A tribute to Phil Lynott, by the guitarists who played alongside him
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August 20, 2024: Had he lived, much-missed Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott would have turned 75 today. In 2005, Classic Rock spoke to the guitarists who worked with him, and asked them to reflect on their time alongside one of rock's greatest.
Eric Bell
Co-founder of the band in 1970, Bell was guitarist on the first three Thin Lizzy albums.
How did you get the gig with Lizzy/Lynott?
“I’d just left the show band I’d been with. I was on the loose and needed a bass player and drummer to form a band of my own with and nobody was interested. Phil was playing with [eventual Thin Lizzy drummer] Brian Downey in a band called Orphanage at the time and I went to see them. I already knew Brian, and liked his drumming. So when they took a break I went into the changing room.
"Coincidentally, just Philip and Brian were there and I asked whether they knew any bass players or drummers that might be available. They said they’d get back to me with any ideas. As I was walking out the door, Philip turned to Brian and said: ‘What about forming a band with Eric?’ That was how it started.
“Philip said one of the things he’d like to do was play some of his own songs. I thought: ‘Okay, here we go’. He brought the songs over to my flat one afternoon, just me and him, and they were terrific. It was just him singing and an acoustic guitar. His lyrics were excellent, and so was his voice. He was so confident, I thought there and then that this guy had genuine talent. All he was lacking was a vehicle.”
Was Phil a wayward spirit?
“When I first met him, all we took was the usual substances that musicians liked – nothing too heavy. A bit of hash or grass, or maybe some acid. There was no cocaine or heroin around at that point. He was young and, like the rest of us, having a good time. He was one of the lads, really.
“There were times when I worried about him. When I was with Thin Lizzy in those early days, whenever there was some good hash or lots of alcohol around, it was always Philip who wanted to go one stage further. I’d be lying around in a corner, out on a different planet, but Phil would be coherent. He had a very strong constitution and I suppose that’s why he ended up getting into the heavy gear. The stuff that can really do you harm.”
What do you think your own personal guitar contributions added to the Lizzy/Lynott oeuvre?
“I’d like to think I contributed quite a lot. I’d played in show bands quite a lot, and also some blues groups. So I had this Irish thing going on in my style, maybe like the way Rory Gallagher did.”
Gary Moore
Replaced Eric Bell in ’74 for four months, then deputised twice for Brian Robertson on tour, and re-joined Thin Lizzy permanently for 1979’s Black Rose album.
When did you first meet Phil?
“As a 16-year-old when I came down from Belfast to Dublin to join Skid Row, which would have been in 1969, and he was that band’s lead singer. I was living in a little bedsit, and Phil said he’d show me round Dublin. He took me to restaurant called the Kam Tong on Grafton Street. I’d never had Chinese food before. He promised that I’d love it, but I fucking hated it – so he ate mine, too. That set the tone for our relationship.
“After that he took me out to some clubs, places like the Moulin Rouge, looking for a few birds and stuff. I’m not being un-PC; that’s how he used to speak. We became the two bad boys in Skid Row, getting up to all sorts.”
What were your first impressions of him?
“How charismatic he was, really. As we walked around Dublin, old ladies would stop and wave, ‘Hey, Skid, how’s it going?’ They thought his name was Skid Row. You have to remember, there were very few black people in Dublin at the time. Phil stood out like a sore thumb. Funnily enough, I never saw him getting any racism; people used to just think he was a bit of a novelty.
“At the beginning, Phil was definitely as gregarious as the legend suggests. He’d talk to anybody, and have a drink with them. To dispel the myth a little, in those days Phil was up early every day. He’d cook you a breakfast like your bleedin’ mother, then go out trawling through the markets buying second-hand clothes. At that point, he was a very domesticated guy, with a lot of energy.”
Was Phil a wayward spirit, or was he – in spite of his addictions – always in control of proceedings?
“Nobody who’s addicted to anything is really in control. A drug expert I met once told me that he thought Phil would have gone down the same path, whether he’d have joined a rock band or not. Towards the latter period of Phil’s life, the drugs totally drained him of his energy.
“When we did the Out In The Fields single together [in 1985], I hadn’t seen him for four years. We bumped into each other at Heathrow Airport and there were hugs all round, but he was a very different guy. He’d come down at 2.30 in the afternoon instead of the 1pm you’d arranged, with a spliff in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other. He was into all that before he even started the day.
