Despite being eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for more than 20 years, the late Lemmy Kilmister and his band Motörhead are still noticeably absent from its list of inductees. It's a glaring oversight that Metallica frontman James Hetfield lamented in a new interview.
“The person who lives the most rock 'n' roll on this planet is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which is a travesty, a shame,” Hetfield said. The Metallica report podcast. “It's kind of disrespectful to rock 'n' roll, basically.”
Early in the interview, Hetfield talked about how important Lemmy was to him personally. As we previously reported, Hetfield recently got a tattoo with Lemmy's ashes inked, which he also went into more detail about.
“Adriana, my girlfriend, her best friend passed away,” Hetfield said. [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]. “And we were just talking about the ability to put ashes in ink to represent someone you carry with you in your life. So coming up with ideas of what would represent that person and memories for their life, I mean, that's really what they are; They are memories”.
Hetfield was among those who received some of Lemmy's ashes in a silver bullet necklace following the late Motörhead legend's death. The ashes were then infused into ink for the tattoo of a shovel inside an iron cross on Hetfield's middle finger.
“So Lemmy can still bring the bird to the world through me,” Hetfield said of the ashes tattoo. “And just a reminder of the inspiration he has been in my life: what to do and what not to do. And for me to pay my respects to him maybe instead of him being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which still pisses me off.”
Regarding the health risk of mixing Lemmy's ashes with tattoo ink, Hetfield commented: “The obvious joke with my friend, tattoo artist Corey Miller, who's done a lot of my stuff, was, 'Are you sure do you want to do this? Did you consult with your doctor? There could still be large amounts of speed in his ashes or, you know, whatever, I don't know, a screwdriver. 'Did you consult with your sponsor? Do you agree with this?' And yeah, hopefully most of that shit burned.”
Metallica resumes its “M72 World Tour” with a European leg beginning Friday (May 24) in Munich, Germany. They will return to North America starting August 2 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Tickets for the European shows are available. herewhile you can purchase tickets for North American concerts here.
You can listen to the full podcast with Hetfield below.
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