The one guitarist that Lemmy couldn’t stand touring with: “It was just to get at me”
Anyone who has ever gone to a Motörhead show was usually coming for one thing and one thing only: Lemmy.
While the iconic frontman usually liked to surround himself with equally badass players whenever he took the stage, the night never truly began until you heard his rumbling bass on ‘Overkill’ coming in, along with a vocal that sounded like he had gargled with razor blades in his spare time. Most lineups of the band could hold their own in a live setting, but Lemmy had no time for the era when Brian Robertson got behind the fretboard.
That’s not to say Lemmy was against change altogether, but it had to feel right. Motörhead thrived on a very specific kind of chaos, one that blurred the line between precision and pure attitude. Anyone stepping into that world had to understand that it wasn’t just about technical ability or pedigree. It was about embodying the same snarling spirit that powered every note, something that couldn’t be faked or dressed up differently without sticking out like a sore thumb.
In that sense, the band operated more like a gang than a traditional musical outfit. Image, energy and intent all carried equal weight alongside the music itself, and any imbalance between those elements was bound to cause friction. Robertson may have had the chops, but in a band where identity was everything, even the smallest disconnect could feel like a fundamental mismatch rather than a minor difference in style.
When looking at the band’s setup throughout their tenure, it’s strange that Lemmy initially wanted the band to be a four-piece. Considering how much bottom-end he fills out with his use of bass chords, though, it turns out three is all they really needed half the time because if there were yet another guitar on ‘Ace of Spades’, heads probably would have exploded.
Towards the mid-1980s, though, Lemmy started falling out of favour with ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke. While the idea of playing second fiddle to a guy like Lemmy was always an unenviable task, Clarke packed his bags following the tour for the album Iron Fist, Lemmy figured that the next best thing was to get Robertson, just now on loan from working with Thin Lizzy.
For a brief moment, it had even worked. Another Perfect Day might not have sounded exactly like the version of Motorhead that we know and love, but their experimentation with prog rock, of all things, is a lot better than it has any right to be. Then they went on tour, and Robertson turned from a badass guitar player into a diva in Lemmy’s eyes.
As the band prepared to take to the road, Lemmy took issue with how Robertson dressed and presented himself on tour, telling Louder, “All that shit about being dressed differently, all the wearing of stupid shorts, it was just to get at me. Or make sure everybody knew he wasn’t in Motörhead, just a featured guest artist, doing us a favour from the great heights as a Thin Lizzy guitar player.”
Then again, Robertson’s get-up did nothing to endear him to the Motörhead crowd, either. This was a band that catered to the kind of biker-clad badass, so to see someone up onstage in cut-off jeans and a headband made it look as if a group of Hell’s Angels suddenly decided that they were going to have MTV-era Mark Knopfler on guitar, especially when Robertson adopted the signature headband from Knopfler.
Another Perfect Day may have been a decent experiment, but it wasn’t something that Lemmy was going to repeat again. After sacking Robertson, Lemmy got the best of both worlds on Orgasmatron, getting both Phil Campbell and Wurzel on guitar and giving the band the live sound that he had always heard in his head.
Robertson may have played the parts decently well and even expanded the band’s sonic palette, but being in Motörhead isn’t just about being able to play well. It’s about whether you gel with their aesthetic, and from the first time he got up onstage, it was clear that Robertson never really belonged in that conversation.
