Motorhead almost disbanded in 1976 according to Lemmy Kilmister in a lost interview from 1981.
The interview comes from Malcolm Dome who originally set up the chat with Lemmy for Ireland’s Hot Press. The interview never got published for an unknown reason. However, Dome recently came across his original work and it appears as part of the June 25 reissue of Motorhead’s live album No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith and was published by Rolling Stone.
Dome asked Lemmy, “Motorhead have come a long way since you were voted ‘The Best Worst Band in the World’ by ‘NME’ readers in 1976. Did you really think about giving up when that happened?”
Lemmy bluntly responded, “We did. Nothing was happening for us. We’d done an album [‘On Parole’] for United Artists that they refused to release [but eventually would 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. Tw-ts. So we felt there was nowhere to go.”
He added, “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. Luck was on our side because he couldn’t get the equipment to the club, and to make up for it offered us two days in the studio. We recorded the whole of the ‘Motorhead’ album. That came out in ’77, because by then the contract with United Artists had run out, and suddenly we were on our way.”
Lemmy took the poll results in stride, though, and concluded, “How do I feel about that ‘NME’ poll? At least they admitted we were the best at something.”
