Lemmy and Hawkwind (From the Lemmy Movie)

[Music] oh i just took a ride in a silver machine and i'm still feeling mean do you want to ride see yourself going by the other side of the sky i got a silver machine a lot of people know lemmy for motorhead and why not but any motorhead enthusiast would be well served to go back a a decade and check out all the the hawkman records lemmy's on [Music] that led zeppelin deep purple heartwind was there right with them you know same level yeah a bit dangerous and um experimental you know and i tried to um well i wanted to i wanted to see stuff like that in punk you know i didn't want to hear you know two-minute songs over and over again and i just i wanted to see everyone stretch themselves like hawkwind did you know [Music] i've always been a fan of hawtley from very early on i mean it's quite odd as new order and the driving sound that hortwind had the very pulsy percussive keyboard sounds you know we we would actually listen to that and try and emulate it you know in songs like temptation everything's gone green we actually did try and rip off always that band got lost in the shuffle they never really had hit records in the states there was never a heavy image they were much more british they were bigger in britain than they were in the united states in other words they weren't like the yard birds or they weren't like the who or the animals that had an image a visual image that america latched onto you never saw them on shin dig you never saw them on hullabaloo you never saw them on all those tv shows is where where we used to get our information hawkwind kind of went under the radar somewhere they were like golden earring ufo there were certain bands you knew about but you never knew what they looked like we're a space rock band so i mean a lot of the music we play was around science fiction stories which we'd sort of interpret and put into music so we're pretty heavy rock band with the nice flying electronics it was a very powerful rhythmic band i mean us we were all into real sort of heavy rhythms with sort of electronic music swirling in and out we were like a punk band really we were playing music and we didn't say well we are very clever and this is all really technical we said well we can do it you can do it we used to do lots of benefit gigs for friends uh international times which were the magazine that come out in the 70s used to the price of dope uh with the alternative things what were going on around the city you know like in ashbury you know the similar sort of free newspapers sort of things like that so we were involved all that scene you know so if you imagine similar like jefferson airplane wouldn't it and grateful dead it's very similar parallels in a way you know they would go and play those free festivals like in some weird forest in wales or something and you know and that just loads of people off red on mushrooms and all this kind of thing people thought we were some sort of happy [ __ ] flower people it [ __ ] wasn't true man it was like a black nightmare and we used to lock the door so people couldn't get out used to get this sort of chancy beat going this fancy rhythm and a strobe going you know and it's like it drives you it didn't drive you insane it just put you into a trance room and you you know and we didn't i mean we didn't i mean we quite often had it at seven and a half cycles per second which is the brain wave speed and which is the speed at which people can have epileptic fits we didn't really have a problem with epilepsy um nobody complained and nobody said oh yeah we're causing people to have epilepsy it fits you know we used to have five strokes at the audience eye level pointing at them not the band we used to play in the darkness here and 18 projectors on a gantry on a big screen of others right [ __ ] amazing light show and naked dancers you know and they represented the first sort of counter culture you know with i.t and oz magazine and that was all feminine grow up to be a kid yeah but mostly i remember standing at the front drooling at stacia the girl was you know we got her breasts out which was incredible for a 12 or 13 year old you know i mean it was like our education uh when i was 14 or 13 it was the only time i got to see a pair of tits it was when i went to see stacey on stage you know [Laughter] it was the highlight of the [ __ ] evening everyone was moshing down trying to get to the front to look at stacia's tits and they were magnificent [ __ ] magnificent man unbelievable you know that i mean for a 14 year old boy that was [ __ ] incredible fantastic god bless awkwind and stasia fantastic at the time like in the rock business a woman who sort of uh doesn't wear clothes and paints their body and just dance you know was sort of taken as being something you know oh what whatever you know not nothing important she wasn't stupid woman she was she was an artist we were a bunch of misfits basically all of us we were sort of quite a strange load of characters you know and i mean it was a the band were involved in drug subculture as well because of taking lsd you know we were involved in the early sort of days of flower power i suppose it was sort of maybe the end of the hippie era and we had our our ideals we did things for the people and we were in touch with the people i mean they clash did stuff like that later um other bands did as well that were living in the notting hill scene but i don't know of any bands that did it before us and we had a huge following you know we just because we do any gig and we do a gig in london it would be like a drug dealers convention you know we get all these dealers there all the top dealers all the big guys giving away drugs you know they give me bottles of liquid acid i'd take them to gigs and give them away to the people you know and people come up to me later like recently you know say wow that gig you did in barry memorial hall in 1971 it changed my life i said well was it the band or the drugs it was a band of freaks where aretham used to drop acid and the other rf used to take speed and downers you know so it