EXODUS frontman Steve “Zetro” Souza and former MACHINE HEAD drummer Chris Kontos recently sat down to talk for an appearance on ‘Zetro’s Toxic Vault’, and reminisced about that time they opened for MOTÖRHEAD .
Kontos had a brief stint as the drummer for EXODUS when they were opening for MOTÖRHEAD for two shows in Argentina in 1993.
When recollecting the backstage antics that took place during the tour, Zetro recalled: “Me and Rick [Hunolt, then-EXODUS guitarist] bought ‘crank’ (methamphetamine) off of [MOTÖRHEAD mainman] Lemmy… We were at the venue ’cause we had the soundcheck. And you guys went back. But me and Rick stayed there, and Lemmy was in his dressing room. We knew he had crank. And Rick goes, ‘Let’s ask Lemmy for some. Zetro, go ask him.’ ‘You ask him.’ ‘You ask him.’… So I walk up to him [and say], ‘Lemmy, hey, bro, you think you can sell me and Rick some of your whizz?’ ‘Cause they called it whizz. And he’s all, [imitates Lemmy’s voice] ‘I didn’t know you guys did this stuff. I thought you did that cocaine shit.’ And I was, like, ‘No. We like crank. We like to get wired.’ He fucking pulls out this… He’s got it in his jacket — in a patch. He had this patch that was there, and then [he would pull it back], and it was right there. And I’m, like, ‘You brought that in?’ ‘Cause back then you didn’t carry. It was the ’80s. You didn’t fucking transport shit. If you got caught with anything, you were in trouble, especially in South America. And so he gives it to us. And Lemmy tells me, he goes, ‘You know, when you’re on speed, you’re 80 percent smarter going up, but you’re 80 percent dumber when you’re coming down.'”
He continued: “We just sat there drinking Jack. And so me and Rick, we snorted it. [Lemmy] took a spoonful and he put it in his mouth. And I went, like [makes puking sound]. I wanted to puke… And we sat there for five hours in MOTÖRHEAD’s dressing room — me, Rick and Lemmy, drinking Jack and doing crank. [It was] not the first day [of the tour]; it was the second day. And I was telling everybody, ‘Till the day I die, I’m gonna be telling this fucking story to my grandkids.’ And I’m telling this fucking story now. Lemmy’s gone. And I even said that, ‘I’ll be telling this story way after Lemmy’s gone.’ And I tell the story. And it’s just, like, oh, man, it was the time… It was early ’90s. It was still on. The game was still on, bro.”
Lemmy Kilmister died on December 28, 2015 after a short battle with cancer. He was 70.