Epitaph for of a Legend - Lemmy Kilmister, Motörhead
Without him heavy metal would not have existed: Lemmy, the frontman of Motörhead, was a phenomenon and already a living legend. On December 28, 2015, the rock star died. An obituary.
Lemmy was the embodied rock 'n' roll. That's why he was so adored by his fans. However, Lemmy actually disliked metal and considered the Beatles as the best band in the world. He grew up as the son of a military chaplain near Liverpool. He bristled at the life that was predetermined for him and said once: "The world belonged to the others. Then pop came, and it belonged to us."
As a teenager he hitchhiked through the UK to see the Beatles. He soon formed his own band called "Rockin 'Vickers". The band was locally successful. Nevertheless, in the late sixties he moved to London where he worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix. It is rumored that he was the one Jimi got the LSD from. In the early 70s he joined the space-rock band "Hawkwind" as a bassist, from which he however was thrown out in 1975. As a result, he immediately founded Motörhead.
Without Motörhead heavy metal would not be there. They are one of the major bands in rock history. They started all concerts with the same sentence: "We are Motörhead and we play rock 'n' roll!" Lemmy's trademarks were his two large fibroids (warts) in the face. He always positioned his microphone a little bit more up, forcing him to raise his head to sing in. This should be a relic from the early days when the band only had a few spectators and he "so did not need to watch the misery in the audience."
Motörhead was undoubtedly a drinker and drug band. Its groupie waste was shrouded in legend. Lemmy has never been married. He said that the great love of his life was his girlfriend Susan Bennett, who died at age 19 due to a heroine overdose. Since then he refused heroin in his life. In the 60s and 70s Lemmy took LSD and in the late 70s and 80s, amphetamines. And Motörhead sounded exactly like this - like a group of hyperactive amphetamine rockers.
In 1990 Lemmy moved to Los Angeles, where he lived near the Sunset Strip. He had a home base next to a one-armed bandit in the rock pub "Rainbow Bar and Grill". Even on tour he enjoyed spending time at various slot machines. His rough, untrained voice was probably a result of his massive cigarette and alcohol consumption. He likes drinking "Jack and Coke", a mixed drink of Jack Daniel's and cola on ice.
Motörhead recorded a total of 22 albums during its career. Songs like "Overkill", "Ace of Spades" or "Eat the Rich" are monuments of their shut the fuck-up rock. In 2013 Lemmy got a pacemaker. Since then concerts had to be canceled increasingly, because of his health condition. Now he's dead. Due to a brief but aggressive cancer he now just died four days after his 70th birthday. "Killed by Death", as it says in one of his songs. The funeral for the metal legend will be held in the Rainbow-Bar in Los Angeles on 9th January 2016.
