DEE SNIDER: How LEMMY KILMISTER Saved TWISTED SISTER (Video) and HAWKWIND’s DAVE BROCK Pays Tribute To LEMMY: ‘We Had A Magical Bond When We Played Together’
In the Artisan News clip below, TWISTED SISTER frontman Dee Snider reveals how Lemmy Kilmister from MOTÖRHEAD played a crucial role in helping TWISTED SISTER break through in the U.K.
Snider recalls how, in July 1982, TWISTED SISTER was offered the “special guest” slot on a bill at a heavy metal festival headlined by MOTÖRHEAD at a soccer stadium in Wrexham, North Wales.
Making the situation even more daunting, “makeup-wearing bands were not only nonexistent but completely unacceptable to English metal fans,” according to Dee.
Kilmister saved the day by offering to introduce TWISTED SISTER to the MOTÖRHEAD audience.
“Lemmy made it cool to like TWISTED,” Dee later said. “At Wrexham, MOTÖRHEAD‘s crowd had their bottles ready for us. We were shitting our pants, so for the headliner to bring on the opening act was just the coolest thing possible. I’ll love him forever for that.”
In his autobiography, “Shut Up And Give Me The Mic”, Snider wrote about the incident: “I am still not sure why Lemmy showed us this kindness. It’s probably just the way he is wired and one of the reasons he is so beloved. He may be a pirate, but he’s a benevolent pirate.”
HAWKWIND leader Dave Brock has paid tribute to his late bandmate Lemmy, describing him as “a character, a gentleman and friend.”
Lemmy, who just celebrated his 70th birthday on Christmas Eve (December 24), learned two days later, on December 26, that he was afflicted with an aggressive form of cancer. He died two days later, on Monday (December 28) at his home in Los Angeles.
Kilmister joined HAWKWIND in 1972 as the band’s bassist even though he had previously only played guitar. He fronted the band for their biggest hit, “Silver Machine”, but was fired in 1975 after being arrested at the American/Canadian border for having cocaine on his person — the irony being that he didn’t have coke on him, but speed. Even though it has been said that Lemmy‘s partaking in illicit substances was the cause for his dismissal, Kilmister denied that his drug use was not any more excessive than that of anyone else in the band. He would later say that he wasn’t kicked out for doing drugs, but for “doing the wrong kind of drugs.”
In true Kilmister fashion, Lemmy‘s departure would directly inform his next step. The last song that Lemmy wrote and recorded for HAWKWIND was a song about the both the thrill and dangers of being a speed addict, namely the track “Motorhead”.
Brock says: “So very sad to wake to the news that we have lost Lemmy. I’ll miss him, and especially our eccentric text conversations of recent years.”
He adds: “We had a magical bond when we played together. He had a style all of his own. His legendary bass playing will live on forever.
“We’ll miss you, man. You’ll not be forgotten.”
