It's no secret that the members of Metallica love Motorhead. In 1995, the band even went so far as to dress up as frontman Lemmy to play a set of Motorhead covers to celebrate the iconic frontman's 50th birthday as "The Lemmys".
But with the band's 50th anniversary coming this year, in a new interview with Metal Hammer, guitarist Kirk Hammett shared what Motorhead mean to him.
“Lemmy was the real deal, right to the fucking end," Kirk says. "What a man. It’s hard for me to really single out a Motorhead song I like. I love Ace Of Spades, we actually cover that in the wedding band, but then you’ve got these absolutely insane songs like Motorhead and White Line Fever. What a band!"
"When I first saw the cover of Ace Of Spades, I just fucking //knew// man," he continues. "I’d heard Overkill before that and remember thinking, ‘this is way faster than Scorpions or UFO. Overkill, cool!’ But then a week or whatever later I saw that Ace Of Spades cover and was just like, okay I’ve gotta buy this album. I got home and put it on… Oh my god. Lemmy opens up his voice and starts singing, my mind fucking exploded. Me and all my friends were into punk rock, right? Local San Francisco hardcore bands; me and my friends fucking loved it. The tone of Lemmy’s voice was like he’d got a distortion box in his throat. The sound of that bass too! I felt like I was in the mud with those guys. It’s so dirty and aggressive, so real!”
