A pretty cool Motorhead story.

My introduction to Motorhead came when I was 11 years old. An older guy in my neighborhood, Tim, was kinda this guy I looked up to when I was young, and he had the biggest record collection I'd ever seen. He used to let us kids hang out in his room with his stereo and play his records all day.

One day, he handed me an album and said, "here, you can KEEP this one". "Wow," I said, "how come I can just have it?" I asked him totally confused.
"I don't want that shit to ruin my speakers!" he said in a tone that made me fell like he had just handed me a hand-full of dog shit.

That album was Motorhead's "No Sleep 'till Hammersmith", and it had me hooked like a bug to neon within the first half of side one.

I'd never heard anything like it. We were listening to Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin, nothing like what I heard on this L.P. It was raw, abrasive, and fucking LOUD. And after the first time you hear Lemmy sing, you never forget his name.

Needless to say, I've always had a very special spot in my heart for Motorhead. Never duplicated. Ever. And I've held that band in the highest regard, with the utmost respect, I've ever given to anyone or anything, for my entire life since.

Flash forward fifteen years later, 1997. I was surfing the internet looking up random Motorhead shit  and came across a letter, written by Lemmy, to some kid who was writing for some Metal rag either he or his buddy was starting, about an interview.

The kid must have thought this was absolutely the coolest thing ever, that Lemmy had wrote him a hand-written letter, that he posted a picture of it. At the bottom, Good 'ole Lem had also included his phone number.

Ha, you kidding? I mean, I had too. Right? If anything, just to see if it was real...
It was.

I was a bit sketchy about it because it was an American number. I hadn't known then that he'd been living in Hollywood for some time, because, as he said, "it's cheaper".

I called around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. "Hey ya..", the voice on the other end said. "Hello?" I said.
"Yeah... what?" they replied.
"Is this Lemmy?" I asked,
"Well who are you calling?" they said.
I said "I'm calling Lemmy",
"well that's who you got then, nice one." he said and an this point, there was no denying it, I was on the phone with Lemmy Killmister.

I explained to him that I was nothing more than a fan of his band and how I came across his number. He seemed fine with that and asked me what I wanted to talk about. So I told him I'd like to talk about Motorhead.

 "Oh, well I'm always willing to talk about that" he said to my relief, then went on to say, "I'll make you a deal, we'll chat 'bout the band a bit, and you can just politely lose the number. Deal?" I said "of course. Done."

Only it wasn't finished there. It seemed the more we talked, the more he didn't mind me having his number. Eventually "just don't give it out" turned into "give us a call next week then!" Fuck. I was astounded how cool he was. And how much of a pain in the ass I wasn't.

In 1998 I had seen that Motorhead was coming to town. A friend of mine who worked at a "Gentlemen's Club", had mentioned that he sees Lemmy in his club every time they're in town. So I gave Lemmy a call and left a message on his voicemail saying when they get to town, if they want, he could call me and we'd go to the club together and my buddy will hook us up.
(Not in any way you may be thinking. Trust me, those "back-rooms" don't exist or I wouldn't be writing a blog right now)

I knew the Motorhead show wasn't for a couple of days yet, so you can imagine my surprise when my wife's cell phone rang  while I was bowling and she said "it's for you", "well who is it?",
"He said It's Lemmy from Motorhead",
she had this incredibly confused look on her face and said "why would he have to say 'from Motorhead'" as she handed me the phone.

Now, I can't begin to describe the "cool kid on the block" feeling I got from receiving that phone call. And I would be pressed to describe the look on the faces of the others at the bowling alley when I told them why I had to leave. But there we went, off to the tittie bar with Motorhead!

As soon as we walked in to the club, two people I knew came rushing up to me and said "Mike, there's some people from England here looking for you!" I was led to the table and seated with Lemmy, three crew guys, my friend and band-mate Bob, and my wife.

Somehow, even sitting at the "Rock Star" table, I managed to burn through about three hundred bucks in alcohol and tits.

The night of the show, afterward, we decided to go to a different club. Lemmy, David (the merch dude), my wife, and myself all hopped in my car and we took off from the front of First Avenue together.
I tried to be polite and get Lemmy to sit in the front seat, but my wife was driving and he insisted on the back.

