White Line Fever

By AM Friday, April 12, 2024

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Christopher Owens 🔖“Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud. So good I can't believe it, screaming with the crowd.”

So sang Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister in 1979. The track in question (‘Overkill’) would not only be the most astonishing collision of metal and punk up to that point, but it would be the beginning of Motorhead’s ascent into legend.

Since his death from cancer in December 2015 (two days after turning 70), the myth and legend of Lemmy has grown substantially. Regarded as a true rock n roller who drunk Jack Daniels every day while reading vicariously and playing loud music for a career, he lived life on his terms and never apologised for who he was.

So you would expect this autobiography, published in 2002, to be packed with rip roaring tales of debauchery, humour and music. And while these elements are all present and correct, it’s important to read it with the mindset that Lemmy’s bending your ear in the pub after having his tenth can of Carlsberg Special Brew.

Of course, it’s impossible to expect pinpoint accuracy and honesty when it comes to autobiographies of this nature (I seriously doubt that Lem’s mother saw newborn babies with rudimentary feathers and scales while working in a TB ward) so if you treat it as a pub yarn, then the stories about the 60’s, Hawkwind and Motorhead are utterly entertaining. Running throughout is his sense of humour, very much informed by The Goon Show and Monty Python. Take this example of how the band and crew dealt with a Norwegian promoter who kept giving them the wrong distances between gigs, meaning they were late on stage every night on that particular tour:

Finally in Trondheim we got totally fed up with him and covered him with squirty cheese. It was the fifth time we’d had to take a speedboat and we were two hours late for the show and we were really pissed off. Kids always think it’s the band’s fault when the gig starts late. So there we were on stage at last, and this cunt of a promoter was leaning against the PA like he was some Big Deal because it was in his hometown. And our roadies came up behind him and grabbed him, handcuffed him, dragged him out on stage and pulled his trousers down. Then they squirted him with the squeezy cheese and mayonnaise and anything else they could get their hands on. Our tour manager at the time, Graham Mitchell, walked up to the mic and said to the audience, ‘See this asshole? That’s why we’re late tonight!’ And, per-doom!, we pushed him off the stage. The guy wound up going to the police station – like that! Covered in slop, and in a taxi! After the gig, in the dressing room, we got the inevitable loud thump-thumpthump on the door, and it was this giant fucking cop – the Norwegians are real tall – who looked like the super-Gestapo.

‘I sink you haff done somezing very awful to this person,’ he informed us.

‘Yeah? Well, he told us all the wrong fucking directions,’ and all: we told him the story.

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he said. ‘But zis is no reason to cover a man viz cheese!’”

Cultural differences, don’t you love them?

However, the reason I was a tad disappointed is that it felt like Lemmy was living up to his image a little too much at times. And yet the moments where he discusses his views on racism, Nazi memorabilia and history show that he was a proper self-educated working-class lad. A bit more insight along those lines would have been cool.

Then again, if it’s how he wanted to be portrayed, then he did so on his own terms.

Lemmy Kilmister,‎ Janiss Garza, 2002, White Line Fever: An Autobiography. Simon & Schuster ISBN-13: 978-1471157653

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.