REBEL MEETS REBEL: MATT PIKE INTERVIEWS LEMMY KILMISTER
High on Fire’s head hesher tests the constitution of Motörhead’s iron horse
By Christopher R. Weingarten
Illustration by Arik Roper
Hard-drinking High on Fire/Kalas frontman Matt Pike is up at 7 on a Thursday morning—a fantastical hour in the nocturnal world of metal, less believable than unicorns. “I haven’t been sleeping well anyway,” says Pike from his home in Oakland, California. “I’m on the wagon for a little bit because I got an ulcer. Jack Daniels and Coke and chasing it with BC Powders, being up all night all the time. I burned a hole in my stomach being an ass.”
Between the hole in his gut and the cement factory chugging noisily across the street from his girlfriend’s place, sleep may not be in the cards for the ex-Sleep guitarist. But he doesn’t have any complaints, since he’s bouncing off the walls with excitement, set to interview Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead: the stone-faced standard bearer for galloping train-engine rock and the most apparent forebear to Pike’s whiskey-and-broken-glass gargle.
Pike was introduced to Motörhead at around age 12 through a cool “mom” character in his neighborhood who would hang out with all the local kids after school. “She was actually the first lady to give me bong hits. She was fucked up,” recalls Pike. “She’s done a good thing for the world, though.” As he got older and greasier, Pike worshipped Motörhead’s punk chug-a-lug and their metal gnarl, covering their “Killed by Death” during Sleep rehearsals and eventually opening for them with High on Fire. (He’d admire their set every night, getting as close as security would allow.)
Now, Motörhead are set to release their 19th album, Kiss of Death (Sanctuary), and Pike is so intimately familiar with their 30-year legacy that he has no idea what he would even inquire of Kilmister if, say, Revolver were to organize a 45-minute conference call with the slightly-buzzed-at-three-in-the-afternoon legend from his U.K. hotel room. “I don’t know what the fuck to ask him,” yells Pike before Kilmister stumbles into the conversation. “What the fuck would you ask him, man? It’s already said and done.”
Starstruck and sleepless, with butterflies fluttering out of the charred hole in his ulcer-pocked stomach, Pike burned through all of his questions in about nine minutes (notes Pike, “I’m lucky he’s not here to punch me”). Luckily, Revolver stayed on the other line to keep them talking, and it wasn’t long before they were chatting it up like a pair of gravel-throated drinking buddies.
MATT PIKE I don’t know if you remember me from a hole in the ground, but I got to do seven dates in 10 days with you. We did the House of Blues in L.A. Slash played guitar for you guys...
LEMMY KILMISTER Out of tune, as well. Slash’s roadie didn’t know we tuned a semi-tone down. We’re in E flat. So he confidently handed Slash a guitar tuned in concert [scale]. He spent the whole number going derrrrr derrrr derrrrr.
I just wanted to say it was the highlight of my life. What was the first thing you ever bought that made a huge impact on your life, that made you wanna play music?
Little Richard. “Jenny, Jenny.” We didn’t have albums then—it was just singles. The first album that I got that was a big impression was The Buddy Holly Story in 1959. You gotta remember that this guy was a major, major influence on rock and roll, and he was only around for two years—’57 he came in, ’59 he was gone.
When you were in Hawkwind, it was obviously a rock band. How did you go from psychedelic rock to almost-metal or punk?
Well, see, I’m really old now. [Kilmister is 60.] I remember Elvis’ first fucking record coming out. So everything from then on influenced me. I was in two rock bands before Hawkwind, just playing straight-up rock and roll. Me and Dave Brock and Simon King, we were a pretty good three-piece rock band inside Hawkwind. There’s just all that fooling around going on top of it. It wasn’t that much of a transition; it was just a bit more intense in Motörhead, y’know?
I know it’s probably a sore subject for you, but when I was in Sleep I got to tour with Nick Turner doing that Hawkwind thing. [Kilmister was kicked out of Hawkwind in 1975, reportedly because his drug use was out of control. Turner, Hawkwind’s founder, continues to do reunion tours.]
[Laughs]
I kept going, “Do you think Lemmy’s gonna come out to the show and play with you guys?”
Nicky can’t fucking play, you know what I mean? It’s unbelievable the stuff that guy plays and he gets away with it. Completely out of tune, completely across the beat.
And to top it off, you never want to see that dude naked putting on space clothes. [The band wore themed costumes.] Uncircumcised and all.
Oh, no! He’s actually older than me, y’know? What was his band like?
Well, at first he had Helios Creed on guitar. I’m kind of a fan of Helios—until he ripped me off for some weed. I gave him some money for weed—he went out and bought himself a plane ticket back home to Hawaii and left. Prick son of a bitch! I saved my per diems for, like, a week for that! It wasn’t Hawkwind, though.
Well, without Dave Brock on the guitar it doesn’t really happen.
Nope. And you sang on a lot back then too. It’s hard to copy that... Speaking of old rock dudes, on Motörhead’s Another Perfect Day, your guitarist was Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy. Why didn’t he work out?
Uh... Basically, because he was an asshole. He got so drunk before the show that he couldn’t fucking function properly. I don’t mind anybody doing anything as long as they deliver in the show. You can take five tabs of acid before the show if you’d like, as long as you can play your fucking gig. And he couldn’t do it, so we had to let him go.
You know how they have Jesus candles, right? One year, me and all my curmudgeon reprobate friends around Oakland made Lemmy candles and gave ’em to each other for Christmas.
Did they burn unevenly?
[Laughs] Everyone just drew their own version of Lemmy. It was fucking hilarious. So, you are compared to God a lot. If you really are God, then what happens to us when we die?
I think we all go to Disneyland. Season tickets. I think I’ll find out when I die. And I can wait.
That’s the question man’s sought after since the beginning of time.
And still no answer after all that. So I don’t think I’ll be the one to figure it all out. I believe we have to keep coming back ’til we get it right.
Well, hopefully there’s more people with that constitution that want to come back and get it right. I don’t see who the fuck wants to live that long.
Me. I have hobbies. But, no, I’m not God, man. God’s taller. I’m just walking around. I’m not surrounded by security. I just breeze into the place. The gods don’t do that, right? I’m starting at the bottom—I’m not in the V.I.P. lounge.
Oh, I know. People say I look like Jesus all the time.
I thought he was really well-adjusted for an only child.
[Laughs] Well, you’re huger than I am, but I still have my obsessed-cult people that follow me around and shit. I just go straight to the bar and say, “Well, buy me a drink then!”
Exactly. And then they calm down.
How do you cure your hangovers?
What hangovers? To get a hangover, you have to stop drinking!
[Laughs] I know you’re into speed, Jack Daniels, pussy—the typical road diet. What’s your favorite food when you eat?
I eat shit. I eat sandwiches all day and junk food. Always did. Road food—road-kill food.
You’ve just got some superior DNA or some shit.
Dogged insolence in the face of mounting opposition to the country. I just did what felt all right to me at the time. I wouldn’t recommend it, necessarily. Although I never got an ulcer or anything.
The ulcer’s driving me crazy because I’m used to drinking every day.
I hope I don’t get a fucking ulcer, ’cause I ain’t gonna stop drinking. I got checked out in Berlin last week, actually. The guy said I had the liver of a newborn baby. And my lungs are OK, my kidneys are fine. [It’ll] drive all these joggers fucking crazy.
I think rock and roll keeps you healthy. It’s like going out there and having a sauna every night. I just sweat everything out.
Really opens up the pores.
That and gets out a lot of the stress you got during the day.
Well, we’re lucky we have that release, right? ’Cause if not, I’d be machine-gunning some motherfucker, y’know?
