Former Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee occupied the band’s drum throne longer than anyone else. Following the death of frontman Lemmy Kilmister in 2015, Dee was recruited by German metal legends the Scorpions, with whom he still is a member.
During a recent appearance on the Metal Sticks podcast, Dee shared what made his late boss so special and what he told him when he joined the group back in 1992. “His way of thinking, his way of living, his way of seeing the world reflects a lot in how this band was,” Dee said. “I keep saying, if everybody was like Lem, we would never have a war, we would never run into this f*cking political bullsh*t correctness, and everybody could take a joke and everybody could live life. And Lemmy was extremely intelligent, and that made him to what he was — a very simple, easygoing guy.”
Dee continued: “He was never, ever a rock star. And the first thing he told me when I joined, he took me on my shoulders and said, ‘You know what, Mikkey? Good manners cost nothing. Remember that. But if you walk into a room and there’s a f*cking a*shole in there, make sure you are the biggest a*shole of them all.'”
“He was extremely simple, which also made it very easy to work with him and also very hard, because you already knew what he was gonna say or think. And we were very much a democracy in Motörhead, so it was not like Lemmy decided everything. But in a way, of course, me and (guitarist) Phil Campbell, and earlier (guitarist) Würzel, of course it’s Lemmy’s band; it will never be anything else. And we automatically had to have Lemmy with us in decisions, of course. That’s just common sense. But there was a few times where we actually had to walk across him or walk over him because he just made the wrong decision and we had to prove it for him. And we did. But it was such a great friendship and great democracy in this band that I don’t think I will never, ever, ever experience anything like it (again).”
