Motörhead’s Lemmy believed the Ramones were “geniuses”
Throughout his lifetime, Lemmy Kilmister never minced his words. For every minute he was onstage with Motörhead, fans knew they were never getting any bullshit from Lemmy, talking about the rock star lifestyle with the old-school sound of rock and roll. Though Motörhead’s brand of balls-to-the-wall aggression may have been a bit jarring for the time, it made more sense once the punk revolution kicked in.
As rock and roll got dirtier in the wake of bands like the Sex Pistols, Kilmister had the utmost respect for punk music, even covering ‘God Save the Queen’ later on the album We Are Motörhead. In terms of favourites, though, Kilmister always came back to the Ramones.
Born out of the filthiest boroughs of Queens, the Ramones played old-school rock and roll at breakneck speed, taking the teenybopper love songs and injecting them with adrenaline. When asked about the punk movement, Kilmister admitted that there was a good chance that Motörhead would have been mistaken for punk, telling Spin: “If you hadn’t seen what we looked like, you would have thought we were a punk band. I remember going down to the Roxy one night just to see what the punk thing was all about. This bush behind me said, ‘I used to sell acid at Hawkwind’s all-night shows in King’s Cross.’ And I turned around, and it was Johnny Rotten.”
Although Kilmister loved Sex Pistols’ aesthetic, he related more to the Ramones’ sound, elaborating that “the Ramones were geniuses, though. Joey especially had a nose for rock ‘n’ roll. I just fell in well with Joey and Dee Dee, you know. Johnny wasn’t so friendly, but then he never was. The other two I got on really well with”.
There was also mutual admiration among the punk legends, with Joey Ramone remembering the moment Kilmister wrote a song about them on his album 1916, describing it as “the ultimate honour – like John Lennon writing a song for you”.
While Kilmister remained a fan of the Ramones, he didn’t have the same love for acts like The Clash, which he thought “sounded like old people music, dressed up as punk”. Kilmister always had a passing respect for the Ramones, but he was devastated when he heard that Joey and Dee Dee Ramone had passed away, remembering: “I mean, Johnny and Dee went within seven months of each other? Ridiculous. I think they kind of died when Dee Dee left, you know, in a way. I think that crippled Joey because he had no buddies in the band then”.
Even though Kilmister insisted Motörhead were a rock and roll band, he always had a fondness for the raw energy behind punk. Despite being adopted by the heavy metal crowd along the way, Kilmister always hung on to his punk credentials: “The punks loved us,” he once said. “The only reason we weren’t in that lot was because we had long hair. So obviously, we must be heavy metal. That was the thinking. But a lot of kids heard us without seeing a picture.”
Kilmister might not have been sold on the heavy metal aesthetic completely, but he had a soft spot for punk when it came to intense rock and roll.
