Motorhead’s Phil Campbell found it "difficult" seeing late frontman Lemmy Kilmister struggle through on stage leading up to his death.
The ‘Ace of Spades’ hitmaker passed away in December 2015, at the age of 70, a short while after being diagnosed with cancer, and the late rock legend’s bandmate has admitted that whilst Lemmy managed to continue touring for "as long as he possibly could", towards the end he wasn’t "himself" and was deteriorating.
In an interview with the ‘CATtales’ podcast, Phil said: "Towards the last couple of years, Lem wasn’t quite himself.
"He just wanted to carry on. You could see Lemmy aging a little bit more, ’cause he was a fair amount older than the rest of us. But he was doing fine — he was playing fine. We just carried on.
"We kind of slowed it down a little bit, but it was still full-on touring compared to what other bands do.
"Us slowing down was just like full-on [touring] for many other bands.
"So we’d still go on tour for two months anywhere where they would have us … But Lem played, basically, like he wanted to do as long as he possibly could. But it was difficult to watch sometimes at the very end."
The 59-year-old guitarist – who now tours with his three sons, Todd, Dane and Tyla, as Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons with Neil Starr on lead vocals – has admitted it was hard adjusting to no longer playing shows with Motorhead after three decades, but he couldn’t be more proud of their legacy.
He added: "For 30 years, it was like my routine, basically – travelling on a bus and meeting at airports and soundchecks and having a laugh and watching TV and all the stuff day after day after day after day after day, all of a sudden it just stops.
"[But I have] great memories. We made some great music for people to still rock out to, so that’s great."