Picture the scene; Lemmy staggers out of a cheap whorehouse somewhere in the arse end of Texas, tanked up to the eyeballs on speedballs and gin. As the light of the full moon shines down on those iconic warts, a strange transformation occurs. His mutton chops expand into a long, straggly mane, his bass plucking fingers sprout into claws so sharp they could pierce steel, his cowboy hat is pushed from his head as his skull adopts a lupine form and his Rickenbacker warps into an extra pair of quadrupedal appendages. Yep, that’s right, Lemmy was a werewolf all along!

A gaggle of local hicks attempt to subdue the beast by hurling buckets of grease, denim hot pants and various Venom and English Dogs LPs at it, but to no avail. Were-Lemmy just seems to absorb each projectile that’s flung his way, before tearing the assembled throng into minuscule little chunks within 40 minutes flat and careening off into the woods, never to be seen again.

We may never know what this ungodly scene would actually look like, but thanks to Denver’s most high octane speed metal bastards, Speedwolf, we sure as fuck know what it sounds like.

The Speedwolf sound takes everything you love about metal and punk, cranks it right up to 11 and then hurls it back at you with such furious abandon that it could well melt your face clean off if you’re not adequately prepared for it. If their debut album ‘Ride With Death’ doesn’t make you want to grow a mullet, don your finest leathers, and ride a Harley off into the sunset, well, then I’m afraid we’re going to have to stop hanging out.

We caught up with vocalist Reed Bruemmer, who told us all about the band’s origins and lambasted us for mistakenly referring to ‘Ride With Death’ as ‘Ride With The Wolf’ not once, but twice in the same interview (look, it was a long day, OK? There was a fair amount of whiskey involved, and after you’ve been listening to the band’s self titled song on loop for a prolonged period of time, you find your brain starts attaching the words “…with the wolf!” to the end of every half formed thought that floats through your bleary, alcohol addled brain. So don’t blame me, blame Speedwolf’s uncanny ability to pen a catchy refrain)!

Ahem, so now we’ve cleared that up, it’s on with the show…

WORDS: Kez Whelan

BAND NAME: Speedwolf

WHERE ARE THEY FROM: Denver, Colorado

FOR FANS OF: Motörhead, Midnight, Zeke

LATEST RELEASE: Nekrofilth / Speedwolf Split (Doomentia Records)

WEBSITES: Facebook & BigCartel



Could you tell us briefly how Speedwolf got together?

Reed Bruemmer: “Speedwolf formed in 2008 with the same four members it has today. We all agreed we like old metal, the other bands we were in broke up, and we moved forward with this one trying to do something different.”

Did you have a specific sound in mind when you formed the band, or did that grow and evolve as you played together?

Reed: “It always kind of evolves as you play more, with any band. For us, we agreed we liked older styles of metal. I guess kind of the pre-thrash era stuff. That was a pretty loose basis, but it’s what we went with. Don’t get me wrong, we would name drop all sorts of band during practice. It helps to be nerds going into this. References come easy.”

What kind of stuff are you and the rest of the band into? Who would you cite as influences?

Reed: “We all like classic heavy metal, thrash, and speed thats mostly rock ‘n’ roll based. Hows that for a one sentence answer? It sucks, I know. Anyways, I would site a bunch of weird NWOBHM bands but you would’ve already assumed for me to say that. How bout Motörhead instead? Bet you wouldn’t have guessed that one!”

It seems like every riff on ‘Ride With The Wolf’ is an absolute killer, do you tend to do a lot of editing during your writing process, or does it just come naturally?

Reed: “I’m assuming by ‘Ride with the Wolf’ you’re referring to our album ‘Ride with Death’? Scratch that, I’m making up this answer due to your typo. ‘Ride With the Wolf’ is the first song ever written completely in Photoshop CS6. It’s a metal song that is a comprised collage of selfie photos that we’ve collected of our members wearing their like totally hella thrashy new vest, dawg. It’s hash tagged with ironic captions like, ‘OMG, twerkin’ to the new BLACK WITCHERY, Beyonce for life!” This joint is probably the most chyl (believe me, the spelling is correct) to have ever been dropped. Hop on a longboard and live it. We’re metal heads of the future!!!”

Do you predominately write stuff together as a band, or will you each come up with songs on your own and then bring them to the rest of the band?

Reed: “We get drunk in bars, make stupid jokes, turn them into t-shirts, and then write songs every 5 years. Everybody knows that.”

‘Ride The Wolf’ was released a couple of years ago – when can expect the follow up album?

Reed: “Oh man, thanks for doing this interview, but you are blowing it on the homework end of journalism. ‘Ride the Wolf’ was never the title of anything we’ve ever done. Therefore it will never be followed upon. That’s it, you’ve ended our discography by simply mixing up the words in this interview. We’ll never make another album again.”

You guys have been touring the USA pretty relentless over the last few years. Have you picked up any good tips for survival on the road?

Reed: “Thats what I’m talking about! You know that we tour a lot! Atta boy! Here’s a tip for touring: don’t expect anything, so when you get something, it fucking rules!”

Do you think there’s a chance we’ll get to see Speedwolf tour Europe again anytime soon?

Reed: “We just finished a tour in Europe in October. We smoked a lot of cigarettes, drank our weight in red wine, and came back looking like goddamned Waldo. Time of our lives!”

What’s been your best moment as a band? And on the flipside, what’s been the worst thing to happen to you in music?

Reed: “Everything with this band has gotten better and better. We work our asses off to support it but are still surprised by the response we receive all over. The worst thing thats happened to me in music was that I was not born as Lemmy. Fuck you Lemmy, be me.”

What’s next for Speedwolf?

Reed: “Our plans for 2014 are to just do interviews, live in our mom’s basement, sell merch, drink michelob ultra in public, stack money, and tell everyone about that one when we did that one thing. WOLF OUT, LITTLE DUDES!”