Lemmy’s Last Days: How Metal Legend Celebrated 70th, Stared Down Cancer
Two weekends before his death, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead was celebrating an unlikely milestone on the Sunset Strip: his coming 70th birthday. He looked frail but regal in his black cavalry jacket and hat, watching from an upstairs balcony at the Whisky a Go Go as Slash, Billy Idol, Sebastian Bach and other famous rock & roll comrades paid tribute to him onstage.
The emailed invitation had called for a night of music, “chit-chat and general all-around merriment” on December 13th. Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum was the private party’s host and musical director, leading a crowd of prominent performers from hard rock and punk.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich flew in for the event, and sat with Lemmy much of the night. Standing onstage, guitarist Zakk Wylde wore a denim vest over a black Motörhead T-shirt and repeated the old joke about certain ageless and indestructible rockers, lamenting about “what kind of world we’re going to leave for Lemmy and Keith Richards.”
Lemmy himself had just flown in from Europe the day before and was worn out. His right hand trembled and he rested a walking stick across his knees as friends and fans wished him well. Near the end of the night, OFF! guitarist Dimitri Coats leaned in to say hello and remind Lemmy of a 2003 night drinking and gaming together at the Crazy Girls strip club in Hollywood.
Lemmy shook his hand and asked with a smile, “Did I win?”
He was a winner in rock & roll for many of his 70 years, though his sudden death from cancer on Monday was a shock to both fans around the world and those closest to the iconic Motörhead singer-bassist. Two weeks ago, the band finished a winter European tour, closing their final performance in Berlin on December 11th with the crushing hard-rock fan favorite “Overkill.” They planned to be back in Europe in January.
For the last two years, health problems weighed heavily on the trio, beginning with Lemmy abruptly cutting short a 2013 concert in Wacken, Germany. He suffered from diabetes and a heart arrhythmia, and he soon underwent surgery to implant a defibrillator, but he returned to the road as always, with two acclaimed performances at Coachella the next year, followed by tour dates around the world, and a new album, Bad Magic, released this past summer.
There were some modest lifestyle changes: Lemmy cut back from his more than two packs of cigarettes a day to one pack a week. And after at least four decades of a half-gallon of Jack Daniels every day, he switched to vodka and orange juice and just four or five drinks a day. He still enjoyed his daily speed.
In recent weeks, Lemmy began to slow down. “He did no more soundchecks. He wouldn’t do interviews. He couldn’t do anything,” says Todd Singerman, who managed the band for 24 years. But Lemmy performed as scheduled. “To really think of what energy and the balls that took to still play shows for the fans, to do the last fucking show two weeks ago, and then drop. That’s like a Rocky story to me. This is courage at his best. He was dying. He didn’t know it, but his body must have felt it. He had nothing left.”