Drought When I Die

The sun is still shining on L.A.'s Sunset Strip as Lemmy Kilmister takes his favorite spot at the bar of the Rainbow Bar & Grill. Sipping from a glass, he feeds dollars into a machine to play games of trivia and chance like Clock Teaser, a quiz about women and nature. At 67, the Motörhead frontman looks just as he always has: black cavalry hat with gold insignia, prominent warts and mutton chops, embroidered cowboy boots. But that's Diet Coke in his glass, not Jack Daniel's. And while the jokes roll out easily in his distinctive British rasp, he sounds like a man who's still recovering from a gut punch.

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Lemmy's illness kept him quietly at home as Motörhead's thunderous 21st album, Aftershock, brought in the band's best first-week sales in decades last October. A few months earlier, his friend and onetime songwriting partner Mick Farren had collapsed onstage in London while performing with the Deviants. Farren never regained consciousness. "There are worse places to go," Lemmy says. "It's better than having tubes up your nose. I'd much rather go dressed in my best, trying to reach that last note."

After being forced to cancel the rest of Motörhead's European festival dates last July, Lemmy backtracked and tried to perform for the 85,000 rock fans at the Wacken Open Air concert in Germany. But he had to leave the stage after just a handful of songs. "We only did 38 minutes and I was done," he says. "I was too tired. I had to come off." Adds Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell, "It reminded us that this mountain of unwavering Lemm is actually a tiny bit mortal like we all are."

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Lemmy says he worries about the future of his beloved rock & roll as his generation eases past middle age into retirement or worse. He sees few younger artists committed enough to the tradition to carry it into the future. "There's nobody now," he says. "There is going to be a huge hole, and nobody to step into it." You can see the concern on his face. "I think it's important music. It's the constant music of this generation and the last one and the last one."

[♠]

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You are not the only one who's worried, Lemm. You are not the only one.

...But how does one keep on existing in a world that seems so willing to erase them? Is it possible for a single man to change the tide of a river just by swimming against it?

I can only hope the answer is YES.