Underkill

Back in the day (like 30 years ago!) I was a big Heavy Metal fan. This was during “the golden age”, around the time that the NWOBHM was starting to garner some attention. Iron Maiden were riding high, and we also had Saxon, Judas Priest, UFO, and the first Def Leppard album. But the band that really captured my obsession were Motorhead. They had it all – they were the loudest, the fastest, the ugliest… Although I never had the chance to see them live, I had every album, and spent many an hour listening to Overkill and No Sleep Til Hammersmith on my tinny cassette recorder. My obsession didn’t really last long (3 or 4 years) and when I left school I moved to more acid rock (Hawkwind, Gong, The Pink Fairies), then indie rock (still stuck there!) and never looked back.

Then a month or so back I found Lemmy’s autobiography in Barnes and Noble. I’ve got a bit of a penchant for music biographies/autobiographies so I thought I’d give it the benefit. The quote (from the Sunday Times) on the front stated that “Few could claim with any conviction to have taken more drugs, drunk more bourbon, or entertained more women than Motorhead’s lead singer.”, which has to be guarantee of a good read by anyone’s mark. Unfortunately, as they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover….

It’s not that Lemmy is a bad writer. Well, he’s not a good writer, by any means – but then again what can you expect from a man who decries his own lyrics as “complete gibberish” in his autobiography. He is a bad writer, but that’s not the reason why the book is a disappointment. It’s the content, not the language.

Lemmy was a major speed freak – the reason he was kicked out of Hawkwind (a band not exactly known for restraint when it comes to recreational drug use) was because he was busted for speed (amphetamine sulphate) crossing the border from the U.S. to Canada whilst on tour with said band. He used to live pretty much on a diet of drugs and Jack Daniels (as just about any photo of him taken during the ’70s and ’80s will attest) and strangely, given his less than chiselled good looks, he was apparently not short of a partner for the horizontal bop at the end of a gig. All of which is given scant coverage in the book. It’s not exactly a revisionist history – Lemmy does mention these things in passing, but neither is the book what you’d call a ‘warts and all’ (no offence, Lemmy) biography. There’s just little juice to it. And having gone straight-edge many years ago, I would at least like the opportunity to live vicariously through my idols.

So what does the book cover? Well, it does provide a history of sorts, from his early beginnings as a wannabe guitarist in Wales, through his days roadieing for Hendrix, and then through Hawkwind to Motorhead. I knew most of the early history as it has been covered in other biogs I’ve read (as I said, I was a major Motor-head…), and the book did at least bring me up-to-date with what Lemmy has been doing since I stopped following Motorhead’s every move – which turns out to be pretty much the same as what he was doing 30 years ago – album, tour, album, tour.

The book also sees Lemmy pontificating on various things – his rumored obsession with Nazi regalia, the 9-11 attacks in the United States, his rumored sexism (“What’s wrong with being sexy” — Nigel Tuffnel), and other assorted subjects. All relatively harmless, but all also rather unnecessary. Lemmy doesn’t really further his case to be classed as one of the great intellectuals, but neither does he come across as an unsympathetic or ignorant person. As such, these soapbox moments amount to little more than filler, when we’d rather have the meat.

Overall, Lemmy (not his real name) comes across as quite a nice bloke – very amiable, and not one to hold a grudge (although not one to forget, either…). Probably great to have a beer with, although on the basis of this book, he’ll probably order a light beer, drink it very slowly, and then politely excuse himself before the second round…