I was not quite
sure whether or not to watch
any of the many tributes to Lemmy on
Youtube but I did and it brought back great memories of the eighties. In particular, the days of The Marquee and
the usual after gig den "The St Moritz”
in Wardour Street. Hanging out with
Randy Castillo, Michael Inez, Zakk Wylde. Ian Astbury, Matt Sorum etc.. These
were rocking days and Lemmy was at the centre of it all as everyone gravitated around him.
So after watching the memorial and listening to all the
stories I thought I’d shared with you another one directly related to Lemmy and
Motorhead.
In early 1988 I got a call from Lemmy’s secretary (Gill)
would told me that Lemmy wanted a Motorhead ring made and that he was on his way to discuss the design with me. We met
in the afternoon and as a designer I was really looking forward to working on his idea.
I asked him to draw the ring on a piece of paper, which he
promptly did, (see image 1 on left
)
That was Lemmy’s design!
I then asked "can you draw
more of the details?" He sketched the second drawing (on the right) that shows a top view of the
ring as well as the front. Again I said that I needed more details if I was to
create exactly what he had in mind. So
on the third attempt Lemmy drew the Motorhead ring. (2nd Image on the top left of the
page). He said to me that he could not remember if the chain was above the head
between the horns (see rough drawing) or below, but in any case this was as good as his
artwork was going to get. He wrote down his contact number in case I had any
questions. Some days later we met again and he brought an image of the Motorhead
“Snaggletooth” with added instructions (image 2 on the right).
As I mentioned on a previous post, I eventually made
three different versions of the ring following Lemmy’s comments and
instructions.
To this day I still
have all three original rings in my possession, I am very sorry, but they are
not for sale.
Great memories of a true legend.
