Phil Campbell talks about Lemmy Kilmister’s temper

The longtime Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell, who had the chance to work with the late, legendary bassist, songwriter, and singer Lemmy Kilmister, recalled in an interview with Metal Hammer what the musician’s temper was like. According to him, Lemmy was polite and nice to people 99% of the time but didn’t like dealing with “idiots.” When someone did something wrong to him, he would stand up and fight for what was right.

One example of that was when, according to Phil, Lemmy threw a hamburger at a two-million-dollar mixing desk in a studio.

Phil Campbell talks about Lemmy Kilmister’s temper

“Me, Lem, and Mikkey ended up arguing about something. Howard (Benson – producer) said, ‘I can settle this for you now, I’ve been recording the last 20 minutes.’ It turns out Lem was wrong.”

“He was eating this cheeseburger, and he suddenly rammed it into the mixing desk, getting all this cheese and lettuce gummed up into this $2,000,000 desk. Poor Howard, he had to call out and say, ‘Can we get a repairman? Lemmy from Motörhead’s just trashed our desk with a cheeseburger.'”

“(He was) always very polite to people. He was a gentleman 99% of the time, until something pissed him off, and then he’d fight for his rights. You could only push him so far. He couldn’t stand to be surrounded by idiots.”

He continued:

“Sometimes he was a little fuckin’ girl, if he was screaming at us about nothing. But we would scream right back! We had great arguments in such a friendly way. Like a family should have. There was never any pissing or moaning – there was never trash talk behind anyone’s back,” Phil Campbell said.

Lemmy Kilmister formed Motörhead in 1975 and fronted the band until his death at the age of 70 in 2015. They were one of the most influential Hard Rock bands of all time and were extremely important for many bands, like Metallica, for example. Campbell joined the band in 1984 and was part of it until the end.