The two “shit” bands Lemmy thought were anti-rock music: “Not very good”
If the late Mötorhead frontman Lemmy had epitomised rock any more purely, he would technically have been classified as a sentient igneous outcrop. He was such a roaring edifice of the genre that he even took aim at its Mount Rushmore and labelled The Rolling Stones nothing more than “mammy’s boys” and ridiculed their manufactured “aura of disrespectability”.
Nevertheless, he still believed them to be a rock band. They might not have lived up to the macho heights of his own outfit or the “hard men” in The Beatles, but they still upheld the vigour of the genre. This is a lot more than he could say for some of the acts were subsequently classed as rock bands when the new millennium came around. In fact, Lemmy even saw fit to clarify a few things publicly.
By the time 2010 came around, it seemed that the gruff side of rock was now sanitised and manicured, and the bulk of guitar-driven music was a softer indie variety. When speaking to Stay Thirsty Media about whether the genre would regain its prominence, he said: “Rock n’ roll always comes back, you know.“
Continuing: “There’s no fighting it. And these people think they can kill rock n’ roll, they might as well try and stop the flood, you know. There’s no way. It always comes back because there’s always people who want to hear loud, raucous music, you know. It’s exciting, you know.”
This didn’t seem to be the case at the time. Things move in cycles, and the new artists dominating the music press were far from Mötorhead’s adjacent. Thus, the scathing bassist asserted: “And all the shit that these magazines like is not exciting. Like Jesus, Radiohead, you know. Fuck me, you know. Coldplay. Jesus. These are not rock bands. These are sub-emo, you know.”
He might have been fond of a “you know”, but he certainly had no time for anything too maudlin. For him, a man who arguably set the stage for punk rock with his heavy metal attitude and penchant for a pounding bass rhythm, was never likely to be too interested in the work of such a delicately poised set of groups.
However, when it comes to Radiohead, you can’t help but think that they would be rather pleased with his remarks. The point of the alternative off-shoot was to buck the trend of guitar bands from bygone eras and to openly embrace the antithesis of machoism. In fact, Yorke hit headlines at the time when he said he wept upon hearing his own track, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. And Coldplay are Coldplay.
Chris Martin’s band have long since thrown off the shackles of being considered even an indie band, a genre which encourages such emotional dalliances, and has transferred into a bona fide pop group for decades. It has seen them headline major stadium tours and become one of the most successful groups of all time, something we’re sure would bother Lemmy, but that won’t matter a jot to Martin.
Nevertheless, the anti-rock intent of the band didn’t shift his stern opinion. He later maintained his critique and added that they simply were “not very good”.
