Ian Fraser Kilmister, better known as Lemmy, was an English musician and singer-songwriter who founded and fronted the rock band Motörhead. His music was one of the foundations of the heavy metal genre.
Background
Lemmy was born on Christmas Eve in the Burslem area of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. When he was three months old, his father, an ex-Royal Air Force chaplain and concert pianist, separated from his mother. His mother and grandmother moved to nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme, then to Madeley. When Lemmy was ten years old, his mother married former footballer George Willis, who already had two older children from a previous marriage, Patricia and Tony, with whom Lemmy did not get along.
Education
Kilmister attended Sir Thomas Jones' School in Amlwch, where he was nicknamed "Lemmy". It was later suggested by some that the name originated from the phrase "lemmy [lend me] a quid 'til Friday" because of his alleged habit of borrowing money from people to play slot machines, although Lemmy himself said that he did not know the origin of the name. He soon started to show an interest in rock and roll music, girls, and horses.
Career
In Stockport, Lemmy joined local bands the Rainmakers and then the Motown Sect who played northern clubs for three years. In 1965, he joined the Rockin' Vicars who signed a deal with CBS, released three singles and toured Europe, reportedly being the first British band to visit the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Rockin' Vicars moved to Manchester, where they shared a flat together. There, Lemmy got involved with a woman named Tracy who bore a son, Paul Inder. Lemmy did not have any involvement in his life until the boy was six.
Leaving the Rockin' Vicars, Lemmy moved to London in 1967. He shared a flat with Noel Redding, bassist of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and with Neville Chesters, their manager. He got a job as a roadie for the band. In 1968, he joined the psychedelic rock band Sam Gopal under the name Ian Willis and recorded the album Escalator which was released in 1969. After meeting Simon King at a shopping centre in Chelsea in 1969, he joined the band Opal Butterfly; but the group soon disbanded, having failed to raise enough interest with their singles.
In August 1971, Lemmy joined the space rock band Hawkwind, who were based in Ladbroke Grove, London, as a bassist and vocalist. He had no previous experience as a bass guitarist, and was cajoled into joining immediately before a benefit gig in Notting Hill by bandmate Michael "Dik Mik" Davies, to have two members who enjoyed amphetamines. He quickly developed a distinctive style that was strongly shaped by his early experience as a rhythm guitarist, often using double stops and chords rather than the single note lines preferred by most bassists. His bass work was a fundamental part of the Hawkwind sound during his tenure, perhaps best documented on Space Ritual. He also provided the lead vocals on several songs, including the band's biggest UK chart single, "Silver Machine", which reached #3 in 1972.
In 1975, Lemmy was arrested at the Canada/United States border in Windsor, Ontario, on drug possession charges; he spent five days in jail but was released without charge. Nonetheless, he was fired from Hawkwind.
After Hawkwind, Lemmy formed a new band called "Bastard" with guitarist Larry Wallis (former member of the Pink Fairies, Steve Took's Shagrat and UFO) and drummer Lucas Fox. Lemmy and Took were friends, and Took was the stepfather to Lemmy's son Paul. When his manager informed him that a band by the name of "Bastard" would never get a slot on Top of the Pops, Lemmy changed the band's name to "Motörhead" – the title of the last song he had written for Hawkwind.
Soon after, both Wallis and Fox were replaced with guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor and with this line-up, the band began to achieve success. Lemmy's guttural vocals were unique in rock at that time, and were copied during the time when punk rock became popular. The band's sound appealed to Lemmy's original fans and, eventually, to fans of punk. Lemmy asserted that he generally felt more kinship with punks than with metalheads; he even played with the Damned for a handful of gigs when they had no regular bassist. The band's success peaked in 1980 and 1981 with several UK chart hits, including the single "Ace of Spades", which remained a crowd favourite throughout the band's career, and the UK #1 live album No Sleep 'til Hammersmith. Motörhead became one of the most influential bands in the heavy metal genre. Their – and Lemmy's – final live performance was in Berlin, Germany on 11 December 2015.
Lemmy worked with several musicians, apart from his Motörhead bandmates, over the course of his career. He wrote the song "R.A.M.O.N.E.S" for the Ramones, which he played in his live sets as a tribute to the band. He was brought in as a songwriter for Ozzy Osbourne's 1991 No More Tears album, providing lyrics for the tracks "Hellraiser," (which Motörhead later recorded themselves and released as a single), "Desire," "I Don't Want to Change the World" and the single "Mama I'm Coming Home". Lemmy noted in several magazine and television interviews that he made more money from the royalties of that one song than he had in his entire time with Motörhead. After being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2000, for which he was hospitalised briefly, Lemmy again appeared with Motörhead at WrestleMania X-Seven. Lemmy published his autobiography, White Line Fever, in November 2002. In 2005 Motörhead won their first Grammy in the Best Metal Performance category with their cover of Metallica's "Whiplash". In the same year he began recording an unreleased solo album titled Lemmy & Friends, which was intended to include a collaboration with Janet Jackson.
