Larry Wallis

Larry Wallis stood at the heart of the later Pink Fairies, helped launch Motörhead as a founding member, and shaped early Stiff Records sessions with his production work. Widely revered within Britain’s rock underground, he earned acclaim as a remarkable guitarist while also penning the punk-era classic “Police Car.” He joined Nick Lowe, Sean Tyla, and Dave Edmunds in the Takeaways supergroup, delivered searing guitar on Mick Farren and the Deviants’ landmark Screwed Up EP, and demonstrated to punk-era listeners that hair extending past his armpits need not signal creative obsolescence. At a moment when raw, youthful guitar intensity mattered most, few players matched the fury or immediacy Wallis brought to every performance.

His résumé stretches to the early 1970s and encompasses free-festival stalwarts the Entire Sioux Nation, Steve Took’s Shagrat (featuring the former T. Rex percussionist), Blodwyn Pig, Lancaster’s Bomber, and a brief spell with UFO, before he entered the Pink Fairies lineup for their third album, Kings of Oblivion, often cited as their strongest work. After the group disbanded, Wallis entered Motörhead in 1975, an alignment he later characterized as inevitable: “It was just as if the serendipity fairy had arrived, Lemmy had been ‘imprisoned in Hawkwind,’ and was now flexing his leathern wings…. It just had to be.”

Wallis and Lemmy forged one of the most ferocious outfits of the pre-punk years, and the limited gigs they played rewrote prevailing notions of rock performance. United Artists, their label at the time, remained unconvinced, pairing them first with Dave Edmunds and then with Fritz Fryer, a veteran of the beat era, before concluding that the material lacked commercial appeal. Dropped from the roster, the recordings stayed vaulted until Motörhead’s late-’70s breakthrough rendered any associated tapes suddenly viable. Released in 1978, On Parole—named after one of Wallis’ own songs—has remained in print ever since.

Wallis exited Motörhead around the time of the label split and, into early 1976, guided a rejuvenated Pink Fairies through London venues amid the shift from pub rock to punk. By late summer the band had joined Stiff Records, issuing “Between the Lines” as the label’s second release, and performed at the inaugural Mont de Marsan Punk Festival that August alongside Nick Lowe, Little Bob Story, and Eddie & the Hot Rods. Though the Fairies were widely judged the standout act, they chose that peak to announce their dissolution.

Wallis stayed with Stiff and cut “Police Car” in spring 1977 with Hot Rods bassist Paul Gray and drummer Steve Nicol. He also produced the Adverts’ first two singles, among them the Top 20 hit “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes,” and appeared on the autumn 1977 Live Stiffs tour billed with Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Wreckless Eric. Performing as the Psychedelic Rowdies, his set yielded the explosive “Police Car” track preserved on the live album.

Early in 1978 Wallis began tracking a solo album with Deke Leonard, Big George Webley, and Pete Thomas, yet label decisions left the project shelved, where it remains. Subsequent collaborations with Mick Farren alternated with work alongside Wayne Kramer and a ten-year songwriting tenure with Dr. Feelgood. A mid-’80s Pink Fairies reunion was framed by his own groups, the Death Commandos of Love and the Redbyrds. Wallis finally issued a solo album, Death in the Guitarfternoon, in 2001. Although occasional live appearances continued, he avoided further studio work, but archival projects kept his catalog active: Shagrat’s Lone Star album saw reissue in 2016, an expanded edition of Death in the Guitarfternoon arrived in 2017, and Sound of Speed, a compilation of rare and unreleased material, also surfaced that year. Larry Wallis died on September 19, 2019, at the age of 70.