MATT SORUM on playing with MOTÖRHEAD in 2009: “what a legendary moment in my career”
30-06-2025
In a new interview with Matty Roberts of the Percussion Discussion podcast, former GUNS N’ ROSES drummer Matt Sorum once again reflected on the experience of filling in for MOTÖRHEAD‘s Mikkey Dee on 13 shows during the latter band’s 2009 U.S. tour. He said: “That was just a pummel — a punk rock, rockabilly fucking metal pummel. (Late MOTÖRHEAD frontman) Lemmy never liked to call it metal. Lemmy liked to roll on rock. The interesting thing about that band was the volume. It was basically more about, what kind of energy are you gonna bring? And I say this to drummers: it’s your job, as a drummer, to kick the band in the ass. You’re setting the pace, pushing with volume and energy. You’re not back there fucking tickling them. It’s like you’re fucking throwing it into the energy of what the night is going to be for the audience.”
Matt continued: “I remember when Lemmy would say, ‘We are MOTÖRHEAD and we play rock and roll.’ And it’s fucking on — game on. It’s, like, ‘Fucking let’s go.’ And as a guy that’s done a lot of live shows, as a drummer, I have to harbor that energy. And now I spend most of the day doing that. Making sure I’m relaxed is probably one of the best parts for me of what I need to do to prepare to do a live show now, at my age and everything. I don’t like to be around too many people, ’cause it sucks my energy. And my energy is… Everything I wanna bring to the stage is important to keep it as much as possible. So if I sleep in a little bit, I’ll sleep a little bit more, I’ll wake up, try to stay quiet, and then I’ll have some food and then I’ll do a soundcheck and then maybe go back and relax some more. Maybe if I was on tour, I’d crawl in my bunk. I can’t run around all day like I used to. I’ve gotta really focus and then keep myself in good shape and then get up there and fucking kill it. The whole game is to get up there and throw down. And when I did that with MOTÖRHEAD — fuck! By gig four, my hands were fucked. I was, like, blistered up. I was like, ‘Man, Lemmy, I’m soft. I’m outta shape.’ But, man, what a legendary moment in my career. I’ll never forget it, that they even asked me.”
Sorum went on to say that he is “so happy for Mikkey” that Dee landed the drummer gig with the SCORPIONS nearly a decade ago, shortly after Lemmy‘s death. “Fucking great,” he said. “I went and saw ’em in Vegas, and I just love Mikkey. Now there’s a guy that can fucking go out all night, tear it up. The next day he’ll have 50 people backstage and goes on stage and kills it. I was out with him in Vegas… I don’t drink anymore. We were out till, like, four or five in the morning. And I was hanging with him. I’m, like, ‘Dude, you’ve got a show tomorrow.’ He’s, like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ (Laughs) Some guys can do it. I can’t do that like that anymore. But I used to.”
Sorum previously talked about his MOTÖRHEAD stint during a January 2019 appearance on “Trunk Nation LA Invasion: Live From The Rainbow Bar & Grill” on SiriusXM. He said at the time: “Lemmy called me up… He actually texted me, and I could hear his voice through the text: ‘Matt, I need you to play drums.’ And I actually texted him back. I wrote, ‘Why me?’ I don’t know why I said that. And he wrote back, ‘Dave Grohl‘s not available.’ Lemmy wasn’t a guy to mince words; he’d tell you the truth. I loved that about him. And I texted him, ‘When are we rehearsing?’ And he wrote back, ‘We aren’t.’
“I got a DVD (of MOTÖRHEAD‘s performance at the) Wacken (Open Air) festival,” he continued. “It came in the mail, like the next day, via FedEx. And he said, ‘Learn the Wacken show.’ And I learned it. And then I met them at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. We soundchecked and I played that night… And it was amazing. For a drummer, though… it got confusing, ’cause there’s a lot of MOTÖRHEAD songs that have that sort of thunderous rock kind of beat happening underneath, and I just needed to kind of decipher that. But, obviously, playing ‘Overkill’ and ‘Ace Of Spades’… Then I had to learn the newer stuff that Mikkey did, like ‘(In The Name Of) Tragedy’, which some of that stuff was, like, ‘Wow!'”
