The authorities had found a stash of white powder on him which they thought was cocaine (illegal in Canada) but which turned out to be amphetamine sulphate (bizarrely, still regarded then under Canadian law as a 'pure food'). By the time he'd caught up with Hawkwind at the next gig in Toronto, however, he discovered he'd been "voted out of the band." After four years with Hawkwind, during which he'd supplied the lead vocal to their one and only hit, 'Silver Machine', in 1972, Lemmy took his dismissal badly. Very badly. "I'd sort of seen it coming, I just didn't know when," he shrugs now. "The only reason they bailed me out of jail, apparently, was because my replacement couldn't get there on time. It's a terrible thing to be fired ? especially for an offence that everyone else was guilty of. So I came home and fucked all their old ladies," he adds with all the detachment of somebody pouring a glass of milk. What, every last one of 'em? "Not the ugly ones, of course. But at least four," he cackles gleefully. "Outrageous? No, not at all. I took great pleasure in it. Eat that, you bastards." Lemmy's earliest recollections of Motörhead, the band, involve, "Incredible poverty, living in squats. This bird we knew called Aeroplane Gaye used to work under a furniture store in Chelsea, and if anyone quit early we'd all dash down there and rehearse. We were that broke, but we did alright. We were struggling for a long time with no bread, then over about six months it just went whammo." The prototype Motörhead included former Pink Fairies guitarist/vocalist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox. Although they supported Greenslade at London's Roundhouse in July, this line-up proved short-lived, and the latter was eventually replaced, in late '75, by Phil Taylor. "I met Lemmy through speed really," Taylor later claimed. "Y'know, dealing and scoring. I wasn't actually playing in a band at the time." 'Philthy Animal', as he soon became known, was a former skinhead and Leeds United football hooligan, whose father had bought him a drum kit with the immortal words: "If you wanna beat something up, beat this up."

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