Metallican James Hetfield ylistää Lemmyä tuoreessa haastattelussa: ”Meillä kaikilla on oma mentorimme”
Jokaisella tunnetulla muusikolla on joskus ollut omat idolinsa aloittaessaan soittamaan. Yhdysvaltalaisen thrash metallin legendan Metallican laulaja-kitaristi James Hetfield on antanut hiljattain haastattelun Newsweekille, jossa on keskustellut Ronnie James Dion sekä Motörheadin Lemmyn merkityksestä itselleen uran alkuvaiheissa. Jamesin mukaan Lemmy toimi tavallaan mentorina Metallicalle ja korosti haastattelussa Motörheadin merkitystä yhtyeelle. Voit lukea pätkän haastattelusta tästä:
”We all have our mentors, and we need them, or at least I do,” Hetfield explained. ”I need someone who I’m lookin’ up to, to either try and chase or learn from. We were asked by Dio’s wife, Wendy, to contribute to [2014’s ’Ronnie James Dio – This Is Your Life’ tribute album]. And that was kind of a no-brainer. We’re no strangers to doing covers. So the ’Ronnie Rising Medley’ was kind of a combination of all the good stuff we loved from Dio. It’s great to challenge myself with singing stuff like that. It helps me grow. And it also helps me push limits that I think I’m stuck in.”
”Lemmy in particular was an icon, sort of a godfather for people who love heavy metal. He was the captain of the ship. And we all felt he was immortal [laughs], doing the hard, hard, hard livin’ for such a long time on the road, and just really goin’ for it. [Laughs] We knew it would come to an end at some point. But we really didn’t expect it. There’s certainly no METALLICA without a MOTÖRHEAD.”
”We would get to jam with Lemmy. He was a very friendly guy. We covered quite a few of their songs. You know, MOTÖRHEAD never made it into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which is a shame. But he did win a Grammy for a song called ’Whiplash’ that we had recorded on ’Kill ’Em All’. We were trying to write a MOTÖRHEAD song. He covered our song [for MOTÖRHEAD’s 2006 album, ’Kiss Of Death’] that was kind inspired by him, and he wins a Grammy for it. That is very cool.”