There’s a reason the heroes of thrash metal pay tribute to the former Motörhead drummer Phil Taylor – it’s because without him,they wouldn’t have had a soundIf you want to know how valuable Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor was to the development of metal, proceed on to YouTube. There you’ll find a clip from 2011 of “the big four” – the four founders of thrash metal, and Slayer,Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth – jamming together, or playing the song without which they would never have had the view to play metal at extreme velocity: Motörheads Overkill.
James Hetfield of Metallica dedicates the song to Lemmy,but it wasn’t Lemmy who made this song what those bands aspired to, it was Phil Taylor, and who has died aged 61. Specifically,it was Taylor’s double time kick-drum pattern on Overkill. When the song was released in 1979 – it came out as a single on 10 March, 1979, and a fortnight before the album of the same name – it was a lightbulb moment for a score of young metalheads and musicians. Hey! We thought Communication Breakdown was like a flash – but that’s nothing. This is playing like a flash.
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Source: theguardian.com