The rock band that Lemmy thought “can’t go wrong”
Rock and roll was never meant to be the most complicated music in the world. If anything, the entire appeal of a group like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones was that if a kid worked hard enough, they might actually be able to play those songs rather than just try their hand at being a classical musician and fall flat on their face. Lemmy Kilmister always subscribed to the holy church of rock and roll, and in terms of the true prophets of the genre, The Who were close to perfect in his mind.
Then again, no one would mistake a Motörhead song for a Who song anytime soon. Although Lemmy may have had the core ethos of a group like The Who in mind, he was more interested in going further back, taking the same mentality as artists like Chuck Berry and channelling it through the garage rock lens of MC5.
When rock and roll reached English shores, though, The Who were the first true punks to walk the Earth. Years ahead of the John Lydons of the world, Pete Townshend was making the kind of music that sent a chill up people’s spines with ‘My Generation’. If Lydon got people riled up with what he said, Townshend did so with what he played, which usually resulted in him smashing his guitar.
It was also getting much louder thanks to Townshend’s amplifiers. Jimi Hendrix may have taken the amplifier further than Townshend ever could, but bringing out the first Marshall stacks made his guitar sound like a feral animal whenever he plugged in, which is part of the reason why the term ‘hard rock’ even exists today.
While Lemmy didn’t consider them a main influence, he acknowledged that few artists could beat The Who, telling Planet Rock, “If you want a rock and roll band, you can’t go wrong with The Who, you know. I mean, Townshend is a wonderful guitar player, and he doesn’t play a whole lot of lead, but he is incredible, and the way he plays chords is unbelievable.”
When looking at how Motörhead was set up in their glory days, though, are we sure that Lemmy didn’t steal some tricks from The Who? Sure, he had his own distinctive sound and was one of the most grizzly voices in rock and roll, but bringing out their own stacks of amplifiers intended to sound louder than everyone else was a carbon copy of what Townshend was doing.
There are even a few creative directions that seem to have been taken from Townshend’s playbook. Lemmy’s attempt at progressive music on Another Perfect Day feels like it’s derived from The Who’s experimental work, and there’s a good chance that a conceptual piece like 1916 wouldn’t have existed if Tommy and Quadrophenia hadn’t laid the groundwork first.
Then again, it’s hard to argue that Lemmy carved out his own mark on rock and roll during his time on this Earth. From his constant booze consumption to being the engine of the group when Motörhead played a show, he was always the overseer of everything that made the band stand out, down to his high microphone and iconic muttonchops look. Every group needs a true rock star persona, but Lemmy felt like Townshend and Keith Richards had morphed into one person.
