What Lemmy Kilmister Thought of ’90s Rock + Metal at the Time

Motorhead never wanted to alter their sound even as others where doing so to keep up with the times, but what did Lemmy Kilmister think of bands such as Metallica, Venom, Nirvana and Pantera during the 1990s?

In an interview shared on the Guitar Lizard YouTube channel, which has become a go-to resource for classic Motorhead interviews, Lemmy Kilmister and drummer Mikkey Dee were asked for their thoughts on acts that wanted to follow in their footsteps. Among those specifically named by the interviewer were Metallica, Slayer and Venom.

The two wound up saying a lot by only saying a little — all on-brand for Motorhead, too.

“You look at them and the big difference is a lot of those bands are changing just because the music scene changed,” Dee said “We’re not doing that. We’re not updating our songs.”

That was enough to get Lemmy to lean forward in his chair while taking drags from a cigarette held between his tobacco-stained fingers.

“We’re kind of stuck in the mud. We don’t give a fuck,” Lemmy said. “We think what we’re doing is okay without changing it too much. We change it a bit, but not much. I’m quite satisfied with what we do.”

Lemmy’s Thoughts On The Death Of Kurt Cobain

The channel didn’t include a date when uploading the interview to YouTube. Additional questions from the interviewer show it was recorded sometime after the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.

Lemmy was asked for his thoughts on Cobain, whose body was found along with a suicide note in his Seattle home on April 8, 1994.

He made a dismissive comment, which demonstrates the cultural mindset toward mental health at the time, and concluded, “He was good though. He’s not good no more.”

Don’t take that as Lemmy disrespecting Cobain or Nirvana. Dave Grohl was asked to speak at Lemmy’s funeral in 2016 where he recounted the first time he met the Motorhead frontman in an exotic dance club.

“The first thing he ever said to me, he said ‘Hey, I’m sorry about what happened to your friend,'” Grohl said about meeting the man he considered a hero. “And in that moment, he went from being this gun-slinging, whiskey-drinking bad ass motherfucking rock star to being this gun-slinging, whiskey-drinking bad ass motherfucking rock star with a heart.”

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