MOTÖRHEAD's LEMMY Talks About War In Iraq, Being Friends With OZZY, Legalizing Heroin

Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited recently conducted an interview with MOTÖRHEAD frontman Lemmy Kilmister. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Classic Rock Revisited: I really think "Sword of Glory" [off the new album, "Kiss of Death"] is a strong track.

Lemmy: We will be doing that on stage soon. It is a universal time song. It fits today but it is not necessarily inspired by that. When you are young and stupid, you are heroic. They [the government] know this and they get them to sacrifice themselves for their own cause. What the fuck are they doing in Iraq being killed? It is the oil. There is not any other reason for them to be there fighting except for the oil. Iraq is not a treat to the United States. It is completely about George Bush getting revenge for his old man. It is going to be another Vietnam.

Iran is going to start playing into it now. What are you going to do about that? They are going to win because you can't fight guys who hide behind a fucking rock. You can't beat them and they proved that to us in Vietnam. It doesn't matter what kind of puppet government they put in; it is not going to work. Puppet governments don't work because people hate them. Look at Afghanistan: A lot of the weapons they are using were given to them by the USA. The other half were given to them by the Russians.

Classic Rock Revisited: What do you think the answer is?

Lemmy: The answer is to get the fuck out of there, build a wall around it and sell fucking tickets.

Classic Rock Revisited: MOTÖRHEAD could write the soundtrack.

Lemmy: Really! We should have just not been in there in the first place. The price of oil went up after we went into Iraq. What the fuck is that? How is that possible? Then the oil companies post record profits. How does that happen? It is all about George keeping his buddies happy.

When all the planes were grounded after 9/11, one plane was allowed to fly. You know who was in it? Osama Bin Laden's family. George Bush flew them out of the country. They are Saudi Arabians. Bush had big ties with the Bin Laden family. The rogue son attacked him but he made sure the rest of them got out okay. Who knows what their sympathies were? They didn't get asked any questions.

Classic Rock Revisited: The world just keeps handing you song ideas!

Lemmy: It is wonderful, isn't it? You have to keep a sense of humor about this shit. Mankind, as a race, is hilarious. We just keep killing each other. The only thing we improve is that we can kill each other from further away. We don't need to see the handiwork that we did. I think if we still had to see the dead man with our sword stuck in him then there would be a lot less fighting. How they do it now is cowardly. You are killing a guy from several miles away and you don't even know what he looks like.
Classic Rock Revisited: You have been quoted as saying you think heroin should be legalized. How can you say that?

Lemmy: We have tried throwing the police at it for years but there is more heroin on the streets than ever before. We have tried throwing all the junkies in jail where they get sodomized and turned into real criminals. Before they went to jail they were usually just pretty quiet junkies. The people who kill each other and everybody else are the dealers. If you legalized it then you could ration it out better. It would be trackable and you could cut out the dealer. People are going to buy it, whatever you do. I hate the fucking shit; it killed my old lady. I've never done it myself. If you are going to have it in society — and apparently you are because people want it — you might as well legalize it and control it; that is my take on it.

Classic Rock Revisited: Drugs and rock music have gone hand in hand for years. Why is heroin different from other drugs?

Lemmy: I only saw people die on heroin. I never saw people die on speed or coke. I only saw them die on smack and hundreds died on that. I hate it because it turns you into an animal and then it kills you.

Classic Rock Revisited: How did you avoid it?

Lemmy: I just never wanted it. I never thought it was a viable proposition because I saw it steal peoples lives. They would become heroin. They don't have music anymore and they don't have any goals — all they want is the heroin. Anything that controls you that much, and makes you hurt that much when you don't get it, is bullshit to me.

Classic Rock Revisited: Everyone knows you and Ozzy are buddies. How did you meet him?

Lemmy: We met when MOTÖRHEAD opened for Ozzy on the "Blizzard of Oz" tour. That was a great tour with Randy Rhoads. I got to know him; he was a nice guy. He was small. He was a little fellow about the size of Ronnie Dio. He couldn't play Asteroids worth a fuck. I beat him right away across America!

Classic Rock Revisited: Ozzy has had a lot of problems with drugs.

Lemmy: Ozzy's only problem was that he couldn't get any more!

Classic Rock Revisited: He has really had problems that affected his career and his family life. You are no stranger to chemicals. How have you avoided the same pitfalls that Ozzy did not?

Lemmy: I have a personality that rejects loss of control. Even when I was in my acid days — I was taking ten at a time at the end. We had heard that acid won't work two days in a row but we found out that if you double the dose then it does. Even in those days, I used to always have what I call my window on the world. I could always stop and look out of it to see what was really going on. Ozzy didn't have that. Ozzy was doing a lot of downers, which I never did much of. I have always been a 'let's be present at the wedding' kind of guy. I didn't want to be outside in the graveyard.

Read the entire interview at www.classicrockrevisited.com.