For the rest of his life, Lemmy would look back on the aftermath of Motörhead’s crowning glory with their 1981 album No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith and protest that it wasn’t his fault they could never follow it up.
“The trouble is, you can’t follow a live album that went straight in at Number One,” he said. “I mean, what do you do? You can’t put out another live album. And you can’t follow it with a studio album because that’s been the live album people have been waiting for for five years, right? So we were fucked whatever we did. We could have done the best studio album in the world and we would have been fucked. Except we didn’t, we did Iron Fist.”
In reality, no one wanted or expected another live album. What Motörhead’s fans did expect was a new album as good as the previous three, the unholy trinity of Overkill, Bomber and Ace Of Spades. What no one saw coming was Iron Fist, 12 tracks light on inspiration and spirit, overloaded with arrogance and disaffection. Exactly the kind of ill-starred, done-quick, out-ofcontrol album that events leading up to its creation all but guaranteed.
As guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke told me: “Iron Fist was the toughest because we were getting low on ideas and things were getting strained.”
Drummer Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor was particularly affected by the onrush of fame, Eddie claimed.
“Lemmy was not himself, either…”
Indeed, Lemmy