At the time, I was working for a concrete restoration & repair company and I had a lot of tools in the back seat. Lemmy had found a ten pound little sledge hammer I kept in there and began wielding it out of the rear window as we drove through downtown Minneapolis. He said, "with this, who needs a car alarm. Just set this on the dash as a deterrent!" So there we were, driving through downtown Minneapolis, with Lemmy swinging a sledge hammer out the back window yelling "Thee Hammer!"
Priceless experience.

And so it began. What turned into a bit of a regular visitation every time they came to town. I'd always call, they'd always leave me a couple passes.

Around this time I became friends with the lighting engineer, Tony.

Tony was a rabid record collector and would always fly here from England in the off season to go around to stores and hit some vinyl fairs/conventions/ swaps, whatever you want to call them.

I had a lot of fun running around buying records with him, or visiting what he called "Junk Shops" a.k.a. antique stores. He collected old school portable record players as well. I've still got one he left behind years ago when he couldn't fit it on the plane with the other two he'd purchased while in town.

It waas on the "We Are Motorhead" tour, when Motorhead got to town minus their drum tech. Vito DeVito had worked for Mikki Dee for years when he decided he was done at the end of their Canadian Dates. As Tony put it, "He just fucked off in the middle of the night". I was standing inside First Avenue waiting to bring their bus driver to a shop to patch one of their trailer tires and playing pinball with Lemmy, when Tony, Hobbsie, and a few other crew came over and Tony said, "Mike's a drummer, he'll do it."

Freddie, the tour manager, looked at me as if to say, "can you?" I returned with a look of my own that said nothing less than "Fucking A Right I can!" So we sat down with Mikki, Yogi, the monitor guy, and myself, and I got a crash course in "hand signals 101".

They taught me a bunch of different hand signals to give Yogi throughout the set whenever Mikki wanted them adjusted. That's right, I'm not just setting up and tearing down, but I was on the stage right behind Mikki the entire show. I walked on to the stage right before the show and saw a guitar rack full of Lemmy's Rickenbacher's. All the ones that I've seen in all the pictures of him on stage. And at that moment, I was nearly knocked over by the realization that, fuck, THIS IS MOTORHEAD.

The more I began to realize this was a childhood dream come true, the more nervous I got. "This is too fucking cool, I'm bound to fuck SOMETHING up!" I kept thinking to myself. But it went off without a hitch. Great time, and the best seats in the house!
Afterward, Roger and myself (Phil's guitar tech.) spent a lot of time marking all the stands with tape so it would be known how to set it up again at the next show.

I remember feeling really good that I was able to introduce Lemmy and Ollie Stench, who has always shared my affinity for Motorhead. I used to go to the Triple Rock and hang out with him all night as he worked the door and many of those nights were spent discussing this band.

The completely unexpected part for me was that I never even took into consideration  the fact that I was being paid for this new temp job of mine. I was so busy in awe of the whole situation, I really didn't expect Freddie to hand me cash at the end of the night.
I'm sure I was cheap, comparatively, but they could have got me for a lot cheaper!

Dave, Lem, and myself - Chicago, 2000

I knew they were going to contact me about going out with them, and they did. However, right after the Minneapolis show, Vito had decided to return. So with that, I got an invitation and some all access passes to go down to Chicago and at least see another show. I brought Dave DePriest with me and we had a good time. No sleep, but a good time.
Mikki Dee has gone ouy of his way to be a really great guy to me since I temped for him. And he was really great to work for.

Throughout recent years I've missed a few shows locally, and haven't spoken with Lemmy with any real regularity since about '04. We went out for drinks second to the last time they were here, but it's not likely I'll be spending all night on the bus after the shows any longer. I don't have it in me to close the bar and hang out on the bus 'till five a.m. these days.

The best part of this whole thing is I got the opportunity to tell Lemmy the story of how I got into Motorhead. He thought it was the funniest thing ever that this guy actually thought Motorhead would ruin his speakers.

And I'll never forget his reaction to Foghat's version of "I Just Wanna Make Love to You". We were sitting in The Seville, a gentleman's club in Minneapolis, and that song was playing. Lemmy picked up on the lyrics right away and recognized it, and turned to me and said, "who the fuck is murdering this song?" I told him "Foghat", "Ugh" he replied, "I never want to hear that one again."

It's still just as great to see them play as it ever was. And if all the other shit would've never happened. I can still go see Motorhead, and say, "Fuck! I LOVE this band!!!"

A lot of things can be said about Lemmy. And to sorta "pal around" with a living legend is something in it's own. But the first thing that you notice is how friendly, soft spoken, and personable he is. Honest, intelligent, and fucking genuine.