Lanky and long-haired, with mutton chops and moles, Lemmy Kilmister looked and lived like a hard-rock hero. He founded Motorhead in 1975 and continued recording and touring with the band until his death.
He began every live show with the announcement, “We are Motorhead, and we play rock and roll!”
The singer and bassist died Dec. 28 at age 70 after a brief battle with aggressive cancer, said his agent Andrew Goodfriend. Mr. Kilmister was diagnosed just two days earlier, according to a statement from the band, and he also suffered several other health problems in recent months.
“We cannot begin to express our shock and sadness, there aren’t words,” the band said in announcing the death on its Facebook page. “Play Motorhead loud, play Hawkwind loud, play Lemmy’s music LOUD. Have a drink or few. Share stories. Celebrate the LIFE this lovely, wonderful man celebrated so vibrantly himself. HE WOULD WANT EXACTLY THAT.”
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Born Ian Fraser Kilmister on Christmas Eve 1945, in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, England, he began playing in rock bands at 16. He saw the early Beatles in the Cavern Club in their native Liverpool and later worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix.
He became revered as a rock-and-roll master and innovator from his time with the seminal psychedelic band Hawkwind in the early 1970s to his four decades in Motorhead, best known for the 1980 anthem “Ace of Spades.” The band won a Grammy Award in 2004 for best metal performance.
“I was fired out of every other band I was ever in, so I had to start my own group,” Kilmister told the Los Angeles Times in 2010. “They couldn’t fire me out of that.”
Ozzy Osbourne called Mr. Kilmister “one of my best friends.”
Metallica tweeted: “Lemmy, you are one of the primary reasons this band exists. We’re forever grateful for all of your inspiration.”
Numerous other rock musicians took to social media to pay tribute.
“You can’t say ‘heavy metal’ without mentioning Lemmy,” Alice Cooper said in a statement.
The Recording Academy, which produces the Grammy Awards, also noted Mr. Kilmister’s death, calling him “a remarkable frontman and bona fide heavy metal icon.”
Notable deaths of 2015 and 2016
A look at those who have died.
— Associated Press
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