Judas Priest’s Rob Halford Confirms He Has a Bullet With Lemmy Kilmister’s Ashes
It was revealed earlier this year that some of Lemmy Kilmister's closest friends have received bullets containing ashes of the late Motorhead leader, and one of the most recent to reveal that he's in possession of one of those bullets is Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford.
While appearing on the SpeedFreaks radio show, Halford discusses the memento bequeathed to him by his longtime friend. "When Lemmy passed away, I had this beautiful opportunity to speak at his memorial," Halford recalled. "We had a great get-together; all of us musicians from all over the world, we met in Hollywood and we talked about Lemmy and his great life and the things that he's left us. And then, not too far back, I get something in the mail from the Lemmy people; Lemmy's office, his manager and everybody still work tirelessly to keep his name with us, as he always will be. They sent me — it's a bullet [laughs], it's a bullet with some of Lemmy's ashes inside of it."
Halford is one of several people to have received such a bullet, with metal personality Riki Rachtman, Ugly Kid Joe's Whitfield Crane and metal vocalist Doro Pesch among the others revealed to have a Lemmy bullet.
The Metal God also shared his reaction to the gift, stating, "This is nuts. This is the kind of thing that Lemmy would have loved to have done. However you choose to interpret what I've just said, that's entirely up to you. But to be thought of, to be brought into this small circle of friends where you actually own a little bit of Lemmy's ashes and you wear it around your neck on a pendant and he's close to your heart in the truest sense in terms of his mortal remains, that's just mind-blowingly powerful. To use an object like that to carry his remains is just so Lemmy — it's provocative, it makes you think, it makes you talk. But as far as having a beautiful part of Lemmy physically with me right now in my house, that's just magical."
The Motorhead frontman died on Dec. 28, 2015 just four days after his 70th birthday. He was laid to rest in early 2016 with Dave Grohl, Rob Halford, Slash and Triple H among those delivering eulogies. In the time since Lemmy's death, drummer Mikkey Dee has joined Scorpions while guitarist Phil Campbell continued on with his new band Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons.