Back in the 80’s Motorhead Lemmy would star in the music video for a pop group
that was a one hit wonder. Toda let’s take a look at how it all went down.
In 1986 Motorhead would release their album orgasmatron. It was the same year that frontman
and bassist Lemmy appeared in a spaghetti western video for the one hit wonder group Boys Don’t Cry.
If you’re like me, then maybe boys don’t cry evokes images of the band the Cure,
but the band’s name was instead inspired by a lyric in group 10cc’s song 1975 ‘I’m Not in
Love.’ However, the band was aware their name would bring up the band the Cure and on their
second album recorded an instrumental song on their second album, titled…”The Cure. Nick
Richards would tell billboard magazine in 1986 that the name Boys DOn’t Cry
was specifically chosen so it would be hard to musically categorize the band.
Boys Don’t Cry for their part would form in 1983 and was the brainchild of t Nick Richards.
Richards who fronted the band also was involved in the music business and production owning Maison
Rouge Recording Studios in London & had a storied career early in his life being signed as a solo
artist by RCA records and he would eventually team up with another solo artist Brian Chatton who had
previously worked Meat Loaf and Phil Collins the duo would have a hit in france with the song ‘turn
over’. They soon decided to form a band enlisting drummer Jeff Seopardi, guitarist Nico Ramsden
and bassist Mark Smith. It would turn out all the band members had their solo publishing deals
and they all wrote for other artists as well. The band would be discovered by a talent scout
for profile records named Paul Oakenfold, who also had signed Run-DMC'. Profile would release the
band’s albums in the US while another label named Legacy Records would release their UK releases.
The band’s self titled debut album would be released in 1986 and the first single off the
album would be a track called i wanna be a cowboy. The band would shoot a video for the single
Employing the same director who did a-ha’s take on me and wham’s careless whisper videos. As the
title suggested, the video took on the theme of a spaghetti western. But mot everything
went smoothly during the filming of the video as richards would crack two ribs trying to get on his
horse. The video was notable because Motorhead’s lemmy make an appearance as a desperado with brain
chatton telling Georgia Strait “We did need a baddie,”. “He did it for a bottle of vodka.”
So how did Lemmy end up in the video to begin with. Well in addition to being a solo artists,
a studio owner, Richards also owned the record label GWR which happened to have motorhead on
it’s roster. Richards at the time was also buying other artists publishing, thinking
that if his music career was a dud at least he could make money off owning other artists songs.
Boys don’t cry and motorhead shared the same manager at the time and the idea to have lemmy
in the video came to richards who recalled to ultimate classic rock When I came up with the
concept of the 'I Wanna Be a Cowboy' video I wanted a Lee Van Cleef bad boy in the video.
Lemmy came to mind immediately! I rang him to say, 'Please be in the video and how much
it would cost me!' He replied, 'Just make sure you have a bottle of vodka (Smirnoff) on set!'
We started filming at 6AM on a freezing cold morning in London’s Hampstead Heath.
He turned up on time and was the ultimate pro and gentleman. We had a fab time, I adored him."
“I Wanna Be A Cowboy” would give boys don’t cry their only hit of their career peaking
at number 12 on the billboard hot 100 in 1986 and would spend nearly 3 months on the charts. While
the album received a ton of airplay on radio MTV weren’t fans of the track. According to ultimate
classic rock Richards had spoken with VJ Martha Quinn at the time who told him that MTV hated the
song because and i quote it wasn’t rock and roll. But due to the popularity of the song on the radio
MTV had to play it. According to the same article the network received nearly quarter of a million
requests in one weekend for the song. So what happened to boys don’t cry.
The band would only release two albums during their brief existence in the 80’s
with their final release of the decade coming in 1987 which failed to chart. By
1988 they were done for the time being, but they would reunite nearly two decades later
in 2009 but the reunion has seen the band see two of their members pass away including
Mark SMith and Brian Chatton. They would release their last of original material
in 2014 titled hear it is and several compilation records during their reunion.