Thin Lizzy: Bad Reputation Legends

Is there anybody here with any Irish in them?

CHEERING

Is there any of the girls would like a little more Irish in them?

This programme contains some strong laguage

MUSIC: "Don't Believe A Word"

# Don't believe me if I tell you

# Not a word of this is true... #

Thin Lizzy were the ultimate boy's own rock band.

Some say the best ever to come out of Ireland.

# Don't believe me if I tell you... #

'Great songs, great guitar playing.'

Every modern rock band has a little bit of Thin Lizzy in 'em!

They inspired average people to think, "If you can do it, so can I."

Throughout the '70s, they produced hit after hit.

Their distinctive vocals and twin guitars lending a whole new sound to hard rock.

At their heart was lead singer, Philip Lynott, writer of some of rock's greatest anthems.

He brought a vivid intelligence to this thing that could be just dismissed as adolescent boys' music.

The shapes, the look, the style, the pointing.

He had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

But with these talents and the success that followed, came legendary rock'n'roll behaviour.

I did get into a lot of fights, yeah.

It was the rollercoaster ride. Is it going to stay on track or fly off the rail?

There was always, kind of, shit happening, if you like.

The least professional band in the business!

This is the story of a band that from small beginnings,

went on to conquer the world through raw talent, hard work

and a little bit of Irish luck.

It's early 2010, and on a Tuesday morning at Dublin airport,

one man stands out among the hordes of tourists and business travellers.

Almost 30 years after Ireland's first rock super group split,

Thin Lizzy's ex-guitarist, Scott Gorham, is back where it all began,

on a mission to breathe new life into their music.

We've been talking about this for years, actually taking, uh...

the original recordings of the albums that we did, the earlier albums,

and to go into the studio and put a kind of remix on these things.

It would just be cool to hear Phil's voice in a really nice, produced atmosphere.

Scott's on his way to the home studio of Def Leppard lead singer, Joe Elliott.

Joe baby!

THEY LAUGH

He will be working with ex-Thin Lizzy drummer, Brian Downey,

to bring these tracks back to life.

# Hiding low, looking right to left... #

They're starting with the legendary Jailbreak, the sixth of 14 albums they released in their career.

# From under my breath

# When I count to three, blast 'em! #

Gosh, why didn't we use that?

It seems like it was yesterday, really.

That's a pretty distinctive voice,

talking, singing, anything, you know...

When you're around it as much as Brian and I were,

it just seemed like he should be walking through the door.

THEY CHUCKLE

If that happened, I think I'd go right through the plate glass window!

Aaah!

# In these words I wrote and play and sing for you... #

The seeds of Ireland's first commercially successful rock band

were sown on the streets of a tough neighbourhood in 1960s Dublin.

It was here where 16 year-old Philip Paris Lynott got his first gig,

singing in a neighbourhood covers band.

Brian Downey was an ex-pipe band drummer, who lived just around the corner from the singer.

He was in a band called the Black Eagles, and I used to go and see him playing in Dublin.

He was a great singer, he was a brilliant frontman.

He had great presence on stage.

I said to him one day, "The band is really great". He said, "What do you do?"

I said, "I play drums". He said, "Come down next week and you can play support for us."

I was with them for about two and a half years.

That gig was a bit of a laugh with Phil and the guys,

but the band broke up and we kind of lost contact for a bit.

After short stints apart, playing with other musicians,

Phil and Brian got together once more to form a band called Orphanage.

One of the first people to see them play was Eric Bell,

a blues-loving guitarist from north of the border who had once played with Van Morrison.

I went to this club one night with this keyboard player.

The band came on to play and it was a band called Orphanage.

Phil Lynott was the singer and Brian Downey was the drummer.

It just blew me away.

They took a break during the night.

I started talking to them and I said, "Yeah, I could fit my guitar playing into your song style."

Philip says, "Hey Brian, do you fancy forming a group with Eric?"

And he said to Brian, "I want to play the bass.

"And I also want to do some of my own songs."

So I said, "Yeah, OK, let's give it a go."

# Up to now

# My youthful stage... #

In 1969, the new band started gigging Phil's compositions of folk rock with a Celtic twist.

All they needed now was a name.

Eric Bell thought of the name.

There was a comic called the Beano.

And, um... on a John Mayall album cover,

Eric Clapton was reading the Beano, so...

Eric Bell was a big Eric Clapton fan at the time

so he went out and when we were looking for a name for the band,

he bought a copy of the Beano,

and there was a female robot called Tin Lizzie.

But, T-I-N L-I-Z-Z-I-E.

And he said, "We should call the band, Thin Lizzy."

