From Motörhead to ABBA: W. Earl Brown on His Wild Encounter with Lemmy
On ‘Never Meet Your Heroes,’ Brown couldn’t help but divulge the time he had the opportunity to meet one of his heroes.
Despite Scott Ian’s show being titled “Never Meet Your Heroes,” W. Earl Brown couldn’t help but share the time he actually met one of his: Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister of Motörhead.
The actor had been a longtime fan of Motörhead and once took a road trip just to see the heavy metal band live.
“Whenever we had to go do music for the Meat Loaf biopic, we would sit in my trailer, crank Motörhead, headbang, get all buzzed, and go do our thing,” Brown said. “When we finished the movie, they were playing nearby — they were on the road with Nashville Pussy. The night of the show in L.A., we had a VH1 function we had to go to, so we were like, ‘To hell with it, let’s road trip to Vegas and see them!’”
Brown said months later, his co-star in the Meat Loaf film, Zachary Throne, called and offered to let him watch rehearsals for a TV gig Throne was doing with Lemmy — and Brown didn’t hesitate.
“It’s a Sunday morning, it’s like 11, and I’m supposed to be at this little theater in Hollywood down on Santa Monica,” Brown recalled. “I walk in, and Zach goes, ‘Lemmy, this is my buddy Earl I was telling you about. Earl, Lemmy. Lemmy, Earl.’”
“I get the head-to-toe once-over, he sticks his hand out and goes, ‘Earl, nice meeting you — do you want a drink?’ I thought, ‘11 o’clock on Sunday, I really should be at church, but it’s Lemmy. Yeah, sure.’ So we had a few.”
Lemmy then completely surprised Brown by stepping away from his heavy metal persona and breaking into the more melodic and unexpected sounds of ABBA.
“He turns to me at one point and goes, ‘Earl, have you ever listened to ABBA?’ And I think he’s pulling my leg, so I’m like, ‘F—k no.’ He goes, ‘Well, you missed out on the greatest sets of pop melody outside of Lennon and McCartney. Zach, do you know any ABBA?’ Zach goes, ‘Yeah — “Fernando”?’ So he starts playing, and Lemmy is singing. And I kind of have this moment like, ‘Holy s—t, it’s Sunday morning, I’m drunk, and I’m listening to Lemmy sing ABBA,’” Brown said.
Brown also discussed portraying Meat Loaf in the VH1 biopic “To Hell and Back.” By coincidence, he happened to be in costume at the same studio where Meat Loaf was filming another project.
“I’m about 50 yards away, and I hear, ‘Earl!’ I stopped and turned around,” Brown said. “The look on his face when he saw me dressed as him — it’s burned in my memory. I’ll never forget it.”
