-metal cries would be nothing more than a pipe dream. With the Eighties just around the corner, there followed incendiary live shows, daily provocations, and moments of glory made possible by the release, in extremely close succession, of other small-scale masterpieces such as "Bomber" and "Ace Of Spades". Albums that would carry forward the path laid down by "Overkill", the milestone par excellence of one of the most fruitful and brazen styles in the history of music.

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09/05/2021