I thought it was a dreadful name. I thought, "What does this mean?"

So we made it Thin Lizzy

because Dubliners say "tin" anyway, you know,

and it was about as deep as that!

The new band started to look for gigs.

But unlike Britain, where clubs, rock concerts and even music festivals were everywhere,

the Irish scene was still years behind.

Ireland was a very backward place at that point in time.

Especially in the country.

The show bands ruled the roost.

It was usually eight people with a brass section, keyboards, a guy at the front singing.

They would do the top 20 that was in the charts at that particular time

and they would also do evergreen songs like Danny Boy.

One of the first gigs we did, it was an Irish show band on before us

and there was about 600 people there, very country people.

So the show band finished and we walked on, and they just...

they just laughed.

Basically, and started pointing up at us - "Look at him, look at him!" Seriously.

They had never seen anything like it in their life. They thought a UFO had landed outside!

# Oh, we run

# Oh, I run

# In your skin

# Look what the wind just blew in... #

Phil was always a very striking figure because he was tall and thin

and basically a good-looking guy.

Very unusual.

He was the only black guy of his age group -

there were very few black people in Ireland at that stage, certainly round Dublin.

A few students at Trinity and that was it.

I think he always saw himself as being some sort of an artisan.

He did hang out with poets, he did go to poetry sessions.

And I basically think that he knew he was different,

but he was going to make that difference work for him.

# Look what the wind just blew in... #

It didn't take the three-piece with the black singer long to make a name for itself

on the Dublin club circuit, but what they needed more than anything was a record deal.

I was going to Ireland anyway with an in-house producer,

we were going to look at a singer called Ditch Cassidy.

Ditch was very good, but there was a three-piece band behind him,

and I must admit, I was watching them more than Ditch Cassidy.

A great drummer, a fabulous guitar player and Phil.

A black Irishman. Never seen before.

He was so thin, you could have knitted with him. It was lovely.

# And here I'll go

# Into

# A new day... #

The deal was, they would have to come and work and live in England.

There was no point signing a band who were going to stay in Ireland, that was no good to us,

because any record sales wouldn't cover their boat fare.

Thin Lizzy landed in Britain in 1971,

as glam rock bands like Slade were breaking into the charts,

alongside established acts like David Bowie and The Who.

They recorded two albums in quick succession, but neither made much impact.

If they were going to have a hit, the three-piece from Dublin would need some Irish luck.

Thin Lizzy used to rehearse in this pub

in King's Cross, I think it was, upstairs

and we used to rehearse there every week if we weren't playing.

Sometimes it just wouldn't happen.

This particular day, we were having a hard time.

So Philip picked up a guitar and he started going...

Just messing about with these Irish songs.

About 20 minutes later, he started going...

# As I was going over

# The Cork and Kerry mountains. #

Brian and me are sitting going...

At that point, one of our managers came in, Ted Carroll.

I said, I think if you can go in the studio

and record it just like you've played it now, you've got a hit.

We said, "Don't be stupid.

"We left Ireland to get away from that type of music and now you want us to record it."

Me and Philip went out with two acoustic guitars.

Brian got on the drums and we went...

# As I was going over

# The Cork and Kerry mountains

# I saw a Captain Farrell

# And his money he was counting

# I first produced my pistol

# Then produced my rapier

# I said, stand or deliver

# Or the devil, he may take you. #

In 1973, Whiskey In The Jar won them their first Top Of The Pops appearance,

reaching number six in the UK charts.

Thin Lizzy had a hit single on their hands.

It was still very much Thin Lizzy - Phil's vocal,

the rhythm, the whole feel of it was great.

It established them.

I think Phil, when he appeared

on his first Top Of the Pops, his whole life changed instantly.

The whole new vista opened up to him,

because he looked out and there was all these fantastic-looking women.

A whole new world opened up.

I'm not too sure about Eric, I think it was a bit overwhelming for him.

It got us loads and loads of gigs.

We were going out to places like Germany, Finland, Holland,

Spain and we were actually going out to these places to play Whiskey In The Jar, but we weren't playing it,

we were just miming it on TV shows.

Everybody was getting fed up with this, especially Eric Bell.

He was really fed up with the whole...

..star trip.

Eric just wanted to play the guitar and get on with the music.

I started going on stage, pretty out of my head and not bothering to practise any more.

I don't even think I tuned up the guitar any more before I went on,

because the band was no longer Thin Lizzy.

We were playing on stage in Belfast and this little voice

within my head said, "Throw the guitar up in the air,

"kick the amps off the stage and walk off, this is it."

I just walked over to all my amps, I kicked them off the stage.

Underneath the stage, there were all these gymnasium mats and I laid down on one

and that was it.

