In a brand new interview with the “CATtales” podcast, Phil Campbell reflected on MOTÖRHEAD‘s final tour leading up to the December 2015 passing of the band’s frontman Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister.
“Towards the last couple of years, Lem wasn’t quite himself,” the MOTÖRHEAD guitarist said.
“He just wanted to carry on. You could see Lemmy aging a little bit more, ’cause he was a fair amount older than the rest of us. But he was doing fine — he was playing fine. We just carried on. We kind of slowed it down a little bit, but it was still full-on touring compared to what other bands do. Us slowing down was just like full-on [touring] for many other bands. So we’d still go on tour for two months anywhere where they would have us… But Lem played, basically, like he wanted to do as long as he possibly could. But it was difficult to watch sometimes at the very end.”
According to Campbell, the end of MOTÖRHEAD wasn’t easy to adjust to at first.
“For 30 years, it was like my routine, basically — traveling on a bus and meeting at airports and soundchecks and having a laugh and watching TV and all the stuff day after day after day after day after day, all of a sudden it just stops,” he said.
“[But I have] great memories. We made some great music for people to still rock out to, so that’s great.”