The Iron Maiden classic song “The Trooper” is known in Bruce Dickinson’s voice, but another great rock and roll legend had also recorded the song. The legendary Lemmy Kilmister made a cover version with Phil Campbell, Rocky George, Chuck Wright and Chris Slade back in 2005 on the tribute “Numbers from the Beast: An All Star Salute to Iron Maiden”.
Hear the version below:
The album also brought together names like Dee Snider, Jeff Scott Soto, Tim “Ripper” Owens and even ex-vocalist Paul Di’Anno himself paying homage to the English band. Lemmy stayed with “The Trooper”. It’s still bizarre to compare Bruce Dickinson’s original, sharp vocals to the vocals of the Motörhead lead singer, but he still did well.
Lemmy’s death
On 28 December 2015, four days after his seventieth birthday, Lemmy died at his apartment in Los Angeles at 4pm PST, from prostate cancer, congestive heart failure, and cardiac arrhythmia.
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Motörhead announced his death on their official Facebook page later that day. According to the band, his cancer had only been diagnosed two days prior to his death.
Lemmy’s manager, Todd Singerman, later revealed:
He [Lemmy] gets home [from tour], we have a big birthday party for him at the Whisky A Go Go. His friends came down and played. Two days later I could tell he wasn’t feeling good. So we took him to the hospital. “
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“They release him. Then after the brain scan, they found the cancer in his brain and his neck. The doctor comes with the result a couple of days later and says “It’s terminal.”
Lemmy’s doctor had given him between two and six months to live. Following the terminal diagnosis, Rainbow Bar owner Mikael Maglieri brought a video game machine that Lemmy was fond of playing at the establishment over to his apartment so he could continue playing it from his bedside.
Although his manager had planned to keep the news private until his eventual death, Lemmy strongly encouraged him to make the diagnosis public in early 2016, but he died before a press release could be drafted.
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