The Ozzy Osbourne songs that earned Lemmy more money than “15 years in Mötorhead”
Nobody pursues a life of rock and roll with the sole purpose of becoming rich. Particularly in the modern day, you are much more likely to make riches as a lawyer, banker, or even a doctor. Despite the intense power of the music industry, not a lot of the revenue seems to trickle down to the artists, and this has been the case for many years. Even a rock and roll behemoth like Mötorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister spent many years on the road or at the studio before he started to see his bank balance increase.
Kilmister has dedicated himself to a life in music during his adolescence, playing with a variety of small-time groups around the working men’s clubs of northern England. It was only during the early 1970s that the bassist began to establish himself on the global rock scene, playing with the truly iconic space rock band Hawkwind. While these exploits might have satisfied Lemmy’s need for sonic chaos and artistic expression, they were hardly making him a rich man. Hawkwind did not earn a lot of money, and whatever they did earn usually went on drugs and alcohol.
Mötorhead burst onto the scene in 1975, and rock music would never be quite the same again. Lemmy carved out his own unique, infectious and, above all else, loud sound that has since been emulated by countless other wannabe rock artists. Everything from the image of the frontman to his gravelly voice and ‘live fast, die young’ lifestyle screamed ‘rockstar.’
Nevertheless, this legendary reputation failed to translate into enviable royalty cheques. Even when the band started to have hit singles during the early 1980s, with tracks like ‘Ace of Spades’ shooting up the charts, the money was nowhere to be seen.
Of course, Lemmy was not overly fussed by this lack of funds. As long as he had enough money to keep touring, recording, and satisfying his craving for narcotics, the frontman was fairly content. In fact, when Kilmister finally started to make some coin, it was largely down to fellow rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. The former Black Sabbath singer enjoyed one of the most successful solo careers in all of hard rock and heavy metal, but in 1991, he called upon Lemmy Kilmister to help him out.
Osbourne seemed to be struggling to conjure up tracks for his sixth studio album, No More Tears, whereas Kilmister was a beacon of incredible rock songwriting. The potential for a partnership was obvious. As the Mötorhead songwriter recalled in his autobiography, Lemmy, “It was one of the simplest orders I’ve had in life. Sharon called me and said: ‘I will pay you X amount of money if you compose songs for Ozzy.’ So I said, ‘Okay, do you have a pen?’”
It turned out to be a pretty good deal for Lemmy as, inevitably, No More Tears rocketed up the album charts in the UK and US and has since gone quadruple platinum. “That album sold millions of copies,” Lemmy recalled, “And I had composed four of his songs.” All of a sudden, the royalty cheques started rolling in, and Kilmister found that his years of dedication to rock were finally making him some money.
Speaking on his return on investments, the songwriter remembered, “I wrote six or seven sets of words, and Ozzy ended up using four of them: ‘Desire’, ‘I Don’t Want To Change The World’, ‘Hellraiser’ and ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’.” Unsurprisingly, these tracks make up the high points of Osbourne’s album, and that was reflected in sales.
“I made more money with those four songs for Ozzy than in 15 years with Motörhead,” he said before adding: “How absurd!” They might not have been as good as ‘Ace of Spades’ or ‘Iron Fist’, but those Ozzy Osbourne tracks probably occupy a special place in the heart of the rock and roll icon.
