Lemmy named “the best experience I had in a band”
From day one, Lemmy always made rock and roll on his own terms. Whether working on the genre’s fringes in the early days or pioneering his own path with Motörhead, Lemmy didn’t mince words to anyone, always feeling comfortable playing the rough and tumble to anyone who would listen. Even though Lemmy found his calling working with Motörhead, he felt that one of the most rewarding experiences he ever had onstage came before he formed the hard rock juggernaut.
Before he had even picked up a bass, though, Lemmy was already fascinated by the idea of rock and roll. Although he may have gotten into the sounds of the British Invasion with artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the frontman was always more in tune with the early pioneers, from the screaming sounds of Little Richard to the slick swagger of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
While Lemmy may have started far too late to stand alongside his heroes, history was being made as he found himself in the middle of the Flower generation. Coming out around the same time the psychedelic movement began, one of Lemmy’s first paying gigs in music came when he was slugging gear for Jimi Hendrix, helping the guitar legend get the sounds he wanted whenever he played onstage.
Since he was always surrounded by musicians, it wasn’t long before Lemmy was cajoled into joining a band. When a local upstart named Hawkwind found themselves without a bass player the day of their show, Lemmy was convinced to sit in on the four-string despite having never touched the instrument in his life.
Those meagre attempts did leave an impression on the group, though, leading to Lemmy becoming their permanent member and even getting to sing on a handful of their biggest hits like ‘Silver Machine’. As opposed to the rock and roll he had been brought up with, Hawkwind was concerned with the heavier side of Flower Power, making songs that fell in line with the psychedelic sounds of early Pink Floyd.
Even though Lemmy was satisfied playing music to anyone he could, he eventually got the boot from Hawkwind when he was busted for drugs and missed one of their gigs. Instead of wallowing in his firing, the bass player knew he needed to find a better outlet, forming a new outfit named after the last song he wrote for his old group, ‘Motorhead’.
While the split may not have been amicable, Lemmy looked back on his time with the psychedelic rock act fondly, telling Louder Than Hell, “Hawkwind was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a band. Sometimes we’d do three hits of acid before we got onstage and sometimes five because everybody said it doesn’t work two days in a row, but we found out if you double the dose, it does.”
Despite the sounds of psychedelic being more en vogue circa 1968, Lemmy was on the verge of a new genre with his new outfit, pioneering the sounds of punk and heavy metal with their caustic approach to rock and roll. Hawkwind may have decided they didn’t need Lemmy, but the formation of Motörhead coincided with a change of the guard.
