Trivia / Motörhead

• Creator Backlash:
  • Despite being the archetype of heavy metal, Lemmy preferred 'Rock and Roll' to describe his band's genre. This was a backlash because he displayed some disdain for this before. He was quoted as saying 'heavy metal was too slow and boring' at the time, and they wanted to play fast rock and roll as an antidote to it.
  • Lemmy admitted that he had gotten sick of playing "Ace of Spades" at every concert, but he continued to do so because he knew that the fans wanted to hear it. He eventually reneged on this position, saying “Ace of Spades” has been really good to us, and it’s one of the best songs that I ever wrote. So I suppose you have to put up with it, because everybody wants to hear it, every night."
  • Lemmy had publicly spoken out against the recent "Complete Early Years" box set due to its outrageous price tag ($600 at time of release).
  • Lemmy wasn't that fond of the three songs made for WWE wrestler Triple H — "The Game", "Line in the Sand (the Evolution theme)", and "King of Kings" — refusing to play any of the three in concerts (at least outside of WWE live events; they did perform "The Game" for HHH's entrance at WrestleMania 21.) Lemmy would confirm in an interview (which was released in 2019) to have at least liked "King of Kings" among the three songs they made.
  • Lemmy expressed regret over appearing in the film The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years because he felt that the movie made heavy metal fans and musicians look like idiots and claimed that Penelope Spheeris filmed him from a distance to make him look like such, as stated in his autobiography.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The band made some poor business decisions earlier in their career with the result that many labels have released their own compilations featuring Motörhead tracks without being endorsed by the band.
  • Motörhead's first label, United Artists, had no expectations for the band, so they shelved the real first album (On Parole) and only released it after the band started to make a name for themselves at Bronze Records.
  • After their stint at Bronze and GWR, Motörhead relocated to the USA and signed to WTG (an off-shoot of Epic Records). After releasing 1916, WTG gradually started to run themselves down intentionally and basically stopped promoting Motörhead and the band had to promote the next album (March or Die) themselves.
  • After WTG shut itself down, the band went to the German ZYX Records because they gave the best offer. Unfortunately, ZYX didn't want to put much effort to promote the band (because they claimed it would cost too much), and the album Bastards went unnoticed by the consumers.
• Fan Community Nickname: Motörheadbangers.
• No Export for You: Thanks to ZYX Records's incompetence, Bastards was rather hard to find... until 2001, when Steamhammer reissued it.
• The Pete Best: Contrary to popular belief, "Fast" Eddie Clarke and "Philthy Animal" Taylor were not the band's original guitarist and drummer. That would be Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox, respectively. They left before the band's first album was finished, but they can still be heard on some tracks in On Parole.
• Special Guest:
  • Michael Palin makes an appearance on the Rock 'n' Roll album.
  • Ozzy Osbourne, on "I Ain't No Nice Guy". It helps that Lemmy wrote the song "Hellraiser" for Ozzy, which was later done by Motörhead themselves on March Or Die.
  • Slash also appears on "Hellraiser" and does some solo work on "You Better Run".
  • Steve Vai did lead guitar on "Terminal Show" and the solo on "Down on Me" from Inferno.
  • Queen guitarist Brian May did a solo on "The Devil" from Bad Magic.
• Troubled Production:
  • Another Perfect Day was a "fucking nightmare" according to Lemmy. He claims that guitarist at the time Brian Robertson would take more than 17 hours recording his guitar parts for each song and would enter conflicts with Lemmy and drummer Phil Taylor. During the following tour, Brian was fired due to his behaviour and constant style of clothing when he would perform.
  • The early stages of 1916 wasn't easy. As they had initially hired Ed Stasium who without their knowledge, had added claves and tambourines into the mix of the song "Going to Brazil" and was fired as a result. Stasium claims that he left cause of Lemmy's extreme drug and alcohol addiction at the time.
  • During the March ör Die sessions, Lemmy fired Phil Taylor for his skills declining (although Phil would tell a different side of the tale), so Tommy Aldridge did the drums for nine of the 11 tracks, and Mikkey Dee did one track, "Hellraiser". Taylor was still on "I Ain't No Nice Guy", however.
  • During the progress of Sacrifice, guitarist Wurzel had suddenly out of nowhere entered conflicts with the rest of the band. It would take him six hours to even perform a guitar solo and one time he slammed the guitar and walked out of the studio, quitting on the spot.
  • A somewhat minor example is Snake Bite Love. Lemmy was sick during rehearsals, and Mikkey Dee and Phil Campbell came up with some "weird arrangements". Mikkey Dee has also said that the band were "stressed out of their minds" when they made Snake Bite Love.

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