It’s 1975.
Punk music is taking over in England and rock music made famous by Sabbath, Purple and Steppenwolf was fading. And Motorhead was there to bridge the gap.
In 1979, “Overkill” and “Bomber” come out, charted well and suddenly the band was making some coin, which they put into the stage production. And bands like Motorhead started to appear all over England, as the disenfranchised youth from the projects and housing developments took up arms in denim and leather and started supporting this bludgeoning new sound.
Lemmy is the definition of a person loaded with GRIT. After so many false starts, Motorhead finally started rolling with “Overkill”. Labelled as Heavy Metal, Lemmy rejected that label from the outset and said they are just a rock and roll band. Lars Ulrich even credits “Overkill” as his first introduction to double bass drumming and when Metallica ruled the business pre-Napster, people listened to Mr Ulrich.
Only way to feel the noise is when its good and loud
Fast Eddie Clark is no slouch on the guitar, bring his speed blues rock into the mix, which allows him to wail, while the Lemster and Philthy lay down the foundations. And its loud and its fast and there is no commercial expectation.
On your feet you feel the beat, it goes straight to your spine
Shake your head you must be dead if it don’t make you fly
Line credits to vodka, amphetamines, bikers and roadies and groupies. Shake you head and keep flying.
Know your body’s made to move, feel it in your guts
Rock ‘N’ Roll ain’t worth the name, If it don’t make you strut
All of the 70’s acts started off playing rock and roll/blues covers and somehow they ended up as metallers. But don’t tell Lemmy that. He will still kick your arse even from the afterlife.
And how good is that outro for the last 30 seconds.
I am ashamed to say, I still haven’t bought a Motorhead album for the vinyl collection. I need to get on that and remedy that situation.
It took me well into the 2000s. My ears were conditioned to the Tom Werman and Keith Olsen, Tom Allom and Bruce Fairbairn produced albums
I bought No Sleep Til Hammersmith back in early 82!
Safe to say up to that point I had never heard anything like it haha
The vocals from Lemmy… it’s the embryo of Black Metal.
But that’s also why I dig Motörhead. It was all about creating because they never wrote songs for the charts.
That is very true Pete.