“The best bass player on the face of the earth”, according to Lemmy
As the bassist and frontman of Motörhead, the late Lemmy Kilmister became a sort of human altar of hard rock iconography – part-man, part-symbol of rock ‘n’ roll.
In the process, he pushed bass right to the forefront of rock and proudly defied the notion that the bass is only there for a few background notes and so that someone with long hair can look particularly moody. To spite this stereotype, throughout his career, he took to the stage like a marauding aural empire, making his four strings rumble like pounding hooves.
However, if it was power that typified Lemmy’s playing, then it was dexterity that he looked for in others. That much is clear from his lofty praise of The Who’s John Entwistle. “The best bass player on the face of the earth,” he said of his hero.
Boldly continuing, ”He was the best for me, no contest. He was so in command of his instrument. You never saw him flicker. Never a bum note that I ever heard. And he was so fast, both hands going like hell.”
He even picked out one song that perfectly showcased his mastery, saying that neither he nor any of his fellow fret-thumpers could mimic it. “The bass solo in ‘My Generation’, you still tie yourself in knots trying to do it now,” he said. “You can work it out, but it was another thing thinking it up. And that was back in 1964!” It was as inventive as it was pioneering, and, perhaps most importantly of all, it made for a perfectly profound song.
This triumvirate typified his playing. According to Lemmy, Entwistle had it all: the power, the bravura, and the sheer ability. It is this trinity that separates him from the rather more flowery bassist that Lemmy puts just behind The Who’s secret lead weapon.
Lemmy’s love for The Beatles
Not that Lemmy has too many issues with floweriness, provided that it is backed up with substance and grit. As the Motörhead man told Revolver in 2002: “I love John Entwistle of the Who. Best bass player I ever saw, Entwistle! McCartney’s the second, though. He keeps giving in to the wimp in him, but he’s a great bass player.”
Nevertheless, he knew that Macca had the flipside, too. “The Beatles were hard men,” he wrote in his 2004 memoir White Line Fever.
“Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia – a hard, sea-farin’ town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo’s from the Dingle, which is like the fucking Bronx,” he continued.
But with the chugging piston of local industry comes a sense of rhythm. And Lemmy opines that all the best bassists have this inherent sense of rhythm. “I was born to play the bass, basically. Basically … very good [laughs]. I was a mediocre guitar player – I couldn’t play lead to save my life. But I was a great rhythm guitarist. I have a feel for rhythm, so that’s probably where it comes from,“ he told Guitar World in his final interview.
This sense of rhythm is something that Entwistle had in spades. He can solo with the best of them, but it’s what he gives the tracks in his quieter moments that really sets him apart. His classic “full treble, full volume” sound enamoured him with a legion of fans beyond Lemmy, too. As Pete Townshend said himself: “There was nothing that I could ever play that he couldn’t immediately replicate. I always found that dismaying.”
This brilliance in itself holds a meta hint of irony because when Entwistle was asked about how he’d like to be remembered, he said as “being the only bass guitarist who hasn’t been copyable.”
