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Ever since Motörhead had recorded HHH’s theme song, they appeared on WWE programming from time to time. As a result, I had become acquainted with Lemmy, their founder and guitarist, and the band’s manager, Todd Singerman. They were in the midst of their thirtieth anniversary tour and had a show coming up in L.A. at the Wiltern Theater. Todd had given us a standing offer to open for them, and we thought that the Wiltern would be a great place to finally make it happen. We were second out of four bands on the show, and since we were joining the tour for only one night, I thought I’d make a point of saying hi to the other bands on the bill. I wasn’t sure of rock and roll protocol, but in wrestling it was up to the younger guys to introduce themselves to the veterans, so I went and thanked the members of Zeke (and you think Fozzy is a weird name?) and Corrosion of Conformity for letting us play with them. I was met with the same confused reaction Flounder got when he asked the fraternity guys if they were playing cards. I’m sure these guys were thinking to themselves, “Who the fuck is this guy? We didn’t let you play with us, Motörhead did.”

Motörhead fans are notorious for treating opening bands like a sacrifice. They came specifically to see the loudest band in the world and could not give a shit about anybody else. But we’d never been intimidated by a crowd and charged onstage with our archetypal Fozzy energy. But we were met with total apathy and halfway through our six-song set a tumbleweed blew by and I heard a guy in the balcony shart. Our gig was a massacre of silence (another great album title) as 99 percent of the crowd stood with their arms crossed, doing their time until Fozzy was done. But believe me, the remaining 1 percent of the crowd were losing their minds.

I concentrated on the few people who were feeling our set and glanced away to find myself locked in a death stare with a huge biker in the front row who was a dead ringer for Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. He couldn’t have looked more unimpressed, and I sensed him telepathically say, “Get off the stage before I bash your fucking brains in.”

We were dying a death, so I decided to use an old wrestling trick and call an audible.

During a match when the crowd isn’t buying what you’re selling, you have to change up what you’re doing to get the people interested. Fozzy had planned on playing an all-original set that night but nobody was reacting to our material, so I called the audible to launch into Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning,” a song we had covered on Happenstance. Lo and behold, when the crowd heard a tune they knew and loved, they finally started showing signs of life. The 1 percent of the audience who dug what we were doing grew to about 12 percent, and we gladly took it.

But the true sign that we were getting over with the tough crowd was Ogre bobbing his head slightly to the song, as he uncrossed his arms. At the end of the set he even gave me a thumbs-up, which compared with his reactions earlier was the equivalent of him throwing his panties onstage.

When our gig was over, I asked Frank how he felt about the performance and he said optimistically, “Well, it wasn’t a home run, but it was definitely a double.” Rich, however, was a little less diplomatic in his response: “I felt like a black man at a Ku Klux Klan rally.”

I began to get the sense that we were being a little hard on ourselves. Maybe we just weren’t used to the average Motörhead opening band reception, and when I saw Lemmy backstage, he was very complimentary.

“You guys had a good amount of energy, nice job,” he said matter-of-factly in his gravelly English accent. Then he offered me a drink to celebrate the occasion. He poured me a glass of Jack Daniel’s and grabbed a fistful of ice cubes with his filthy hand and threw them in the plastic tumbler. I was a little grossed out, as I could only guess why his hand was so dirty and where it might’ve been, but I figured the straight whiskey would kill any germs.

Besides, how often did one get to have a cocktail with Lemmy?