“After Thin Lizzy broke up, he was never really the same guy. That band had been his family. You do actually spend more time with those guys than your wife. He was left a very lonely guy, and so many assholes and parasites hung around his big, empty house in Kew. It was sad to see. In those days, it wasn’t cool to go into rehab. He’d have had to admit he had a problem. These days, he’d be straight off down to the Priory hoping to bump into Kate Moss or whoever.
“When we were alone, I did try to speak to him about the drugs. He knew I had a problem with it and tried to stay away while I was around him. We discussed making a full album together, but I couldn’t face working with the guy.”
Could you have foreseen Phil’s death?
“Even though I knew the state he was in, I never thought it’d happen to Phil. When it happened, I was in a total state of shock. My Run For Cover album had just come out, and it contained Military Man and the single Out In The Fields, which we’d done together. Phil made some guest appearances with us at Hammersmith and the Manchester Apollo, and they were the last times I saw him. He’d actually talked about being my bass player on the tour; I knew he was incapable of being anyone’s bass player at that point. The idea was ridiculous, and I didn’t need the fucking trouble.
“I was in Tenerife when I heard. My then wife was reading the Sunday paper and gasped, and I knew right away what had happened. It was so upsetting, it took a couple of days before I could even cry. It took months to accept the finality, and I still sometimes dream that Phil’s alive and talking to me.
“The great thing about Phil, even when we weren’t working together, was that I could always go to him. If I was confused about the music scene, he’d put things in perspective. He’d go: ‘Punk? Ah, it’s the same old shit in different clothes’. I miss that.”
Do you think Phil’s talents as a songwriter were fully recognised all those years ago?
“Nowhere near as much as they should have been. To me, Thin Lizzy reached a peak with Jailbreak. By the time I joined them, they were on the way down. I’m still proud of the Black Rose album, but it’s not regarded as a classic Lizzy album. He was writing better songs in those earlier days. I used to love going to see them with Scott [Gorham] and Robbo [Brian Robertson]. If the songs had stayed at that standard, he’d have had no problems cracking the next level – being on a par with the likes of Springsteen and Van Morrison. Lizzy never really cracked America, but Phil was one of the first people to bring that poetic, romantic Celtic style to rock music. He deserves credit for that.”
What’s your outstanding Lizzy/Lynott memory?
“Doing Parisienne Walkways together. It was such a lovely, creative process. I played it to him on an acoustic guitar and he went, ‘That sounds kinda French, let me write some lyrics’. I’d never even thought of that possibility. You should have seen us trying to play this fucking accordion in the studio; him on one side squeezing, and me on the other trying to play the keys. When it came out and was a huge hit, I was so proud that it showed what we could do together.
"Were there also other sides to him that I didn’t like? Of course. You couldn’t leave your girlfriend with him in a room. And he could be a real cunt if he wanted. But we all can.”
What do you think you added to the Lizzy/Lynott oeuvre?
“Scott [Gorham] never really thought I was much of a team player, and it was inevitable I’d go off on my own sooner or later. If I can take any credit for Black Rose, it was probably the band’s most sophisticated record that they did. I brought things out of them, and they did the same to me.”
Scott Gorham
California-born Scott Gorham lit the fire beneath Lynott’s poetic inclinations from ’74–’83.
When did you first meet Phil?
“In Hampstead, London, in 1974. I’d never heard of Thin Lizzy and knew none of their music. The reason for that was being American, the band had no songs released where I came from. I walked into the whole Lizzy thing as a complete virgin.”
How did you get the gig?
“I’d been playing in my own band in London [called Fast Buck], and people often got up and jammed with us. This Irish guy called Ruan O’Lochlaun who knew Phil and the band’s management was aware that they were looking for a guitar player. They [Lizzy’s management] had put my name forward. I knew nothing about them. But I went down and had a blow with them, and Phil called me up that same evening and asked if I wanted to join the band.”
Did you ever perceive Phil to be a wayward spirit?
“From the outside, sometimes it didn’t seem like he was in total control, but it always seemed that way to me. I knew that he knew he had a problem with drugs, it wasn’t something he could have been oblivious to. In fact, just before he died he told me was gonna clean up and organise his life. He wasn’t just this wayward guy that blew through life nothing thinking about anything; he knew what was going on.”
Could you have foreseen Phil’s death?
“It didn’t seem inevitable at all. He was the tough guy of rock. He could screw more chicks, drink and take drugs more nights in a row, and generally stir up more trouble than anyone I ever knew. Somehow he’d always come up the next day looking fine. But he miscalculated the whole potency of his lifestyle. It just caught up with him in the end.”
