MIKKEY DEE Looks Back On Early Years In MOTÖRHEAD – "It Took Me Several World Tours Before They Leaned On Me And Trusted Me"

Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee, who is currently working with the Scorpions, is featured in a new interview with Music Radar discussing his career with Motörhead, his power behind the kit, and life after Lemmy. Following is an excerpt:

Watching Dee play with Motörhead was always a study in raw power and seemingly inexhaustible energy. He didn’t play the drums, he hammered at them and loved every minute of it. 

“I’m very proud of being such a big part of Motörhead, not just jumping into the band and surviving and playing drums, but taking over from Philthy Animal Taylor,” he says. “I came in and changed the band and I said I was going to do that. Lemmy gave me all the room I wanted, and Phil of course. They just loved the new energy. We wrote different types of songs. I’d say we went more into rock and metal than the way Motörhead was before. They were maybe a little more punk-ish in the earlier days, more inspired by ’50s rock meets ’70s punk. I loved it, there was nothing wrong with that, it was just maybe not so much me.”

However, when Dee joined Motörhead, the rest of the band didn’t look to the drummer to set the tempos. “The problem I had with the band when I joined was that they never listened to the drummer. It took three, four, maybe five years before they really trusted me, to listen to me,” says Dee, who found that his bandmates could be playing half a beat ahead of or behind him.

“I said, ‘You have to listen to me, I’m setting the tempos and I’m staying on the beat.’ Without bragging, my meter is pretty good. These guys were going all over the place because they never listened to the drummer. Taylor was a great drummer in his style and he fit Motörhead perfectly when he was in the band but he listened to Lemmy and followed these guys. He didn’t put his foot down and stand his ground, so it took me several world tours before they leaned on me and trusted me and as soon as we did that, we sounded so much better.”

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LAMC Productions has posted video of the Scorpions’ live press conference, which took place prior to the band’s show on October 21st at the Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre in Singapore.

Drummer Mikkey Dee, who was with Motörhead from 1992 until their dissolution after the death of Lemmy Kilmsiter, and who is now a full fledged member of Scorpions, was asked how it’s been, working with the band.

“It’s been great,” says Mikkey. “This whole year has been flying by, really, ‘cause we had a really hard schedule, we’ve flown the whole world and it’s been great. It’s always hard to join a band that’s already so established, and also for them to get used to me, of course. But it seems to work really well, we’re rocking the house!”

Watch the full press conference below:

Find the band’s current live itinerary at this location.