As leader of Thin Lizzy, Phil Lynott led the most heroic rock band of a generation. Flanked by their trademark twin guitar assault, Lynott’s heart, soul and poetic songwriting made “the squadron” one of the most vital rock and roll groups of all time. Yet Lynott’s battles with drugs and alcohol led to his tragic death in 1986 at the age of just 36.
In 2009, Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham accepted The MOJO Icon Award on behalf of Lynott at The MOJO Honours List ceremony in London.
“Phil was a really great friend of mine, I still miss him, I still wish he was here,” said Gorham. “He should be here himself to collect these kind of things. I’ve collected a few of these now on his behalf and it still pisses me off that it’s me that’s got to go and collect them for him. I think it angers a lot of people. He should still be here right now taking these home.”
Below, Gorham speaks to MOJO’s Danny Eccleston about being in Thin Lizzy, Lynott’s prowess as a songwriter and lyricist and how he broke down racial barriers in rock music…
What was it like to be in a band with Phil?
Phil was one of those kind of guys who was extremely generous, he wanted you to write music with him, he wanted you to be in the spotlight, he wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted the whole thing himself. Phil was about Thin Lizzy, he wasn’t about Phil Lynott, he was all about the band and to me that’s what made the difference between him and all of the rest of the guys out there. He worked for the band, he loved the whole idea of the unit rather than the individual. But it’s really cool that people honour him as the individual. It’s very cool.
He was a pretty good songwriter on top of everything else, wasn’t he?
Well that’s the thing, you would bring songs into the band but you knew that lyric-wise, you were never going to touch that because he was the guy that was going to come up with the goods everytime. So you always left that side of the songwriting to him.
There were many great line-ups of Thin Lizzy, you were in more of them than most!
A lot of line-ups!
My personal favourite is with Robbo [Brian Robertson], Brian Dowling… that quartet.
That was a good. That was a period where, certainly artistic-wise, we seemed to explode at that point. We hit on the formula with The Boys Are Back In Town and felt that the harmony guitar thing worked really well and we really enjoyed it. It was a really great springboard for us and it was a really great springboard for Phil because he could write around those kind of guitar parts, it all worked for everybody. I do a lot of interviews and people say pick out a favourite track and it will always be something from [1978 live album] Live And Dangerous rather than one of the studio albums. I will always pick something right out of Live And Dangerous.
Phil broke a lot of barriers, people forget that at this point. Even when I first joined the band, the very first day that I came into that rehearsal hall and I saw [him], ‘Jeez, the bass player is a black guy…’ These days it’s not a big deal, but in a rock band… So there was that barrier there, it was the way he dressed, the whole thing. People didn’t do that at that point, he kind of created this whole thing that other people copied. Phil was a real original guy that a lot of people looked up to see what he did and how he was doing it and [thought] ‘Well, maybe I’ll do a little bit of that myself...’ You still see that to this day. It’s pretty cool.
Watch MOJO’s interview with Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham in full below…
Photo: Ian Dickson/Redferns