was quite clashes and strange games you know and dipmick and uh lemmy was always into a lot of speed and grumpy dick that was always grumpy because they've been up for a few days and we get picked up in our van and he'd be all grumpy and let me be all surly and get him slam the door and sit down you know and nowhere to speak to him because they knew like oh [ __ ] off you know sort of thing so nobody speak to him for about a few hours do they you know they sort of got a bit better we did an andy warhol superstar launching in in london and you know the audience will turn in the skeletons i thought jesus you know i think i better stop taking these drugs lies sideways to time yeah it's an electric line straight to your zodiac sign [Music] i got a silver machine i've got a silver machine i got a silver machine i got a silver machine silver machine was a hit uh on the radio and and if you think that's quite a radical record you know it's like really distorted and there's a synth going off so it was a pretty uh weird record to be like a pop hit in in england they all tried to sing it every one of them and they finally tried me because i was a newborn you know and i got it in like two takes or three texas and and i really pissed them all off you know and then they went to number one you know and me singing it which really pissed them off and the final nail i think in my coffin which they never forgive me for was the enemy the musical express put my put a picture of me on my own on the front cover the awkward above it i don't think nikki ever forgive me for that as long as you live i was never jealous i don't know maybe other people were i mean i'm terribly naive i don't see sort of loaded innuendo in everybody's actions or or you know thoughts or or dialogue i found lemmy in certain ways quite hard to work with because we were in a band where everybody was taking different drugs so you had this sort of disparity between people of where they were and you know what sort of wavelength they're on you know i was into sort of psychedelics myself and potent mushrooms and peyote and all that sort of thing pretty calm stuff you know and um i think lemmy was more into amphetamines and other people were as well other people were into downers you know sometimes it was quite hard working with lemmy because he might stay up for five days on on speed and then and then crash for a week or something like that and it was quite hard you know sort of getting a handle on on the wavelength he was on really and stacia would tell a few stories because the thing with libby it was prone to taking a lot of speed you know which consequently he used to hang the band up because he was never on time to leave in the morning when we had to get up and catch a flight somewhere and we'll all be downstairs waiting to go and christ you know where is he you know i'll have to go upstairs and he'd be still in bed you know you'd say come on let me for christ say well right okay get your trousers on you know and you go out the room thinking he's actually got his trails and he's getting dressed and you just turn over and go back to bed again because you know he's knackered and it did cause a lot of stress within the band all of us you know all of us got pissed off for it when you know just one or two we did get pissed off over it managed to give him a talking to lemmy look come on pull your socks up you've got to get you're letting it decide down here you know you've got to get yourself together and all that um so there was all of that going on which used to piss off the band so you know consequently like i say we'd come over to england gone back to the states and then he got busted at the border sort of thing which seemed to seemingly when you're on tour with all the stress factors like the last straw you know what i mean we were in the states touring and we were in niles michigan on the way to detroit i don't know where niles is it's on the other side of michigan for my detroiters so we pulled over a roadhouse to eat and i wasn't hungry you know i'd be in a speed treat so i just got this new camera so i went out traveling around looking for things to for you know you know i was a new camera and um i got conked over the head in this abandoned housing project and [ __ ] came round without my camera without any money i go back to the roadhouse and they'd come and dump me there you know i mean what kind of [ __ ] is that you know one of your band members is missing after you have a meal and you just drive off that's not the way i work you know and uh so now i'm stuck here so i have to hitchhike across michigan which because the whole state and it's getting dark and i got lifts from micro buses full of [ __ ] hippies you know we were passing joints around so we were even worse i mean i'm tripping you know and um homosexual truck drivers that was a that was a fun time um just all kinds of misfits you know and i get to the hotel in detroit luckily i remember the hotel and uh there's a convention of disabled people there so i walk in the door coming down off acid and there's all these you know doing wheelies in the lobby and that you know uh i go up to my room crash out for about two hours down the sound check do the show crossing into canada the next day i get busted for speed and uh in jail for two days in canada handcuffed to a [ __ ] iron bar and uh they then i get the news as i'm going into essex county jail in the overalls of my arm going to the delivering section this voice piano says your bail will kill us so i oh thank you you know flown to toronto immediately do the show four o'clock in the morning fired apparently they only got me out of jail because my replacement couldn't make it in time probably left me in there is that a psycho that's like a viking [ __ ] question and then i have to get home from america but from canada with two guitars in the suitcase all by myself you know we had a meeting and we talked about it and people were saying well you know lemmy is really hard to work with people were sort of bearing all their grievances about him about how he sort of he was so erratic