MOTÖRHEAD's LEMMY: Going 'Round World, Screwing Chicks Of All Colors & Religious Persuasions

Scott Kara of The New Zealand Herald recently conducted an interview with MOTÖRHEAD frontman Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the band's 30th Anniversary World Tour:

"It's a great job. I like it. You find me a better job than going 'round the world, screwing chicks of all colours and religious persuasions and making people happy."

On being taught by his mother that "good manners are free":

"That's a great rule. I always knew that you shouldn't treat people like you wouldn't want to be treated yourself. That's the oldest and best rule in the book. And it always made complete sense to me. If you're an arsehole to somebody you're going to meet them on the way down. But that's not really even the reason for it, I just like being polite. What's wrong with that?"

On playing raging, fast, and loud music from the get-go 30 years ago:

"It was fast for back then, and loud, yeah. But the records are faster now. And we didn't mean to be the loudest band in the world, it was just that I liked it loud.

"It just wound up that way. We were much closer to punk than we were to heavy metal. I thought heavy metal was boring old shit. We were a rock'n'roll band."

On the highlight of MOTÖRHEAD's long history in 1981 when the band's live album, "No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith", went to No 1 in the British charts:

"That wasn't in the specialised chart, the heavy metal chart, that was the national chart.

"Everybody was waiting for it. Everybody was waiting for a live album from us since we started. So their appetite was up and it didn't stay there for long, it was only there three weeks but the fact it went straight in at No 1 was a bit of a shock for the general music community — a bunch of snobs and dickheads, you know. And bingo, there we are, 'Hello there'."

On whether Lemmy is MOTÖRHEAD or if it's something bigger:

"I invented MOTÖRHEAD. I invented it. And it's my cowboy outfit and I'm playing in it. But it's a vote, it's a democracy ... it's a verbal dictatorship. I run it like a rock'n'roll band because that's all it is."

Read the entire interview at NZHerald.co.nz.