Do you think Phil’s talents as a songwriter were fully recognised all those years ago?
”Probably not. The way that he wrote things and the way we did, we were a bit of an oddity. We never really followed the trends of things like big vocal harmonies or slick productions. He’s probably bigger than ever now because people have had time to soak it all in.”
What’s your outstanding Lizzy/Lynott memory?
“One of the things I really liked about Phil was that he wasn’t a mean person. He always liked to look after the underdog. I always remember he used to say, ‘You should never step on somebody else to make yourself look taller’. I always tried to carry that with me.
What do you think your own personal guitar contributions added to the Lizzy/Lynott oeuvre?
“Oh man, I’m just the guitar player on the left. Everyone else was the star player. I was the guy that hung out, although maybe I threw in a few of the Americanisms. Maybe I sometimes showed Phil a different way to think. I never saw myself as going down the guitar hero route, for me it was always about being in a really cool band.”
Who’s your favourite Lizzy/Lynott guitarist other than yourself?
“Everyone got into the band for different or particular reasons, so it’s hard to make those kind of comparisons. That said, there were definitely more productive periods than others. Obviously, Brian Robertson and myself were a very, very productive team. We started that whole twin-guitar thing. Afterwards, everyone had to come in and copy that. That said, they were all able to put their own stamp and personality on the style.
“For me, as an ever-present from that point onwards, it was particularly interesting to see that being put into practise. It’s such a subjective question, I always decline to answer it when I’m asked. Each guy brought a unique talent to the band. Right now, John Sykes and I are having a fucking great time playing together [as Thin Lizzy], we really fucking gel. But it was the same with Brian Robertson.”
Brian Robertson
The Glaswegian joined the band in 1974, leaving after the Live And Dangerous LP.
When did you first meet Phil?
“At a Thin Lizzy gig at the Redhurst Hotel in Clarkston, down the road from where I lived in Glasgow. I had all the albums. That would’ve been in early 1973. I was just having a pint. It was lucky I had my guitar with me; I’d just come back from a gig of my own, and the Redhurst was my local. And I ended up in Brian’s room playing blues. My friend Big Charlie was a roadie for the band, and he told me they were having auditions. So I came down to London, but also to audition for a band called Slack Alice – as a drummer. They later ended up supporting us.
“From what Big Charlie told me, Phil had almost given up. They’d auditioned loads and loads of people, but Charlie told him I was still in London, staying in this squat with the road crew. Man, it was squalid – cooking bacon sandwiches on an electric fire. So he persuaded Phil to give me a try, and I got the gig.”
What were your first impressions of him?
“It’s difficult to tell when you’re 17 years old. I’d have probably said he was aloof, but he probably wasn’t. It was Brian Downey that I got on best with. I actually ended up in his room playing blues.”
Could you have foreseen Phil’s death; was it something of an inevitability?
“That’s hard. We’ve all done daft things, but Phil was in the position of power so it was magnified more than the rest of us. He was the figurehead, and lots of people – certainly the management – couldn’t say no to him. Phil wasn’t powerful just because of his musical ability and writing, but because of the way he looked. Which is why Lizzy going out without him these days is a sick fucking joke.”
Do you think Phil’s talents as a songwriter were fully recognised all those years ago?
“Yeah, probably. But don’t forget that there was a lot of talent in the band. There was a lot of input from other people. It started to show when the line-ups started changing, and so did the music. I wouldn’t say it was for the better, really. But then again, you never know if those declining standards were down to the drugs and the lifestyle, it’s hard to say. But to me, he definitely started to go AWOL.”
What’s your outstanding Lizzy/Lynott memory?
[Laughing]: “The first one that popped into my head just isn’t bloody printable! One thing I’ll never forget is how great Phil was with kids. Before he died I was living in Richmond with Ronnie Wood’s missus [Chrissie] and I used to take Jesse James [their son] down to the house to play with the train sets. Phil was absolutely brilliant with him. In fact, I only found out how ill he was when I took him Jesse’s Christmas present, a Dennis The Menace tea-mug. Phil was a big kid, just like the rest of us.”
What do you think your own personal guitar contributions added to the Lizzy/Lynott oeuvre?
“Being a Les Paul man and not a Strat player like Eric [Bell], I gave the thing a bit of guts and edge. The first three albums were totally different to the four-piece band. I’m not saying what we did was better or worse, maybe just a bit more aggressive. It helped a lot that I was an upstart, a real little arrogant shit at the time.”
