MOTÖRHEAD's LEMMY Talks GRAMMYS, Nazis And EVANESCENCE

Mike Ross of the Edmonton Sun recently conducted a brief question-and-answer session with MOTÖRHEAD frontman Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister. A couple of excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: Did you ever think you'd be doing this for 30 years?

Lemmy: No.

Q: It must give you pause?

Lemmy: I don't think, "Wow, it's been 30 years." I think, "Wow, it's still good." We're getting more younger kids at the shows. This makes the third generation now.

Q: Do you think your connection with pro-wrestling (MOTÖRHEAD plays the theme song for Triple-H) increased your popularity?

Lemmy: It may introduce us to people who haven't heard us, but we had younger kids coming in before the wrestling. We played Wrestlemania in L.A. (recently).

Q: That must've been fun?

Lemmy: Yeah, he lost again. He lost the first time, too. I said, motherf---er, you better win next time!

Q: Do you have some new material in the works?

Lemmy: We're recording the beginning of next year. I ain't even thinking of it yet. We work under the knife, under the clock. That's our best way of doing it.

Q: How does it feel to have won your first Grammy award (Best Metal Performance)?

Lemmy: It would've meant a lot more to me if it would've been for something of ours instead of a cover.

Q: Were you at the ceremony?

Lemmy: Yeah, but they don't televise the heavy metal part because it's like terrible and base and satanic and all that bulls----. So they only have the rappers who say you should shoot people on TV. It's really strange.

Q: I guess the real rebellious music is heavy metal again?

Lemmy: It never went away, but I think it cut its own throat. It got too pompous. It got too fond of itself. It got in league with its publicists, which is never a good idea. Look at Hitler. He believed in his own publicist and look what happened to him.

Q: Speaking of which, were you nervous telling CNN about your fascination with Second World War memorabilia?

Lemmy: Why should I be nervous? It's the most important event of the 20th Century. If you're not interested in it, you're sort of an idiot. It contained every lesson you'll ever need to work with today. And yet people will not learn from past events. They keep on making the same mistakes every f---ing time. It's incredible. We have an unlimited capacity for stupidity.

Q: You really expressed admiration for Hermann Goering?

Lemmy: Because out of all them, he took responsibility at the Nuremberg trials. He said, "Yes, it was me." Everybody else said, "No, it was Hitler, and he's dead, you can't blame me, it was just orders." That's the only thing I admire about Goering. He wasn't a very admirable man, but he did do that right. And he had to be a f---ing Nazi to do it, get it?

Q: What new bands are you into?

Lemmy: I listened to that EVANESCENCE album a lot. They're really good. You know who that is? Great album. And there's this band from New York who toured with us for five shows, two guys and two girls, and they're called SLUNT. Isn't that the best name you ever heard?

Read the rest of the interview at this location.