The Motorhead Story: has just been released as a double DVD package. It's the same as the 'Overkill - 30th Anniversary' release, but the labels and insert have changed.
This is the release I was asked to take part in, and did.
The heart op took place on 15th December 2006; my brother's birthday, and also the day Mum died in 1981. He has never said, but it must be rather poignant having those two occasions happening on the same day. I wasn't going to make it a triple, to make it even more poignant.
Released from Southampton hospital on the day before Xmas Eve, after such a major op, and 5 hours on the table, you are pretty battered around, and need time to recuperate. But in early January, 2007, Sarmad emailed to say a film company had made contact via the website. He gave me their details, and I phoned.
'We're making a Motorhead documentary, can you come up to London for an interview?'
'No, sorry, I've had open heart surgery, my solar plexus is very painful where it's fusing back together, and my lungs are weak and I get puffed out pretty quickly, so I can't go anywhere.'
'That's fine,' she said, 'can we visit you?'
With no immediate excuse available, and coming from a generation who don't like saying no; I agreed, and next morning, at around 11.30, a Mini pulled into the drive, and a young man and woman got out, lugging lights and a camera. The young woman was great, a confident and immediately likeable person, who quickly ran through what she was after, whilst the guy set everything up.
So we did it, for 3 hours - with a half hour break, and I sweat my nibs off under just two lights which felt like the Sahara sun at midday.
Out of that large span of time, they used three short edits.
The edit about 'Everyone should see Motorhead at least once a year, more if possible,' was at the end of quite a long piece which they edited out. For some reason or another, operations, or the anaesthetic, make us feel very emotional, and at the end of that part, I felt quite tearful. Motorhead mean a lot, you see, and are worth getting emotional about. I hadn't felt that emotional since 1995, and before that, in 1981, with Mum. I'm not good with tears, you see, after school punishments and suchlike, it wasn't cool to cry, so you trained yourself not to; and the habit sticks. No wonder I'm so emotionally f***ed up! And giving up alcohol and cigarettes didn't help the cause, either.
Looking at it on this DVD now, I can see that I wasn't at my best, and perhaps should have refused the interview, so soon after the op. But it happened so quickly, a phone call, and next day they were here, but I suppose it's better to be in it than not. Lemmy once told me. 'If someone offers you money, ask for double, and say thanks very much.' Well, he can get away with it as he's a legend. I had a small remuneration, and signed a contract which I didn't have time to read, and that was that; off they drove.
The DVD has been released a few times now, and many of you have no time for such 'unnoficial' releases. Well, I buy a copy as part of the service MHB's provide, so that I can tell you they're available, and you can decide whether you make a purchase; or not.
It's the best edit they have released, and would be nice to watch on the Biography or Sky Arts channels rather than the drivel they often air.
Krusher's on there, Malcolm Dome, and other Kerrang! notables I can't bring to mind just now, and new interviews with Wurzel and Robbo, recorded in 2007. There are also some band interviews (and live footage) edited from the 'Everything Louder Than Everything Else' release, so there is some involvement in a licensed off and retrospective kind of way.
So, if you don't want Auntie Fernackerpan to knit you yet another naff polo necked jumper for Xmas, this might be just the jobby as an alternative?
