Thursday, first day of the Wacken Festival, a warm and humid afternoon, large groups on reporters sit down in the press tent, waiting for the Motorhead press conference.
The guys arrive, Lemmy's holding a bottle of Jack Daniels, and they sit down,
First few moments are passed by the reporters taking massive amounts of photos, and only when the band reminds them that they are supposed to ask questions, the press conference truly begins.
Q: The last Motorhead album was in very aggressive album, a trend shown also in the prior albums, but the last one was definitily you're heaviest, can you tell us the reasons for that?
A: That's true, the album was recorded very fast, this time we used much faster drums, much faster tempos, the guitars were also much more intense and heavy, that's something we wanted to do.
Q: Do you like to do Festivals?
A: Yea, we like the toilets here…
There are a lot of people in festivals, there's a lot going on outside the festival apart from the shows themselves, a lot more women!
At this point, Nibbs, Saxon's guitarist, comes in and stands in the back, beer in hand, and he and Lemmy start a conversation:
Lemmy: Hey, you can ask Nibbs what he thinks about the women in festivals!
Nibbs: Don't mind him, I'm married, and it's your press conference, I'm not here…
Q: You have a track called Whorehouse Blues, what's the deal with this blues track, and are you thinking of doing a blues album?
A: Blues in one of the main genres both rock music and us are very much based on, but mainly it's just a fun song for us to do!
Q: What about a show in France, which is something your current tour does not include?
A: Last time we almost got bullocked there, but we really don’t have a problem doing shows there, last time there we really had fun, and as a rule we like to do shows in the UK, France Germany Etc.
Q: What are the band's priorities, making albums or doing live shows?
A: First thing is doing the promotion for the album, which is the tours, but we need to have material to do on this tours, so both things are important, and making albums is important as well.
Q: Do you guys vote? Who would you vote for, Bush or Kerry?
A: Lemmy: I would vote for packman.
Mikkey: they're both bad, Bush is Pinocchio, and Kerry is an idiot…
Q: Is there something that you think the band hasn’t achieved yet?
A: We don’t think about the past at all, we all look at the future; in any case none of us plans a political career…
Lemmy: I'm willing to play up until I'm in a wheelchair…
Q: What are your views regarding prostitution and murder?
A: Prostitutes are great people, and the profession prevents a lot of sex-based murders…
Q: The band changed a lot, album wise, what would you define as the band's best period, and which is your favorite album?
A: Regarding musical style, a lot of the veteran bands turn more aggressive, it's just a sign of the times, and a lot of the older bands do it today.
From our point of view this is a really good period, sales wise; creative wise, we have a new album almost every year, but from our perspective our best album is probably Bastards.
Q: Why don't you do more USA shows?
A: The US situation since September 11th is crap, Mikkey had this incident where he was talking to this guy in a basket ball game, and he accidentally stepped on the line, and this security guy just jumped out of nowhere and asked him to remove his leg, he told him to piss off, naturally, but you get the picture, everything's super sensitive.
Because of that, and because of the fact that the promotion there really sucks, we prefer to do either European or South American shows.
Q: In light of all the reality shows, such as The Ozzbourns, would you consider doing your own reality show, something like The Lemmy Show?
A: We really like and are friends with Ozzy, but they can't buy us that cheap!
Q: Mikkey was in video clip by dance music artist, E-Type, how did you get to do that?
A: The artist is a friend of the band, the guy himself is a metal fan, he's really into metal and not dance, he just does dance music to get money!
As a favor to a friend, I agreed to do the clip.
In any case, E-Type is going to release an album containing metal covers of all his dance songs.
Q: What are the chances you come and play in such an exotic location such as Israel?
A: We would be glad to do a show anywhere, you can drop us in the jungle and we'll do it, we just go on and off the buss as our manger commands us...
We already did shows in South American with armed freedom fighters around us, so Israel really isn’t a problem for us…
Elad Miasnikov and Martin Gravholm