in terms of you know his behavior he's got a nice guy nobody didn't don't nobody didn't get on with him you know nobody fell out with them or anything you know it was just really hard working with somebody that was up and down like that and we weren't on the same wavelength all the time so it was then decided that we would relieve him of his duties well people said oh well we should sack him then and i'd say well you know go on then and they said i don't want to do it and i said well you do it then and they said no i don't want to do it and i said well you do it and i said no i don't want to do it and then they said i said well you do it to everybody in the band and i said well you know if it's a decision we've made somebody's got to tell him i'll tell him so i went and said to let me look you know everybody's just made this decision everybody finds it really hard to work with you and we've decided that we should relieve you of your position to put it plainly outside the hotel there's these lights green i always remember this it was a green and red flashing light so in limy's room there was this green and red flashing lights going on with the game they'd say look i've got something to tell you um yeah it was it was quite a sad thing actually very sad i mean he was very upset over it and uh well we all were really you know you think the end of the day it's uh i mean i probably thought when we get back to england and all go back to normal again you know and then we'd continue as we as we always had done you know but it didn't and that was it really i i went i came back to devon because i lived in the country where the rest of them lived in london and um they all had their meetings up there and that was the end of it all really well lemmy was actually very shocked because i suppose he just thought his lifestyle was quite normal and everybody was getting on with him and nobody had any real grievance about about him nobody really did it was just the accumulation of things that we thought at that time i'm saying we thought at that time was it three to two or four to two i can't remember now such a long time ago by this time we told we sort of had enough really because we thought well we can't cope with this sort of thing you know we're just a band and we just haven't got a lot of money and we just want to do gigs and um and there was this old feeling at the time that well this is a bit too much you know and um and so we decided to get another guy to come over from london to come and play bass when i arrived at the gig and i said you know where the [ __ ] slammy and they said uh this other guy uh paul rudolph was taking his place that sack lemmy and i i mean i was devastated but i'm the type of person who uh i keep a lot inside so um i think i just carried on but i was devastated did you feel it coming were you completely excited no it was coming for a long time because it what it was was 70s drugs snobbery you know like they were all just doing organic drugs man you know and i was doing speed i don't organic drugs i didn't like that you know and daymate was a speed tree too that's why you got me into the band because you you wanted somebody to take speech and stay up with so um that was what it was basically you know and also i i kept i [ __ ] up quite a bit i mean i missed a couple of planes um on the tour before that and they sort of got on my ass about that but i never did it again so i mean they just weren't very hip you know they're supposed to be the most cosmic band in the universe and everything you know out-of-sight vibes and all that you know and it turns out they were just as [ __ ] mercenary and being all as everybody else was you know very good yeah it's a shame that about the age of [ __ ] aquarius apparently you turned that into the age of like jaws quite quick you know henry was the front man i mean hawkwood without him wasn't a hawkwind i mean he hated uh us for it all really at the time well you would do wouldn't you you know you think he never dreamed that anything like that was going to happen i suppose because i mean we were doing really well we had a you know we sold quite a lot of records uh around the world and all that um we were playing in nice venues you know we were sort of living it up a lot we were living the high life like you know and uh for that suddenly terrible you know and then in the book i read that lemmy described me as um sanctimonious self-righteous our song at some point and i thought oh well that's all right that's what he thinks of me have you seen everybody over the years i mean have you um yeah um except for simon king i never saw him again and he left the band quite soon after anyway or he got fired i don't know what i'm but i mean nick was instrumental in firing me with simon and then a year later nick got fired in primary justice i mean the band had meetings in in hotels because i mean we were traveling around a lot uh and they sort of you get clicks within a band i mean it was in our band it was six people you know we had two drummers so you know some people go to bed earlier there's a stay up smoking dope you know all these things used to go on and so consequently they'll be talking about what sciento did and what side they think things got to be changed here and there and after lemmy went which was in canada wouldn't it um it was probably maybe about six months afterwards you know that then it was my turn really you know i went home and screwed three other old ladies you know well you know vengeance is sweet saith the lord you know and uh i must admit i was banging one of them already before we left uh well i saw it first but it was a great time i wouldn't have traded it for any other band ever you know in fact i would have probably been in that right now if they hadn't found me yeah [Music] silver machine as sung by lemmy the great lemmy

Channel: Music and stuff

Views: 144,921

Keywords: Hawkwind, lemmy, Lemmy, Amp, Murder, one, signature, unique, sound, Motorhead, fil, documentary, extra, full

Id: kM1p85JqW58

Length: 20min 27sec (1227 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022