Awkward Silences and Nervous Giggles with Motorhead’s Lemmy

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It is no small feat to kill an interview with Lemmy, the handle-bar mustachiod legend of Motorhead, given the man’s generous dropping of F-Bombs and prodigious wit.  He’ll talk about groupies’ “wobbling titties” in front of hundreds (and their kids!), answer the first question on seeing the Beatles as a teenager with the gem “the Stones were just dressing up — the Beatles were from a hard town,” and bite every hand that’s fed him (including present company: “who wants to go to a conference giving each other hand jobs and talkin’ ‘bout how wonderful their latest project is?”).  And yet, Phillip Freeman, former editor-in-chief of Metal Head Magazine, managed to insert as many awkward pauses and “yeah…yeah”s as was possible given the sheer entertainment value of the subject at hand.  With gems such as “How many basses do you own?” (“10”), “Do you think if you wanted you could play Jazz?” (“I don’t bloody think so, given that I’ve never tried), and “Shouldn’t you maybe license your name to more companies in order to get the checks?” (“We have one person we work with on that”) Mr. Freeman basically pitched high and outside at what was supposed to be a home run exhibition.  It’s a testament to Lemmy’s complete watchability that he managed to hit as many as far as he did.