I don't think the audience realised what was going on, they think they thought it was part of the act!

Phil kept saying, "Eric is coming back. He's just going to get a few drinks for us."

But he never actually came back on.

Phil and Brian decided to hire a rising star called Gary Moore to take Eric's place.

But after just three months, he left, too.

It had a profound effect on Phil's view of the band's future size and shape.

He said, "We're not just going to have one guitar player, we'll have two

"in case one guy decides to leave in the middle of a tour."

So that's how that double twin guitar thing came about.

Auditions began for a pair of guitarists,

bringing a huge number of hopefuls knocking at Lizzy's door.

So, are you coming in or what?

Now 54, Brian Robertson was just 17

when he heard Thin Lizzy was searching for two new guitarists.

I always had it in my head that I was going to join Lizzy anyway.

When you're a kid, you sit and wait for a Saturday

and save you money to go and buy another album.

Hence, I knew all the tracks when I went to audition with Lizzy.

I was sitting watching these other guys and I was just thinking, "They're shit."

I was quite relaxed, waiting for my turn because as far as

I was concerned, in my head, I knew what was going to happen.

With one place filled, the new three-piece had to

wait another week before they found their second guitarist.

Now 59, Scott Gorham was a 23-year-old on

the verge of outstaying his UK visa when he turned up for his audition.

I walked in and there was Robbo up on the stage and Brian Downey.

They looked miserable, those guys, absolutely miserable.

I brought over a Stratocaster, but I ran at of money so I had to sell it.

I'm still left with my Japanese Les Paul copy.

Phil said, "Whip your guitar out and just come up on the stage."

I remember opening up the lid of this guitar and pulling it out

and both Robbo and Downey looked at this guitar and went, "Oh, man, what is this?! Jeez!"

HE LAUGHS

But Phil was really cool about it,

he said, "Come on up, strap your guitar and let's go." And I'm, "Yeah, OK."

Whatever I did, whatever I played on the day, it's obvious they liked what they heard.

In 1974, with Robbo and Scott on guitars, the new-look band

got to work, vowing never to play any of the old material again.

Within six months, Lizzy released Nightlife, their first album as a four-piece.

It was a significant step forward from their earlier albums,

but they were still searching for a musical signature

when they began recording their next album, Fighting.

I think Robbo was actually in the studio and there was one line

that he was going to play and I was going to double it or something.

But the engineer had put this however many millisecond delay

on that one line so when he played it, the delay came back

and it was harmonising itself.

We went, "Wait a minute, that actually sounds cool."

It was more of an accident really that we fell into

the whole harmony-guitar thing.

After that, we kind of went for it.

Thin Lizzy hit the club circuit, touring Britain non-stop,

doing small American trips in support of larger acts.

This was the mid-'70s.

Live rock music was everywhere. And with this new musical identity,

and Phil's song writing, the band started to build a following.

# Why weren't the gypsies warned of the danger?

# You can laugh and joke with your friends

# Don't you talk to strangers... #

But it had been three years since Whiskey,

and without another hit single, they couldn't survive commercially.

The record company issued an ultimatum.

The Jailbreak album, it was make-or-break time.

The band was still heavily in debt.

Sleeping two in a bed, in these really grotty little hotels.

We were told in no uncertain terms that this was it, guys.

You don't come up with the goods on this one, boom, you're done.

-# Tonight there's going to be

-a jailbreak

# Somewhere in this town... #

They were confident the title track could be a hit.

But the song that would go on to become one

of the greatest rock anthems ever almost didn't see the light of day.

I think there was like 15 songs we'd come up with.

And of which 10 were only going to make it onto the album.

The manager came down and says, "Let me have a listen to all 15 songs."

And he goes, "You know, this one here... I actually really like that.

"It's got kind of a hooky guitar thing going for it. And I love the vocals."

And we hadn't had that one included on the list. That wasn't one of the ten.

And he says, "How about you, for me, you record that one and then take out that one there."

# Guess who just got back today

# Them wild-eyed boys that had been away

# Haven't changed hadn't much to say

# But man, I still think them cats are crazy

# They were asking if you were around

# How you was where you could be found

# Told them you were living downtown

# Driving all the old men crazy

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# I said the boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town... #

The boys are back in town.

That is, as everyone knows, top five songs about rock'n'roll itself

ever written, in my view.

And I would say most other people's.

Spectacular. You don't have to do another thing in your life.

# She was cool, she was red hot

# I mean, she was steaming... #

That twin-guitar harmonic riff, the changes, some of the chords in there are fantastic passing chords.