According to Sorum, playing a full set of MOTÖRHEAD songs was a physically challenging task. “It was a very energetic, high-energy set, and I loved it,” he said. “And I still remember it like yesterday. Especially being on the bus with Lemmy. He’s just got great stories. He knew everything there was to know about every civil war. We’d be driving down the highway through the Midwest, or in the South, where they had battlefields. And he’d point. He’d go, ‘Over there was the battle of…’ you know, whatever, and he knew everything about it. Not only the Second World War, First World War, but the American Civil War. So he was a history buff.”
Matt went on to say that playing with MOTÖRHEAD was “one of the greatest experiences that I ever had” and “probably one of the greatest tours of my life. I had so much fun with those guys,” he said.
When Lemmy died in December 2015, Sorum penned a heartfelt tribute to the MOTÖRHEAD leader, saying that the world “lost the greatest badass in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. He was a man who lived his life with no apologies and lived the dream of a life on the road playing music to thousands of fans worldwide. Lemmy loved rock ‘n’ roll and his fans. Never took them for granted and rocked as hard as he could night after night.”
MOTÖRHEAD has released “Leavin’ Here”, the second single and its accompanying music video from the forthcoming album “The Manticore Tapes”, which is released on June 27.
Watch “Leavin’ Here”, from “The Manticore Tapes” below.
The music video for “Leavin’ Here” is an explosively raucous mixed media visual combining unique model characters and set pieces with archive footage of the band.
Watch the previously released ‘Motorhead’, from ‘The Manticore Tapes’ below.
In 1976 the seminal line-up of MOTÖRHEAD was solidified a year after the band’s initial inception. Known as the ‘Three Amigos’ era of Motörhead, Lemmy (bass/vocals), ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke (guitar) and Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor (drums) joined forces and began their extraordinary journey to the top of the hard rock elite.
In August 1976 the band set up at Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s legendary Manticore Studio in Fulham to rehearse and showcase the new lineup. While they were there they recorded together for the very first time and now, forty nine years later, this long lost tape has surfaced, been dusted off and restored in all its raw glory, to celebrate the seminal hard rock bands 50th anniversary.
It’s quite surreal, even unbelievable that a whole half century has elapsed since that vital time in 1976. Just as remarkable, especially for those who remember Lemmy hammering the fruit machines of London’s pubs or as the era’s most extraordinarily approachable rock star, has been this always humble man’s ascension to Mount Rushmore-like immortality as rock ‘n’ roll’s ultimate icon, this despite his having sadly passed away nearly ten years ago. Lemmy himself certainly would have cackled.
The dogged struggles Motörhead faced in the first four of their 50 years are well documented and the almost accidental manifestation of this album – and the circumstances under which it was recorded – present a previously barely known new element in the band’s history from that time when it’s very future looked bleak had events not taken a different course.
TRACKLISTINGS:
Deluxe Expanded Bookpack:
LP 1:
1 Intro (Instrumental)
2 Leavin’ Here
3 Vibrator
4 Help Keep Us on the Road
5 The Watcher
6 Motörhead
7 Witch Doctor (Instrumental)
8 Iron Horse / Born to Lose (Instrumental)
9 Leavin’ Here (Alternate Take)
10 Vibrator (Alternate Take)
11 The Watcher (Alternate Take)
LP 2: Live: Blitzkrieg on Birmingham ’77
1 Motörhead
2 Vibrator
3 Keep Us On The Road
4 The Watcher
5 Iron Horse
6 Leavin’ Here
7 On Parole
8 I’m Your Witch Doctor
9 Train Kept a-Rollin’
10 City Kids
11 White Line Fever
7”: Live at Barbarella’s Birmingham ’77 (previously unreleased)
1 Motörhead
2 Keep Us On The Road
LP & CD:
1 Intro (Instrumental)
2 Leavin’ Here
3 Vibrator
4 Help Keep Us on the Road
5 The Watcher
6 Motörhead
7 Witch Doctor (Instrumental)
8 Iron Horse / Born to Lose (Instrumental)
9 Leavin’ Here (Alternate Take)
10 Vibrator (Alternate Take)
11 The Watcher (Alternate Take)
Today. onn Friday, May 9, 2025, MOTÖRHEAD founder and bassist/vocalist Lemmy Kilmister will be honored and further immortalized during at the “Lemmy Forever” Stoke-On-Trent ceremony.
