PHIL CAMPBELL Reflects On MOTÖRHEAD’s Final Tour, Says LEMMY ‘Wasn’t Quite Himself’

Motorhead 2015

In a new interview with the “CATtales” podcast, guitarist Phil Campbell looked back on MOTÖRHEAD‘s final tour leading up to the December 2015 death of Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister.

“Towards the last couple of years, Lem wasn’t quite himself,” Campbell said (hear audio below). “He just wanted to carry on. You could see Lemmy aging a little bit more, ’cause he was a fair amount older than the rest of us. But he was doing fine — he was playing fine. We just carried on.

“We kind of slowed it down a little bit, but it was still full-on touring compared to what other bands do. Us slowing down was just like full-on [touring] for many other bands. So we’d still go on tour for two months anywhere where they would have us… But Lem played, basically, like he wanted to do as long as he possibly could. But it was difficult to watch sometimes at the very end.”

“For 30 years, it was like my routine, basically — traveling on a bus and meeting at airports and soundchecks and having a laugh and watching TV and all the stuff day after day after day after day after day, all of a sudden it just stops,” he added. “[But I have] great memories. We made some great music for people to still rock out to, so that’s great.”

Lemmy passed away on 28 December 2015, four days after his 70th birthday, from prostate cancer, cardiac arrhythmia and congestive heart failure. According to the band, his cancer had only been diagnosed two days prior to his death.