A smoking silhouette is walking down the Sunset Strip, the shadows of palms and big buildings almost hiding his presence in the urban jungle of L.A., background to the second, reckless life of the man. Truth to be told, it appears to be the portrait of an old wolf, but he doesn’t mind and keeps carrying his bass fiercely as he heads to the Rainbow Bar And Grill like he’s been doing for decades.
It’s not the beginning of a joke nor a novel’s, but the images we saw flash before our eyes the day METALLICA released the music video for “Murder one”, their personal tribute to the legendary Motörhead frontman, Lemmy Kilmister.
Iconic and sincere, the graphic video was loved by many fans of both bands and the belonging, among the others, of METALLICA‘s Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield to the bassist’s die-hard fanbase, could only make us miss the rock’n’roller even more.
Now it’s the turn of singer Doro Pesch, former leader of WARLOCK, to pay homage to Lemmy. In the new video for “Still it hurts”, Pesch recalls the loss of one of her closest friends and metal fellow, passed away one year ago.
“When I finally got the call, I didn’t even have to pick up the phone. I felt the ringing of the phone was strange. Oh no…” the German musician recalled the sad day, speaking at the radio broadcast, Noize In The Attic.
“Between Lemmy and [Ronnie James] Dio, I lost the most important people in my life in music, the closest friends,” she added recently in an interview with the Charlotte Observer. “Life is not forever.”
Talking about the tribute video and the song, Doro stated: “It’s been exactly one year since the world of rock lost on of its greatest characters — and one of my best friends — Lemmy Kilmister. One year and we miss him so much. Therefore it was our great wish to release this video with a compilation of our greatest moments that we had together. Here it is. In memory of Lemmy, one of the greatest rock’n’roll heroes! It still hurts! R.I.P., my dear friend — we love you.”
The two met and played together for the first time at the Monster of Rock Festival in 1986. After the show, the singer lost track of Lemmy but wrote right to him when she found a copy of Motörhead‘s “No Sleep At All” and saw a photo of her and Lemmy printed on the inner sleeve. Doro then sent a copy of the shot to the bassist, hinting at a collaboration, and was called back by Kilmister, who invited her over in L.A. to record and kicked off a working relationship and a friendship that would last for the following two decades and a half.
“Lemmy was an angel to me” the singer added. “He saved my life because he worked with me [at] the time my dad died in 2000. I was devastated and heartbroken and one day later the phone rang and it was Lemmy. I didn’t even want to answer. I wrote him a letter months before, to management saying [that] we are labelmates now and I was wondering if we could do a song together. I’d forgotten about it.”
Watch below the music video for “It Still Hurts” by Doro Pesch featuring Lemmy, dedicated to the demise of the Motörhead leader:
During recent times, the unstoppable rocker had to face several health problem, like the heart troubles that forced him to slow down his rock’n’roll routine a bit. However, Lemmy did not stop touring and kept going until sudden illnesses came into play last November. Better late than never, apparently: on December 11, the band completed one leg of the European tour, astounding their faithful fans across the world even after the criticism regarding their last effort, “Bad Magic”.
Although it all had happened only a few weeks before, Kilmister celebrated his 70th birthday with many of his friends and fellow musicians, among whom Zack Wylde, Sebastian Bach, Guns N’ Roses vets Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum and Gilby Clark, Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, Billy Idol, Anthrax‘s Scott Ian, gathering to the event held at the infamous Whisky a Go Go from all around the country, on December 24.
“It’s when you get to 60 when everything starts to go pear-shaped” Lemmy told Ultimate Classic Rock, last year. “Everyone thinks that becoming an older guy is easy, but you never consider it fully. It comes as quite a shock. But the thing is, I don’t want to give in to it,” said Lemmy. “I’m all right. I’m going out there and doing my best. I have good days and bad days, but mostly I’ve been doing all right.”
Nobody knew it yet, but the legendary bassist was about to go out in style, like he’d always been used to.
Two days after the all-star party, Motörhead mainman discovered in fact the end-stage cancer that led to his passing just two days later, on December 28, 2015, at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by his closest friends and family.
As Lemmy himself said once: “Death is an inevitability, isn’t it? You become more aware of that when you get to my age. I don’t worry about it. I’m ready for it. When I go, I want to go doing what I do best. If I died tomorrow, I couldn’t complain. It’s been good.”
