“We couldn’t”: The album Lemmy thought he could never follow up
Looking back on history, Motörhead seemed to be like the cockroaches of rock and roll. Up until Lemmy’s tragic death, they always managed to find a way to keep rolling while still living up to the dame debaucherous lifestyle that Keith Richards helped invent back in the day, all while making some of the greatest rock and roll anyone had ever conceived. Although Lemmy had a high standard for what constituted a great tune, he felt he could never follow one particular landmark album when it was released.
Granted, when we’re talking about this side of the band, it doesn’t always come down to sales. Motörhead were never looked at as critical darlings when they first arrived on the scene, and even when they were making the best records of their career, they weren’t filling the arenas in the same way that Black Sabbath or Deep Purple were back in the day.
No, the reason they succeeded was their history of being the biggest road dogs in the industry. Lemmy lived and died based on his love of the open road, and even if he didn’t have the healthiest lifestyle, he managed to keep everything intact throughout each album, whether that was the beginnings of Overkill or him going for broke on Bomber.
By the time Ace of Spades arrived, though, something started to change. He had been one of the most prolific rock and roll songwriters of his time, but this was the kind of timeless metaphor that everyone dreams of stumbling across, especially given his reputation as one the most dangerous musical outlaws to ever walk the Earth.
Anyone can lay down something that heavy on record, but the true testament to the song’s power was going to be on the road. It wasn’t going to be easy making a live album, but on No Sleep Til Hammersmith, fans got a dose of what Motörhead was like in their natural habitat, with the tempos being kicked up ever so slightly to give the tunes more energy despite the band being insanely jetlagged.
And there are even some moments that outshine what we hear on the studio records. Compared to the version of ‘Overkill’ that introduced people to the world of double bass drums, the version that ended up on No Sleep Til Hammersmith is even more frenetic, almost sounding like Phil Taylor is going to lift off out of his seat from the minute that he starts the intro and never lets up for a second.
Even though the album was one of their most commercially successful records yet, Lemmy knew there was no point in trying to top it, saying, “Ace Of Spades was one of those obvious instant ones, the most obvious instant one we ever wrote, and that’s why people latched onto it. We didn’t get to number one with it, but the album did very well because we were on a roll with Overkill and Bomber and then Ace Of Spades. And then No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith went straight in at number one, and we couldn’t follow it.”
And judging by the next record, it wasn’t like the band were trying to reinvent the wheel at all. Although Iron Fist was still a great record by their standards, it was clear that the lineup had done all they could do together, eventually leading to Eddie Clarke leaving and being replaced by Thin Lizzy’s Brian Robertson. Still, when a band has stormed through a venue and dominated their audience like this, is there really any point in trying to do it all over again?
