James Hetfield is “pissed off” Lemmy isn’t included in Rock Hall of Fame: “It’s a disrespect to rock and roll”

“The most rock and roll lifestyle-living person on this planet is not in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.”

Image: Jeff Kravitz / Steve Thorne / Getty Images

James Hetfield has slammed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for not including Lemmy Kilmister in its list of inductees, calling the Motörhead legend’s omission all these years a “travesty”.

Speaking about the supposed injustice on a new episode of The Metallica Report, Hetfield says [via Blabbermouth]: “The most rock and roll lifestyle-living person on this planet is not in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which is a travesty, a shame. It’s kind of a disrespect to rock and roll, basically.”

Earlier in the podcast, the Metallica frontman talks about how he honoured Lemmy by getting a tattoo using ink mixed with the late musician’s ashes.

“Adriana, my girlfriend, her best friend passed away,” says Hetfield. “And we had just talked about the ability to put ashes in the ink to represent someone who you carry around in your life.”

“So thinking up ideas of what would represent that person and memories for their life – I mean, that’s really what they are; they’re memories – and remembering that I had been given some ashes of Lemmy and a little silver bullet that was like a necklace and using that to get my – yeah, the Iron Cross and the ace of spades.”

“So Lemmy is able to still fly the bird to the world via me,” he continues. “And just a reminder of what an inspiration he has been in my life – what to do, what not to do. And for me paying respects to him in maybe lieu of him being in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which still continues to piss me off.”

Joking about the effects of getting Lemmy’s actual ashes under his skin, Hetfield muses: “The obvious joke with my buddy, tattoo artist Corey Miller, who’s done a lot of my stuff, he said, ‘Are you sure you wanna do this? Did you check with your doctor? There could still be high amounts of speed in his ashes or,’ you know, whatever – I don’t know – screwdriver. ‘Did you check with your sponsor? Are you okay with this?’ And, yeah, hopefully most of that shit got burned off.”

Listen to the full podcast below.