"Obviously, drink and speed were important in shaping the band," continues Eddie, who was a moderate drinker until he joined Motörhead. "I was a dopehead. Speed was something that they all did, and I soon found myself doing it as well. Then I realised that having a drink with the speed mellowed you out and gave you an opportunity for a bit of kip. That was how my drinking career got underway." Motörhead's break came in typically freak-ish fashion when Gerry Bron, the boss of Bronze Records (then home of Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann's Earth Band), agreed, as a favour to a booking agent friend, to issue what actually became the first ever Motörhead single: their cover of cult 60s classic, 'Louie Louie'. The band was by then actually signed to Chiswick Records, who had refused to release it. Recalls Bron: "[Agent] Neil Warnock had said, 'I've got a 12-date tour lined up for this band called Motörhead. But the promoter says that unless we get a single out to promote it, he's gonna pull the plug'." Although Bron confesses he thought 'Louie Louie' was "about the worst record I'd ever heard", he released it "purely as a favour to Neil. And to my amazement, it went into the Top 75. I said, hang on a minute, this is a terrible record, but it's gone into the chart without any kind of push at all, so I went to see them at Hammersmith Odeon and it was packed to the rafters with people going absolutely crazy. We had to sign them right away." Bronze Records had told the band that if 'Louie Louie' went Top 75, they could secure them a place on Top Of The Pops. Sure enough, the band recorded their slot for the show on the Wednesday, and Clarke, who was "doing a painting job" on the following night, "had to ask the punters if we could watch their telly, because I was on in a minute! I was standing there in my overalls with a paintbrush in my hand..." The success of 'Louie...' (and its more representative B-side 'Tear Ya Down') was the start of a love-hate relationship that would benefit both band and label, yet culminate in trench warfare. "We always seemed to have a problem with Motörhead," Bron recalls with a sigh. "Nobody liked them, not on a professional level. They had a fantastic following, but licensees around the world absolutely hated them. We had a terrible job getting them to work with the band."

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