Steve 'Krusher' Joule is a rock legend. Former art director for Kerrang!, creator of many iconic album cover designs, TV and radio presenter, author, photographer, DJ and MC - most famously for Ozzfest – his life has been one of rock'n'roll excess and overdrive. His Ozzfest appearances aside, Krusher is perhaps best known for his notorious cover for Black Sabbath's 1983 album 'Born Again'. After making his RAM Gallery debut in 2018, Krusher's work has been featured several times. For 2024, with the special emphasis on the legacy of Lemmy and Motörhead, Krusher returns with some fine examples of the wealth of design work he did for the band.

Q. When did you first start working for Motörhead and did you deal directly with the band?

“It was 1978/'79 when I designed the tour programme for the 'Overkill' tour. I was dealing directly with the band's management which was great, ha ha! We had some amusing moments. I remember one with the 'Ace of Spades' tour programme. What they would do is give me everything that needed to go in it, text and photos, and I'd get it all typset and laid out. Not many people know this but Fast Eddie loved fishing and there was this amazing photo of him in his full Motörhead regalia, by the riverside, holding his catch of fish. I thought it was a great, great picture, so I put it in. I showed it to Doug their manager and he agreed with me. Eddie was holding fish but he still looked like he was in Motörhead. So we had 5000 printed and I remember going into the office and Eddie was there having a fucking hairy baby! “These have gotta go out! I'm not having this! It's not fucking right! You gotta fucking burn 'em!” And they did! They burned 5000 fucking tour programmes and had to get them reprinted with a different picture, ha ha!”

Q. Did the band take an active interest in the artwork side of things? How were they as people to deal with?

“When I took artwork into the office, Lemmy wasn't always there of course, but he was always interested. The first time I met them was when I went in with the 'Overkill' tour programme, and I was shitting myself, as I was quite frightened of their image, their reputation. But they were fucking sweet as fucking lambs. They were really nice and it was great. Eddie, he was the one you didn't wanna get on the wrong fucking side of, as I saw with the 'Ace of Spades' photo. Lemmy was a sweetheart, although he could have his moments. I remember once, I think it was after a Hammersmith Odeon show, and we'd gone back to his hotel and then the pub opposite the hotel. It was a really nice place in Kensington. He was playing the fruit machine and we were having a conversation and I mentioned to him what were the chances of getting Wurzel back in the band. I knew Wurzel had been absolutely devastated when he left Motörhead. Well, he stopped playing the fruit machine and when he did that you know you'd said something wrong. I won't go into details about why Wurzel left but it was all to do with a woman. It was choose the band or choose the woman and Wurzel chose the woman. And Lemmy was basically saying that as long as that woman was still alive he'd never be back in the band. Having said that, I did manage to get a couple of AAA passes for when the band later played Brighton and I took Wurzel down to that and he came on and did the encores, which was fantastic.”

Q. What work will you be featuring in the gallery this year?

“I'm going to be showing some stuff from the 'Bomber' tour programme which was the one that followed 'Overkill'. I've got several pages of the original artwork. We didn't have computers then so it was all cut and paste and ink it in. I also have a printed proof of the 'Bomber' album cover where the title 'Bomber' is in a different colour. I've had that framed and it's quite possibly the only one in the world! There's also something from the 'Iron Fist' tour prgramme which was '82. When I did the 'Bomber' programme, Lemmy gave me the original hand-written lyrics for 'All the Aces' which we were going to use in the programme but never did. Lemmy let me keep them which was very kind of him. There was a great rock photographer called Mick Hutson who sadly took his own life. But shortly before that he sent me one of his limited edition Lemmy prints which is stunning and quite possibly my favourite photo of Lemmy. So, I've had the photo of Lemmy and the original lyrics to 'All the Aces' framed in one frame. It looks beautiful and that will be on display. I've also got printed proofs of the badges I did for the 'Iron Fist' tour and also for the Heavy Metal Holocaust festival which was in 1981. There's the original artwork for Headgirl which was when Motörhead and Girlschool got together and did an EP called 'The St. Valentine's Day Massacre'. There's also the Krusher version of the Motörhead logo which I believe got used on an advert. And because 2025 will be 50 years of Motörhead I've designed my own Motörhead print called 'Never Forgotten' which I've had 50 copies made and which will hopefully be on sale!”

Q. You did design work for Motörhead from 'Overkill' right through to 'Another Perfect Day'. There must still be many items never exhibited before.

“I am a hoarder and I've got boxes and boxes of stuff which are currently stored above our garage! So there is more Motörhead stuff I could have used but we are limited for space. I can't remember what year it was but Motörhead played at the Royal Opera House and they did a programme for it as they would an actual programme for the Opera House – they'd have the list of the music being played plus pages of actual musical score that you could follow, which they did for 'Ace of Spades'. It was amazing! So one day I'll get that framed.”

www.krusher.co.uk