Who’s your favourite Lizzy guitarist other than yourself?
“I wouldn’t have minded doing some stuff with Gary [Moore] because I always respected him. We’ve had chats in the past about working together, but it never came to fruition. Maybe something’ll happen in the future, you never know.”
[Postscript: Classic Rock later passed Robbo’s mobile number onto Gary Moore, which resulted in Brian being added to the bill of his Dublin tribute show in late 2005.
Snowy White
After playing with Pink Floyd and Peter Green, Snowy was in Lizzy from 1980-81.
When did you first meet Phil?
“Backstage at Madison Square Garden in New York, in the autumn of 1979. It was very brief.”
How did you get the gig with Lizzy/Lynott?
“It was all down to luck. I was rehearsing down at Shepperton Studios for a one-off gig with Cliff Richard. I literally bumped into Scott Gorham, who said: ‘Oh yeah, I remember you from Pink Floyd in New York. We’re trying out guitarists next door, do you want to come along?’ I wasn’t able to because I was so busy with Cliff.
“A few days later I got a phone call asking if I could go and play with them for a bit. I went along and after I’d done so Phil asked the room: ‘Shall we have Snowy in the band, then?’ Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea.”
Did you ever perceive Phil to be a wayward spirit?
“That’s a difficult one. I think he’d been more in control before I met him, but then the drugs started to take control. He became quite difficult to work with, or to pin down on things. There would be a big interview planned for 11am, and he’d swear he’d be okay to be there but then would never show up. You could call him a wayward spirit, yeah, or a loose cannon – but in the nicest possible way. Sadly, he had a lot to offer but never made the most of his full potential.”
Could you have foreseen Phil’s death?
“Yeah, I saw it a long time in advance. In fact, I once told him that if I lived the way he did, I’d be dead within a week. He brazened it out, but people choose their own paths and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
What’s your outstanding Lizzy/Lynott memory?
“I have a lot of affection for the first six months or so, when we were working on the Chinatown album. That was a lot of fun; there were tours planned and I was enjoying the music. But even then there were glimmers of what was to come. So much studio time was wasted, and it was their money paying for it.”
What do you think you added to the Lizzy oeuvre?
“Some people think I was a waste of time with Thin Lizzy, others write and say they really like what I did. It’s in the ear of the listener. I think I definitely added something, I’m just not sure whether or not it was the right thing.”
John Sykes
John Sykes joined Thin Lizzy in time for their 1983 swansong Thunder And Lightning.
When did you first meet Phil?
“I first met Phil properly at around the time in was in a band called the Tygers Of Pan Tang. We’d done a couple of albums together and I’d left, but I was still contracted to MCA Records. In order to get away from MCA, I had to do a solo single. I had the music for a song but no words, and this guy I knew called Chris Tsangarides who’d produced the Tygers had also worked on Lizzy’s Renegade album.
"He asked Phil if he’d listen to my track, and to my complete amazement Phil came back and said he’d do something with me. We met in Ireland for the first time, at Lombard Studios in Dublin, knocked out the track and went to a couple of Dublin clubs in the evening. Just being around the guy was incredible. I was in seventh heaven.”
How did you get the gig with Lizzy/Lynott?
“Well, right off the bat we had clicked during the recording of the single, [Please Don’t Leave Me]. He came in, took charge of everything and I was thoroughly impressed by him. It was about two weeks later that I got a call asking if I wanted to be involved in the band. It was a dream come true, one of the happiest days of my life. After that, Phil kinda took me under his wing. From there onwards, it was an amazing ride.”
Could you have foreseen Phil’s death?
“I always thought Philip was indestructible. But I guess that things caught up with him. That happens if you do enough of anything. He just hid things very well.”
Do you think Phil’s talents as a songwriter were fully recognised all those years ago?
”All those years ago and now, those talents are pretty undeniable. It’s incredible that even though he’s no longer around, people still love to come out and hear his songs. We see so many young faces at the shows [Sykes fronted the reformed version of Thin Lizzy until 2009], it’s the ultimate testimony to his writing skills.His music will live forever and will inspire people for a long, long time.”
Who’s your favourite Lizzy guitarist other than yourself?
“I’ve always loved Gary Moore’s playing, but my favourite Lizzy line-up is the Live And Dangerous one, with Scott [Gorham] and Brian Robertson. The combination of the Scotsman and the American with the two Irishmen gave them such great chemistry. To me, it’ll always be the definitive Thin Lizzy.”
Interviews by Dave Ling. This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 83, published in Summer 2005.
