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Iconic Mötorhead Founder Lemmy Kilmister Dead At 70

LOS ANGELES (CBS SF) -- Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, the legendary rocker who played with British band Hawkwind and led his influential power trio Mötorhead for four decades, has died at age 70, according to reports.

The band's official Facebook page posted that their bassist, gravel-throated vocalist and principle songwriter Kilmister passed away on Monday after "a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer."

The post described him as "our mighty, noble friend" and urging fans to "...play Motörhead loud, play Hawkwind loud, play Lemmy's music LOUD. Have a drink or few. Share stories. Celebrate the LIFE this lovely, wonderful man celebrated so vibrantly himself. HE WOULD WANT EXACTLY THAT."

Each of the band's legendary live shows would begin with Kilmister's loud announcement: "We are Motorhead! We play rock and roll!"

Ozzy Osbourne called him "one of my best friends."

"He will be sadly missed," Osbourne wrote on Twitter late Monday. "He was a warrior and a legend. I will see you on the other side."

The first word of his passing surfaced with a tweet by heavy metal DJ and host of the VH-1 program "That Metal Show" Eddie Trunk.

Kilmister, who just turned 70 years old on Christmas Eve last week, was born in 1945. He cultivated an early interest in rock music, working in a variety of groups and famously serving as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix during the late 1960s.

Though he had spent much of his early years playing guitar, Kilmister joined the British space rock band Hawkwind as bassist and sometime vocalist in 1972. He played on several of the group's most acclaimed records including Doremi Fosol Latido, Space Ritual and Hall of the Mountain Grill as well as singing on the hit song "Silver Machine" before being fired after an arrest for drug possession at the US-Canadian border while on tour  in 1975.

Kilmister would found Mötorhead later that same year. The seminal line-up of the group featuring drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor (who died in November of this year) and guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clark produced a string of albums including Overkill, Bomber and Ace of Spades that became major hits in the U.K. and established the band as a cult act in the United States.

The trio's driving, aggressive sound would prove to be hugely influential among both the burgeoning punk rock scene of the late '70s and the thrash metal movement that emerged in the Bay Area in the following decade. Kilmister would become a rock icon and notorious for his lifestyle of heavy drinking and drug indulgence.

Kilmister would remain the sole constant in the band through a number of line-ups, consistently touring and putting out albums that stuck to Mötorhead's signature sound including last year's Bad Magic. While the bassist has suffered from health issues in recent years that have forced him to cut some live performances short and cancel tour dates, the band's Facebook post regarding a cancer diagnosis was the first time the illness has been publicly connected to the rocker.

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