With MOTÖRHEAD guitarist Phil Campbell attending to place Lemmy‘s ashes in a magnificent statue created by local sculptor, and huge MOTÖRHEAD fan, Andy Edwards, the day is going to be filled with fun, friends, and some volume too.
The ceremony will commence in Burslem town center at approximately 4:00 p.m., with friends invited to come early and make a day of it by enjoying some pre-ceremonial MOTÖRHEAD beverages at the various site-adjacent hostelries including Old Post Office bar and Ale House, while the Market Place Café will also have refreshments, including a special MOTÖRHEAD roast of the day.
Some of the ceremonial festivities will include a biker’s corteo accompanying the ashes, various speakers, and a roaring 21-rev salute which will hit the skies in ceremonial reverence. The statue itself captures Lemmy in all his live glory from the 1981 era, which saw MOTÖRHEAD headline the Heavy Metal Holocaust just down the road at Port Vale Stadium back on August 1, 1981.
Further details on what people can expect and some of the services which will be available on the day include:
* The Bare Walls Art Gallery next to the statue will be displaying an installation featuring rarely seen photographs of Lemmy in their space along with other memorabilia.
* Later in the evening, Grumpy’s bar will host “A Night Of Music To Celebrate The Life Of Lemmy”, hosting the MOTÖRHEAD tribute band MOTÖRWRECKED, as well as hosting an auction of exclusive items supplied by MOTÖRHEAD‘s record label and merchandise companies. A very limited number of wristbands for the auction will be available on a first-come-first-served basis to purchase on the day from the event office, which can be found at The Old Post Office Bar priced at £10. There will also be exclusive merchandise available at The Old Post Office.
* Music Mania will also be hosting an event at the Mitchell Arts Centre in Hanley from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. featuring MOTÖRHEAD tribute band MOTÖRHEADACHE, with tickets at £18. Head to musicmaniauk.com/event/motorheadache for further details.
For those driving to the event, parking will be available at Port Vale Football Club, a seven-minute walk away, and if arriving by train, Ace Taxis will be available to get from the station to the event via 01782 822228.
Back in November 2016, Rainbow Bar & Grill dedicated its patio to Lemmy and re-named it “Lemmy’s Lounge.” It was a fitting gesture from the Rainbow, as when Lemmy wasn’t touring or recording, the majority of his waking hours were spent on said patio. There was already a life-size bronze statue immortalizing Lemmy at the Rainbow, which attracts fans from all over the world, and Lemmy’s Lounge allows hardcore fans and casual patrons alike to sample the wares and atmosphere that Lemmy loved so much.
To celebrate Lemmy’s Lounge, Roxy owner Nic Adler and Goldenvoice‘s Paul Tollett kindly agreed to allow the painting of a celebratory mural commemorating the life of Lemmy and MOTÖRHEAD on the side wall of the Roxy, opposite Lemmy’s Lounge and statue.
According to Visit West Hollywood, Lemmy loved the Rainbow so much that he moved to West Hollywood to be closer to it. In the last two decades of his life, he was a daily fixture at the Rainbow whenever the band was not on tour, and he was often seen playing the bar’s video poker machine.
Lemmy died on December 28, 2015 at the age of 70 shortly after learning he had been diagnosed with cancer.
MOTÖRHEAD had to cancel a number of shows in 2015 because of Lemmy‘s poor health, although the band did manage to complete the aforementioned European tour a couple of weeks before his death.
In June 2020, it was announced that Lemmy would get the biopic treatment. The upcoming film, “Lemmy”, will be directed by Greg Olliver, who previously helmed the 2010 documentary of the same name, “Lemmy”.
A custom-made urn containing Lemmy‘s ashes is on permanent display in a columbarium at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood, California.
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