Lemmy picks the greatest guitarist of all time: “You’ll never see a guitar player like him, ever”
When there is eventually a proper definition for rock and roll, Lemmy Kilmister may as well be the ideal example of what the genre stands for. Having lived through some of the most significant rises and falls that the industry had ever seen, Lemmy was known as the perfect image of a rocker, leading his band Motörhead through some of the heaviest music that the world had ever seen at the time. Although Lemmy could throw down with the best of them, he knew of more significant artists out there.
Then again, Lemmy knew a thing or two about guitar long before he had even picked up a bass. Although he was known for years for his trusty Rickenbacker bass strung across his chest, the frontman was initially a guitar player before being tricked into playing bass for a gig with the group Hawkwind.
When given his first guitar lesson, Lemmy would recall that he had to learn everything as he went along, telling Behind the Music, “Someone asked, ‘Could someone play bass?’ and my friend said, [points at Lemmy ]‘He does’. I had literally never touched one. Then [Dave Brock] came over to me and said, ‘Make some noises in E, don’t do this, don’t do that’ and walked away from me.”
While Lemmy would hold his own enough to make multiple albums with Hawkwind, the rest of the British scene was getting wowed by other psychedelic artists, opening listeners’ minds to what rock could do. Amid the Summer of Love, landmark albums by acts like The Beatles and Cream would set the standard for the psych-rock movement, creating songs as informed by their musical taste as they were from the common substances being passed around at the time.
Regardless of the drugs floating around, Lemmy knew he was in the presence of greatness when seeing Jimi Hendrix on stage. Coming from Seattle, Hendrix was blending every piece of music he could think of under one roof, taking the essential elements of blues, soul, rock and R&B and channelling each of them into beautiful works of art on albums like Are You Experienced.
Despite Eric Clapton’s reputation around the scene as one of the resident gods of the genre, Hendrix was soon coming up to displace ‘Slowhand’ on the throne. By the time he had started to light his guitar on fire at his shows, Hendrix had turned himself into the ideal guitar hero, producing sounds out of his instrument as if they were an extension of his personality.
While Lemmy got the opportunity to roadie for Hendrix a handful of times, he never thought that anyone could come close to what he did on guitar, telling Louder Than Hell, “By the time he got to where he was going, he was the fucking best. You’ll never see a guitar player like him, ever. Van Halen and all them guys don’t even get close. The man would do a double somersault and come up playing. I learned a lot about performing [when] working as a roadie for Hendrix.”
By the time Lemmy left Hawkwind, he knew that he wanted something heavier, following the lead of Hendrix’s former employer, Little Richard, by creating the most feral rock and roll ever created across albums like Overkill and Bomber. Motörhead may have had some sublime solo work sprinkled throughout every iteration of their tenure, but Lemmy always knew that anyone behind the fretboard would just be pulling from Hendrix’s playbook.