Back in town
Thin Lizzy guitarist, Scott Gorham on the famous Irish band – past and present By Shelley Marsden - 28/11/07
Thin Lizzy exploded onto the music scene in 1969, rewriting the rules of rock and roll as they went. They were from both the Protestant and Catholic communities, and their lead singer was black. Influenced by artists like Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, they struck a chord with fans, with their slice-of-life, working class lyrics and rock music that blew you away. Guitarist Scott Gorham was recruited in 1974 to complete what was arguably the classic Thin Lizzy’s lineup. After the death of the band’s iconic singer Phil Lynott in 1986, following years of drug abuse, they reformed more than once and with various line-up changes. This time, however, the boys really are back in town. To celebrate 30 years since the recordeding of the seminal live album, 'Live And Dangerous' in Hammersmith, Thin Lizzy are touring the UK and playing the full album – sequentially. For fans, this is an unmissable chapter in rock history.
It must feel slightly strange to be playing an album in its entirety that was recorded three decades ago. Scott Gorham is getting nostalgic at the prospect. “I’m quite excited actually. There are a few songs I haven’t played in like thirty years”, says the guitarist in a sun-soaked,Californian drawl. “You know, tracks like Southbound, Warriors…” He goes away for a moment to check the CD cover for the rest of the tracks. But shouldn’t they be emblazoned on his brain after all this time? “Well, for the last three years we’ve been playing most of the ‘Live and Dangerous’ set anyway – what’s different is the order. When you get used to a certain order, all you have to do is put one song in a different place and it throws your whole ‘thing’ off. You get locked into positions and they become real comfortable.”
It wasn’t, moreover, an obvious move to tour ‘Live and Dangerous’ on its thirty year anniversary, maintains Gorham. It was down to an old manager who called up a few months ago saying, “Do you realize that soon it’s thirty years to the month that you guys recorded that album in Hammersmith?” Says Gorham, “I hadn’t though about it, but I was like, “Hell… thirty frickin years… My back hurts!” I compound the effect by telling Gorham I wasn’t even born when they made that album. “Oh. My. God.” Gorham’s memories of that night in Hammersmith are filled with excitement, bristling mikes and the knowledge that every little nuance up there – good, bad or ugly, was going to get recorded. “We had five sold-out shows, and there was a lot of pressure on us. You become super-aware of what’s going on around you.”
At this point Gorham gets seriously waylaid by my accent, and asks if I come from Belfast. “You do? Wow, I love Belfast. We used to go up there, during ‘The Troubles’ and no bands would go up there, they were all chicken shits, you know? We’d go up there and have a blast. We used to ask other bands, ‘Why aren’t you playing Belfast?’ and they’d mumble something and I’d say, “Well you just stay here, and we’ll go up there and rock the place. We had it all to ourselves.” Thin Lizzy were, in fact, one of the only bands that dared break for the border at a time when the North was dealing with an entertainment vacuum .
'Live and Dangerous' was recently voted by ‘Classic Rock’ as the best 'Live Rock Album of all Time'. “Yeah, go figure, huh?” says Gorham when I remind him of the accolade. Neither he nor his fellow bandmates, says Gorham, had it in mind to create the ‘perfect’ rock album. They had always had a problem with the idea of a studio album, as Lizzy’s whole thing “was having an audience in front of us: the energy, the difference in sound, the interaction.
For the remainder of this article, see this week's Irish World
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