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PETE GILL DID NOT LEAVE MOTORHEAD DUE TO INJURY; HE WAS FIRED

"The sacking of Pete Gill was a long time coming. Pete was his own worst enemy; he was another one who wouldn't just be content to be in the band. He went up against me on a couple of decisions, and he was making Phil and Wurzel upset too. I got tired of him moaning, so when he kept us waiting while he hung around in the lobby of his hotel for twenty minutes while he read the paper or something, that was the proverbial last straw. I know it sounds trivial, but most flare-ups in families are, aren't they? And a band IS a family...

...So the situation with Pete came to a head the day of the shoot. He took so long to do everything, and we were always having to wait for him. It was just getting up my nose, because after all, I'm a speedfreak and I dont like waiting. That morning we got in the car and went down to the hotel to pick him and Phil Campbell up. Phil came bopping out of the hotel immediately, but Pete was still in his room, not dressed, and we sat there for half an hour while he fucked around. Then he was saying goodbye to people in the hotel lobby, and we were supposed to be at this shoot! Film people were sitting with their cameras on idle. So finally he came out, but I was fed up. I rolled down the car window and said "Fuck You! You're Fired!" and we drove off. And that was it. Last I heard about Pete, I believe he was touring with some alternative version of Saxon. It's got three original members of the band who had all been fired, so they were calling themselves Son of a Bitch, which was Saxon's original name."

-- Lemmy (2002) "White Line Fever", London, Simon & Schuster