The “godfather of heavy metal”, according to James Hetfield: “He kicked the door open”
There’s no real way of getting around playing one certain style when you name your band Metallica. For as many different avenues that they’ve gone down throughout their career, no one’s expecting to pick up a record by the thrash legends and expect to hear them playing some kind of avant-garde jazz or pop-punk.
No, these guys breathe heavy metal with every fibre of their being, and when it comes to their forefathers, James Hetfield said that Lemmy is at the very top of the list.
Before thrash even started, heavy metal still barely had a definable genre to its name. Sure, there was Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, who were delivering something a lot more raucous for the casual blues fans in the audience, but they were always a bit hesitant to take on the title of heavy metal pioneer.
Whether or not Lemmy even wanted to be associated with heavy metal is really beside the point. After being one of the bigger names in the second wave of psychedelia in Hawkwind, his blunt firing from the group led to him pushing himself to make Motörhead the most intense rock band anyone had ever seen.
He had already started making the rounds listening to bands like the MC5, but Lemmy wanted to dream bigger. It was time to play louder and faster, and with songs like ‘Overkill’ and ‘Ace of Spades’, they may have accidentally created the template for what thrash metal would become a few years later.
The strange thing about Motörhead was that they never sounded as though they were trying to invent a new genre, they were simply chasing the loudest, fastest version of rock and roll they could imagine. The labels came afterwards. By refusing to slow down or clean up their sound, Lemmy ended up inspiring everyone from punk bands to metal acts, even if he would have rolled his eyes at being described as a pioneer. Sometimes the biggest influence comes from people who never set out to influence anyone in the first place.
Say what you want to about Lemmy not calling himself a metal god, but if you look at anyone from the first wave of thrash metal, none of them would say they didn’t have some influence from Motörhead. From how they carried themselves to that gravelly voice that made it alright for a gruff voice to be out front, everyone from Metallica to Guns N’ Roses to Nirvana would take a piece of what Lemmy created.
Beyond just thrash, Hetfield said that Lemmy was at the forefront of bringing heavy metal into the mainstream, recalling in the documentary Lemmy, “I’ll give you a list of things that were lifted from Lemmy: singing style, lyrical phrasing, trying to be as cool as [him], his facial hair in the early days for me. He kicked the door open for a lot of bands that were feeling like they wanted. [He] is the godfather of heavy metal.”
Hetfield’s admiration was never just about the music, either. Lemmy represented a kind of authenticity that became increasingly rare as heavy metal grew bigger. He never seemed interested in chasing trends or polishing his image for a wider audience, preferring to let the songs and the volume do the talking.
While Lemmy never understood why he wasn’t just considered rock and roll, it’s hard to really argue with the rest of the world when you listen to Motörhead records. There are still traces of songs that tend to date back to the pre-British Invasion rock and roll days of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, but everything from Ace of Spades to later albums like Inferno proved that they at least had a respect for the heavier side of rock and roll.
Then again, Lemmy seemed like the one person who made it okay for everyone to embrace both genres. Where most metalheads will argue to hell and back that true metal has to be defined by certain criteria, Lemmy was the one bold enough to ask if it’s much to be both.
