In a new interview with Classic Rock, Ozzy Osbourne revealed that he spoke to Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister on the morning that the legendary MOTÖRHEAD frontman passed away.
“He was a good man, Lemmy was,” Ozzy said. “All the guys from MOTÖRHEAD have gone now, from the original band. It’s hard to lose anyone you love.
“I was talking to Lemmy on the morning that he died, but I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. I wanted to talk to someone else who was there, but they kept giving the phone to Lemmy.”
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.
During last year’s appearance on BBC Radio, Ozzy was asked to single out his rock god.
“My rock god is Lemmy Kilmister,” BLACK SABBATH singer said. “Lemmy was a guy — he shot from the hip every time. ‘That sucks,’ or, ‘I like that.’ I’m good at starting lyrics, but I can’t finish them. And he’d go — he’d write a bunch of lyrics for my songs — ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home.’
“So, I’d give him a tape, and I had this book on World War II. I haven’t read it and I told him, ‘Tell me what you think. And I have a bunch of these lyrics — whenever you can…’ I’m thinking, it’s gonna be a week. And he says, ‘Come back in about four hours.’ So I got back, and he goes, ‘What do you think about these?’ And I go, ‘Oh, great.’ He then goes, ‘What about these?’ I go, ‘Oh, you got two…?’
“He goes, ‘No, I got another one — three.’ I go, ‘You had written three sets of lyrics?!’ He said, ‘Yeah, and that book was crap!’ I said, ‘What book?’ He says, ‘The book you gave me.’
“He was a speed-reader! He could read really fast. He was amazing! You look at people like Lemmy and you think, ‘Oh, he’s a yob [a rude, noisy, and aggressive young person].’ But he was very well-educated.”
