Rancid – “Sex & Death” (Motörhead Cover)

The last time I saw Rancid, my favorite band of all time, I’m pretty sure Lars Fredricksen was wearing a Motörhead shirt. This was not a surprise. He wears Motörhead shirts all the time. He wore a Motörhead shirt on the back cover of Rancid’s 1994 classic Let’s Go, too, and that was his first album as a member of the band. Rancid bassist Matt Freeman has a side project, Charger, that’s pretty much entirely dedicated to sounding like Motörhead. If you’re putting together a Motörhead tribute record, you obviously need a contribution from Rancid. The producers of the new compilation Killed By Deaf obviously understand that, and they’ve got Rancid covering a relatively obscure Motörhead song.

Killed By Deaf is explicitly framed as “A Punk Tribute To Motörhead,” and it’s got covers from bands like the Bronx, Lagwagon, Fear, Murphy’s Law, and the Anti-Nowhere League. The album’s producers already shared Pennywise’s take on “Ace Of Spades” and a previously unreleased version of “Neat Neat Neat,” the Damned’s 1977 punk classic, that Lemmy recorded with the Damned in 2002. Now, we get Rancid taking on “Sex & Death,” a Motörhead song that didn’t come out until 1995, when Rancid were already running wild. The original track, from Motörhead’s Sacrifice album, is about as punk as that band ever got. Lars Fredricksen sings lead on it, and it comes out sounding like a Rancid song and a Motörhead song at the same time.

In an accompanying video, Fredricksen explains that punks clam Motörhead just as metalheads do, and he talks about Lemmy being a Ramones fan. Fredricksen says that Rancid picked “Sex & Death” because it’s not that different from something that Rancid would’ve made, which makes me wonder if the original track was at least a little bit Rancid-inspired. It’s possible, right? Below, check out Rancid’s “Sex & Death” cover, as well as Motörhead’s original.

Killed By Deaf: A Punk Tribute To Motörhead is out 10/31 on BMG.