Lemmy lived in Los Angeles, from 1990 until his death, most recently in a two-room apartment two blocks away from his favourite hangout, the Rainbow Bar and Grill. In December 2000, his tour was cancelled when he was hospitalised in Italy with flu, exhaustion and a lung infection. He was hospitalised with extreme dehydration and exhaustion in Germany in July 2005. As he grew older, he used less alcohol and drugs as he suffered from diabetes and hypertension. In June 2013, it was reported that he had an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator fitted. His tour was cancelled in July 2013 due to a severe haematoma. He referred to his continuing drug use as "dogged insolence in the face of mounting opposition to the contrary". Towards the end of his life he had to use a walking stick. He had started smoking at the age of 11. In August 2015, he said he had cut down his smoking habit from two packs a day to one pack a week. He was hospitalised with a lung infection in September 2015, after having breathing problems when performing onstage.
On 28 December 2015, four days after his 70th birthday, Lemmy died at his apartment in Los Angeles at 4pm PST, from prostate cancer, cardiac arrhythmia and congestive heart failure. Motörhead announced his death on their official Facebook page later that day. According to the band, his cancer had only been diagnosed two days prior to his death.
Religion
Lemmy doesn’t like religion much. In 2011, he identified as agnostic, saying, "I can find out when I die. I can wait. I'm not in a hurry."
Politics
Lemmy hasn’t wanted to vote for years. The last politician he would have voted for was Harold Wilson, “But I’d have been wrong.” He despises Bush - “A fucking peanut farmer” - and of British politics says unexpectedly, “I believe in the royal family. They may be blockheads, some of them, but at least they’re trained blockheads. From the day they’re born they’re trained.”
Views
Lemmy said he was against religion, government, and established authority.
Quotations:
“Growing up in America is like being taught to be stupid.”
“Death is an inevitability, isn't it? You become more aware of that when you get to my age. I don't worry about it. I'm ready for it. When I go, I want to go doing what I do best. If I died tomorrow, I couldn't complain. It's been good.”
“I don't see why there should be a point where everyone decides you're too old. I'm not too old, and until I decide I'm too old I'll never be too fucking old.”
“That was a great time, the summer of '71 - I can't remember it, but I'll never forget it!”
“People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?"
“In my life so far, I have discovered that there are really only two kinds of people: those who are for you, and those who are against you. Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other.”
“I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.”
Personality
In the Channel 4 documentary Motörhead: Live Fast, Die Old, broadcast on 22 August 2005, it was claimed that Lemmy had "bedded" in excess of 2,000 women. Lemmy stated: "I said more than a thousand, the magazine made two thousand of it." Maxim had Lemmy at #8 on its top ten "Living Sex Legends" list, as they claimed that he had slept with around 1,200 women.
Lemmy was well known for his alcohol abuse. The documentary Live Fast Die Old stated that he drank a bottle of Jack Daniel's every day and had done so since he was 30 years old. In 2013, Lemmy stopped drinking Jack Daniel's for health reasons. During his time with Hawkwind he developed an appetite for amphetamines and LSD, particularly the former.
Lemmy positioned his microphone in an uncommonly high position, angled so that he appeared to be looking up at the sky rather than at the audience. He said that it was for "personal comfort, that's all. It's also one way of avoiding seeing the audience. In the days when we only had ten people and a dog, it was a way of avoiding seeing that we only had ten people and a dog."
He was also known for his unmistakable bass playing style, in which he used his Rickenbacker bass to create an "overpowered, distorted rhythmic rumble". Another unique aspect of Lemmy's bass sound is that he often played power chords using growling overdriven Marshall tube bass stacks.
Quotes from others about the person
The Daily Telegraph: "Over the years as guitarists and drummers passed through Motörhead’s lineup, Lemmy remained the grizzled heart of the machine. His bronchial rasp - directed into a towering microphone tilted down into his weather-beaten face, was one of the most recognisable voices in rock, while his Rickenbacker guitar recast the bass as an overpowered, distorted rhythmic rumble."
Connections
At the age of 17, Lemmy met a holidaying girl named Cathy. He followed her to Stockport, Greater Manchester, where she gave birth to his son Sean, who was put up for adoption. In the 2010 documentary film Lemmy, he mentioned having a son whose mother has only recently "found him" and "hadn't got the heart to tell him who his father was", indicating that the boy – perhaps Sean – was given up for adoption.