Phil Taylor, who has died aged 61, was not Motörhead’s first drummer, and he had not been part of the band’s lineup since 1992. Nonetheless, his playing was crucial in establishing Motörhead as one of rock’s great institutions, and the lineup of Taylor, the singer and bass player Lemmy and the lead guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke is regarded as the definitive version of the band.
Whether they should be described as heavy metal, thrash or merely heavy rock remains a perennially debated question. The band disliked being described as “heavy metal”, as Taylor himself explained in 1981. “It’s the way you look and the sort of audiences you attract that gets you labelled as heavy metal,” he said. “But at every interview we always try to point out that we don’t like to be called HM music. It’s more like hard, fast, nasty, disgusting rock.”
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