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Lemmy almost broke up Motorhead just as they received 'Best Band In The World' by NME

In a previously unpublished interview with Lemmy from 1981 he reveals how he almost broke up Motorhead just when they were about to smash the world.

Lemmy has been an international treasure for many years now, long before he sadly passed in 2015. There's hardly a person that would say anything bad about Lemmy. There's even a documentary simply titled "Lemmy" that celebrates the life of the legend. The legendary status hadn't hit the world at the time of the interview with Metal Hammer magazine in 1981.

The future of Motörhead seemed bleak in the mid '70s and Lemmy actually booked a farewell show for the band and he had planned to break up Motörhead.

Writer Malcolm Dome conducted an interview with Lemmy for Hot Press magazine in Ireland. For reasons unknown that article was never printed and has now been dusted off and printed for a new issue of Metal Hammer. It was at the time Motörhead received an huge positive reception to their brutal and awesome live album No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith. Lemmy was in a jovial mood on the day of the interview and he told how Motörhead could have not even have been a band five years before.

Dome reminded Lemmy that five years ago NME Magazine readers voted Motörhead as 'The Best Band In The World'.

Born to lose, live to win

‘Did you really think about giving up when that happened?’ Dome asked.

“We did,” Lemmy admitted. “Nothing was happening for us. We had done an album for United Artists that they refused to release [On Parole, finally issued in 1979]. It seems they expected us to do a pop album or something. What’s more, the company wouldn’t let us out of the contract with them. We’d done a single for Stiff. Leaving Here. And UA blocked its release. Twats. So we felt there was nowhere to go.”

“We even booked a farewell show at The Marquee in London and I asked Ted Carroll, who owns Chiswick Records and was a mate of mine, if he’d record this,” Lemmy continued. “Luck was on our side, because he couldn’t get the equipment to the club, and to make up for it, [he] offered us two days in the studio. We recorded the whole of the Motörhead album. That came out in ’77, because by then the contract with United Artists had run out, and suddenly we were on our way.”

Dome then asked Lemmy how he felt about the dubious accolade NME readers had bestowed upon his band.

“At least they admitted we were the best at something,” Lemmy laughed.