Queen's Brian May has posted a lengthy tribute to the late Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister, the Motorhead frontman who passed away recently after a short battle with aggressive cancer.

"Words don't come easy, especially when you know Lemmy would have laughed at us all trying to say dignified things about him being a hero," May wrote on his website alongside a number of photos.

"Any time I attempted to say anything complimentary to Lemmy to his face, he would fix me with a kind of amused, contemptuous stare.

But a kind of hero he certainly was. Unique in just about every way imaginable."

"He was a living mismatch of personality types. His music was roaring, abrasive, uncompromising, and his lyrics mostly deliberately gave no hint of sensitivity.

Yet as a person he was a pacifist, a deep thinker, and a man who cared profoundly about his friends," recalls May.

"I was never in his closest circle of pals, but we bumped into each other often and he always managed to say something shockingly respectful to me, leaving me disarmed, because he hated being praised himself.

Or so it seemed. One of my dearest friends lived with Lemmy for 10 years and she always spoke of him as a tender man, very different from his public face, which never deviated from his tough gaze on the world.

Lemmy was a highly cultured and well-read man — yet to see him glued to a fruit machine most of a night in the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset Strip you would never have guessed it.

In fact, that hallowed place, steeped in Rock and Roll history, will always bear his spiritual mark."