R.I.P. Lemmy Kilmister - Motörhead front-man passes away at the age of 70

The legendary Motörhead front-man Lemmy Kilmister, who was the band's bassist and singer since the beginning of the band's formation, has passed away at the age of 70, yesterday at 28th of December 2015. Lemmy had been battling with several health issues on the recent years, including hematoma and irregular heartbeat problems. These issues caused the band to cancel several shows in over the latest years. The cause of his death, however, was diagnosed as extremely aggressive form of cancer. May you rest in piece, and your music live forever on.

Influence of Motörhead to rock and heavy metal scene of the late 70s and 80s is undeniable, whether it be rougher side of NWOBHM acts such as TANK, Rogue Male, or thrash metal few years later. Or perhaps one of the first extreme metal bands, Venom, who I personally feel were influenced at least to the certain level by Motörhead. Of course, there were other more gritty rock and punk acts to infuence heavier and more extreme metal bands of the early 80s, too, but Motörhead was one of the more memorable ones. Many of the early NWOBHM acts supported Motörhead on gigs regularly between the years of 1979-1983.

Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister was born Staffordshire, England in 1945. Lemmy was recruited into a space rock group called Hawkwind in 1972, but was let go three years later, in 1975, due personal problems. It was not much later, when Lemmy formed Motörhead, named after a song he composed for Hawkwind in the past.

Motörhead released solid 23 full-length studio albums, plus countless EPs and live albums during the years, never really parting far from their speedy and dirty whiskey-laden trademark sound; complemented by Lemmy's lightly bluesy, yet extremely rough and charismatic vocal delivery, which showed that you don't always need the ability of hitting wide range of notes to have effective, strong, and pleasant vocal delivery; accompanied by his rattling and ferocious bass-lines. Whether the band's music would be considered as punk, hard rock, some sort of an extreme rock, or heavy metal, is irrelevant; I personally think that the band always drew the line somewhere in the middle of several styles, and thus is a bit hard to place clearly into one specific genre with proverbial sound of it.

The band debuted in 1977 starting with self titled full-length album "Motörhead", and then continuing with early classics such as "Overkill" (1979), "Bomber" (1979), "On Parole" (1979), "Ace of Spades" (1980), "Iron Fist" (1982); ending with the latest "Bad Magic", released just recently this year in 2015, which supposedly remains the last, at least with Lemmy, which I personally feel is the most vital part of the band, it's image, and the sound. On the funny side-note, On Parole was actually set of songs recorded in 1975, but saw the light of the day three years later. The album which could had been the real "debut" by the band, for it had enough material for a full-length release already...

My fellow readers: today is a sad day. We have once again lost a great and influential long-line musician, who was there when the early days of heavy metal arose: and when it comes to being influential and having charisma - well, Lemmy had it both, big time. Line-up of the "old-schoolers" is thinning once again. Let's have a listen to something, which I think is definitely underrated as a song: Motörhead - Back at The Funny Farm from 1983, ladies and gents'!

-www.kultmetal.com