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| Lemmy Kilmister |
With his trademark moles framed by dark muttonchops, the bassist and vocalist cut an unmistakable figure on stage as he craned his neck to the microphone, growling out hits like "Ace of Spades" with a throat he said he fed for decades with a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey a day.
"The thing about hangovers is, you have to stop to get one," Lemmy liked to say.
A notorious amphetamine user, he once claimed to have stayed up for two weeks non-stop, but the hard living eventually took its toll and he struggled with his health in recent years.
After cutting his teeth in beat bands in the 1960s, he spent time as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix before his first taste of stardom with British space rockers Hawkwind, singing the band's biggest hit, biker anthem Silver Machine, in 1972.
During his stint in the band, Lemmy's pummeling bass lines became a stock-in-trade and provided the backbone of the ear-splitting Motorhead, which he formed in 1975 after being thrown out of Hawkwind following a drug bust in Canada.
After a bumpy start and lineup changes, the trio of Lemmy, guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor, tore through a string of albums that fed off the energy of punk rock and laid the foundations for thrash metal.
Between early 1979 and late 1980, "Overkill," "Bomber" and "Ace of Spades" sent the band racing toward the upper reaches of the British album charts. In 1981, Motorhead finally hit No. 1 with its live classic, "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith."
Lemmy, who was born in England in 1945, lived in Los Angeles, near the Sunset Strip, for decades and was controversial for his collection of Nazi memorabilia.
The band's classic line-up broke up in 1982, and Motorhead would record 22 studio albums in total.
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