Ex-MOTÖRHEAD Guitarist 'FAST' EDDIE CLARKE Discusses Return Of FASTWAY

Marko Syrjälä of Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an interview with FASTWAY/ex-MOTÖRHEAD guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal-Rules.com: In the early Nineties, did you give up playing altogether?

Clarke: Well, I didn't give up exactly, I did my solo album in 1993, but I gave up drinking, because I was dying.

Metal-Rules.com: But in the years since then, have you been playing at all?

Clarke: Not really, only at home. I did a little thing in Germany for the tsunami, it was a charity thing. I did it with a MOTÖRHEAD cover band, I went out and did a half an hour with them, just because it was for charity and the tsunami thing, that was 2004. I did an album, but that's all I've done on stage in 21 years.

Metal-Rules.com: Well, it is now the year 2007 and we're sitting here at Sweden Rock Festival where you've just finished your set with FASTWAY. What inspired you, after all these years, to get back into music and reassemble FASTWAY?

Clarke: Just a chain of events, that after 21 years someone managed to persuade me to pick up the guitar again. He's the drummer actually, Steve Strange, he's an old friend of mine. He wasn't in the original FASTWAY, but back then he was gonna play drums with me towards the end of the FASTWAY with Lea Hart, but I had a few health problems and stuff, so I hung up the guitar for a couple of years and he went off and became an agent. But he's always said that he's gonna put it back together and we're gonna rock sometime. This year he put it together and brought Toby Jepson along from the LITTLE ANGELS, who's a great singer and John McManus from MAMA'S BOYS [on bass] and it's a perfect little band. He plays great drums you know, I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to or not, but he's proved me wrong, he's fantastic, you know. And we did a little show in London on Wednesday to warm up, we've got Sweden today as you know, Donington tomorrow and then we're in Holland next weekend and then Belgium and maybe then the world.

Metal-Rules.com: In the year 2000 you appeared on stage with MOTÖRHEAD as a special guest for their 25th anniversary gig at the Brixton Academy, did't you?

Clarke: Yeah, it was with Brian May [of QUEEN] and Ace from SKUNK ANANSIE.

Metal-Rules.com: And Doro Pesch was there too, wasn't she?

Clarke: Oh, Doro Pesch, that's right, she was there. Of course when I used to see Doro [back in the day], she was quite young then, she has grown up now, she's probably got children and all things, you know. I don't know since I never knew Doro because it sort of happened just after my MOTÖRHEAD thing. Then when I went with FASTWAY, we went to America because England didn't wanna know. The fans didn't like me leaving MOTÖRHEAD, you know, although it wasn't really my idea although everybody said it was my idea, IT WAS NOT, but you know it's in the past.

Metal-Rules.com: Obviously you've been in contact with the current lineup of MOTÖRHEAD in recent years, but when was the last time that you saw Philthy Animal Taylor?

Clarke: In 2002, I was in Los Angeles and went to see him. We had a cup of tea and got together and then all three of us [Lemmy, Philthy and Eddie] got together, briefly, but it was nice. But that was it, because he lives there and I had to come back to London, you know.

Metal-Rules.com: Do you know what Philthy is up to these days?

Clarke: I've heard that he's playing again. But that's all I know, I don't know names or anything.

[To find out what Philthy Animal Taylor is doing now, click here.]

Metal-Rules.com: You're actually going to go onstage with MOTÖRHEAD once again, here tonight at Sweden Rock?

Clarke: I'm gonna get up with MOTÖRHEAD on the encore and hopefully do at least "Overkill" and "Bomber" or maybe "Ace of Spades" and "Bomber", I don't know, but I'll do at least a couple. [NOTE: In the end Fast Eddie was on stage for the whole encore and did all three songs mentioned here.]

Metal-Rules.com: Was it Lemmy himself who asked you to do this?

Clarke: Ahh... sort of. Sort of more Mikkey Dee.

Metal-Rules.com: Oh really?

Clarke: Yeah, we always talk, me and Mikkey, whenever we see each other. He kept saying "You must come up.", so when he heard I was coming here [to Sweden Rock], he thought it was a great opportunity, you know. Yeah, why not, it'll be good fun, I'm looking forward to it.

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.