MOTÖRHEAD's LEMMY: 'I Couldn't Possibly Do My Job If I Didn't Smoke And Drink'

Tim Nixon of The Sun recently conducted an interview with MOTÖRHEAD mainman Lemmy Kilmister. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On his legendary lifestyle:

"All kinds of things about me are legendary, not just the excesses. And, for me, they're not excesses anyway. What you do every day is normal, right?

"Who cares if I drink? So what? 'This guy's a hopeless boozer. He should be in rehab.'

"I'm not going to promote it as a lifestyle. I don't want some kids dying because they drunk because of me. If you say this guy drinks like a fish after 35 years in MOTÖRHEAD, they'll think, 'Oh, I can do that too.'"

"This voice does good on cigarettes. That's part of the training. I have to keep smoking. If I stopped smoking, my voice would suffer. I couldn't possibly do my job if I didn't smoke and drink."

"My elders and betters told me it was a good thing to smoke. One advert said that it helps you to breathe 'cause it clears your passages."

On his refusal to compromise:

"I ain't doing music for you guys — I'm doing it for me. If we like it, you'll hear it. If you like it as well, that's really good. But if you don't, I couldn't give a fuck. You can't listen to what the record company wants you to do because they don't know shit about it. All they sell is cans of beans.

"When we signed with Sony, all these motherfuckers came down with their wives and kids for a visit while we were working. I said, 'Fuck you, I don't come in and type on your typewriters all day, do I? Fuck off.'"

On his estimate that he's ONLY slept with "a thousand" women — rather than the oft-bandied number of 2,000:

"I didn't start fucking until I was 17. I lived in north Wales, it's slow up there.

"I've never been married, I've never lived with a girl for longer than two years — so I think that's an average of one a week.

"It's an exercise, chasing girls. You have to work at it. And nothing's as easy when you're 64 as it was when you were 22, believe me."

Read the entire article from The Sun.