Mikkey Dee recalls struggling Lemmy not wanting to cancel what turned out to be Motörhead’s final tour

Mikkey Dee recalls struggling Lemmy not wanting to cancel what turned out to be Motörhead’s final tour

Former Motörhead and current Scorpions drummer Mikkey Dee was recently interviewed by Andrew Daly for Metal Sucks. Dee was promoting Motörhead‘s album Bad Magic: Seriously Bad Magic, which was released via Silver Lining Music on February 24, 2023. The record Bad Magic: Seriously Bad Magic, is essentially the band’s Bad Magic album from 2015 with previously unreleased bonus tracks and a bonus live record.

With respect to his enduring memories from the tour that followed Bad Magic, Dee indicated: “The last tour was pretty hard. We had to take it one day at a time because Lemmy was struggling. It was no secret, but at the same time, I just looked at Lemmy while we were playing, and I knew how much he had put in to be able to do this. Honestly, as the tour was happening, I told him several times that we should pack it up. I thought he should go home, rest, and feel better. But he said, “Oh, no. I don’t want to cancel. We’ve got to play. The fans paid for this. I’m not going home.”

After that, me and Phil talked about it, and we said, “Look, let’s not fight him. Let’s let him have this. Let’s help him instead.” So, we did everything we could to support him and keep the tour going. We had to pull down the tempos a little bit on certain songs so that Lemmy could keep up on the nights that he wasn’t feeling strong. We just tried to help him out as best we could, and we got it done. For us to be able to play those shows was incredible. We managed to play most of the shows; that’s incredible.”

In terms of Lemmy‘s state of mind at that time, Dee stated: “He took the hit and gave it all he had. He took a lot of punches. I remember that after the shows, on most nights, he would be completely exhausted. We all were tired, but obviously, he was more than us. But that gave us the inspiration to continue because we saw how much Lemmy wanted it. He did not want to give up; he did not want to cancel. He said, “We have to stay out here. We should stay out on the road for our fans who bought tickets. They want to hear us; we got to do this.” And looking back, I’m so glad we did. Lemmy took punches, but he hit back in a big way, and he succeeded. He really did die with his boots on; I’ll tell you that.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Mikkey Dee via Metal Sucks‘ website.