It’s unlikely anyone ever accused Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister of doing things half-hearted. Throughout his 70 years on this planet, the man recorded over 20 albums, toured the globe repeatedly, caroused with countless women, enjoyed copious amounts of Jack Daniel’s and Coke, and speed, and decided that he wanted to live the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to the fullest. And he certainly did.
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It also wasn’t a good idea to cross him. Back in 2000, Lemmy told me a story about a tour promoter in Europe who made one of the band’s tours difficult because the length of travel time between shows was so great they barely made it to some gigs. It also hurt their bottom line. They were not enthused by the situation, and they let their ire be known in an unusual way.
The Wrong Mileages
“He gave us all the wrong mileages to make it look like a good tour on paper before we went there, and we found out that they were all way longer than we expected they were,” Lemmy recalled to me. “We had to keep hiring boats to go up the fields to get places on time, and that was costing us a lot of money. By the time we finished, we were losing over three quarters of what we were making, so we got pretty pissed off with this guy.
“At the last show in Norway, he was leaning up against the amplifiers, obviously thought he’d got away with it, you know,” Lemmy continued. “Halfway through the fourth or fifth number—boom, four roadies got him handcuffed, trousers down, and let him out onstage. Our tour manager [told the crowd] ‘You see this a–hole? That’s the reason we were late today. Sorry, everybody, but it wasn’t our fault.’ [Then we] squeezed cream cheese and mayonnaise all over him.”
Irate at being humiliated on stage in his hometown, the angry promoter got into a taxi, still covered in cream cheese and mayo, and went to the local police.
“But This Is No Reason to Cover a Man with Cheese!”
“So this massive inspector arrives—they’re all tall in Norway—this guy’s about 6 foot 9,” Lemmy continued. “He says, ‘I think you have done something very awful with this person.’ I said, ‘Yeah, he gave us all the wrong [info].’ ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes!’ he said. ‘But this is no reason to cover a man with cheese!’”
Lemmy laughed: “A f–king great line, he was more worried about the cheese than anything else! He [probably] thought it was some weird English perversion, no doubt.”
During a Reddit Ask Me Anything chat session in 2023, former Motörhead tour manager Kim Hawes confirmed the incident happened. She was promoting her book Lipstick and Leather: On the Road with the World’s Most Notorious Rock Stars in which she discussed touring with the likes of Black Sabbath, Elvis Costello, and Rush.
“That’s a very long story but it ends with a Swedish promoter who had displeased Motörhead being tied naked to the Bomber lighting rig, covered in cream cheese,” Hawes explained in the Reddit AMA, but she was unable to elaborate further since it was in her book. (Hey, you’ve got to sell books!)
Despite Lemmy’s notorious excesses, the cream cheese incident, and having lots of women around him and the band, Hawes said he treated her well, especially as she was around a male band and crew.
“He was genuinely a nice guy because you can imagine my fear,” Hawes told the Daily Mail in 2023. “First of all, I was like am I going to be OK? Is anybody gonna try anything on with me? Is anything gonna happen to me? And he would not have stood for any of that whatsoever. I mean yes, there were girls all over the place, but there were only girls that wanted to be there. So he looked after me. I remember saying how I loved it, being on tour, and he just said: ‘It’s in your blood, kid.’ And even now, when I say it, I choke up slightly.”
Unlike the notorious promoter who likely developed an aversion to Lemmy and cream cheese.
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Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