# Man, we just fell about the place

# If that chick don't wanna know, forget her... #

It's the sort of laugh, "If the chick don't want to know, forget her."

It sort of... It's bravado.

It's macho bravura.

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

# The boys are back in town

It can come, like many a good song, in the toilet.

The boys are back in town, I had the chord sequence.

And I had about two versions for ages.

At one stage it was called GI Joe Is Back.

It took me ages just to think of the boys. I was thinking, "The kids."

The lads. You know. And somebody says, the boys.

And I went, that's it, the Boys Are Back In Town.

# Friday night they'll be dressed to kill

# Down at Dino's Bar and Grill... #

For him there was a lot of imagery in America.

There used to be a programme, an American programme, a detective show called 77 Sunset Strip

and he was looking for this mythical place called 77 Sunset Strip, which didn't exist.

The actual building that they filmed this detective agency at was Dino's.

Dean Martin's place. It was just a restaurant.

And Phil just kind of liked the whole sort of Americanism.

He put "bar and grill" on the end of it, just

because it had a little bit more of an American thing going for it.

So it became Dino's Bar and Grill.

# Friday night they'll be dressed to kill

# Down at Dino's Bar and Grill

# The drink will flow and blood will spill... #

The Boys Are Back In Town gave Lizzie the breakthrough they needed.

Having now evolved into a top-10 band, they hit the road

for another round of relentless touring at home and abroad.

# Won't be long till summer comes... #

I didn't think of it at the time, but we were just conditioned to work as much as you could.

That was a whole idea of putting in the band together, to get as successful as possible.

We were just always on the road.

At the time I was convinced we were one of the most hardest-working bands around.

The problem was, they were partying as hard as they worked.

The Lizzy boys had always enjoyed a drink.

But with success came bigger parties and much bigger bar bills.

Yeah, I think we probably were pretty bad.

But in a nice way.

We didn't kill anybody, let's put it that way.

When Thin Lizzy started, I had a bit of a wild-boy image.

I was tired of hearing rock'n'roll stars saying how sorry they were

for themselves, you know, like how they disliked fame and how they were bothered. I jumped at it.

I was famous. I thought, "Great, the women are after me", you know?

People want to buy me free drink.

They want to treat me, they want to take me here, they want to take me there.

Great. And I really went for it, hook, line and sinker.

But Phil's party was about to end, just as the band looked set to crack

America with their best-selling album yet.

It was about a week of being out on the road in America.

Phil kind of staggered into the dressing room and lay down on the floor.

I just looked at him and smiled.

He goes, "Man, I can't move. I can't get up."

I think they actually put him in the hospital that night.

Get up the next day, there's a knock at my door and it's Phil in the mirrored shades.

He goes, "Man, I've got some bad news."

"Why, what's up?" And he goes, "I'm really ill."

They say I've got hepatitis.

So that was it. Tour over, we were stopped in our tracks.

I can't tell you how depressed everybody was.

But within months, Phil and the band were back in the studio recording their second album of 1976.

The management set up another American tour.

Phil had been warned to quit boozing and partying for his health.

But one band member was only too happy to take up where he left off.

Brian took on this kind of role of hell raiser.

All I can say is he was young and he liked drinking his whisky and living that role, you know?

That was a mantle that was kind of put on him.

And he grasped it, and went with it.

I did get into a lot of fights.

It was drinking whisky all the time,

which doesn't agree with me.

I mean, I always had a bottle of whisky at the side of the stage.

I probably had about half a bottle before I went on stage.

And then drank the whole bottle while I was playing.

# Come on, Rocky take me to the night

# The neon streets are shining bright

But the hell-raising boy wonder was about to come a cropper at the worst possible time for the band.

That was in the Speakeasy club with Frankie Miller.

And somebody went to bottle his face and I went, "No, don't do that," and it went straight through.

And that was the night before I was supposed to go to America on tour.

I wasn't going to see my friend get bottled.

And actually, I thought, "He's not going to go through my hand."

And he did.

And, hospital time.

What was your reaction when you first heard what happened?

What happened?

Exasperation. I was thinking, "Fuck Robbo and fuck Frankie Miller."

Why would you get into fights down the Speakeasy, you know what I mean?

There was no way they'd get home anyway till five or six.

People used to leave the Speakeasy at four in the morning.

Robbo probably had a flight at 10 the next morning.

They were saying I was pissed as a fart and all this, right?

No, Frankie was.

I was totally sober at the time.

But I shouldn't have been out at that time.

I should have been home packing.

Getting ready to leave in the morning, you know?

But I wasn't, so there we go.

Robbo wasn't invited to rejoin the band.

It did have an effect on the band in America, no doubt about it.

Obviously the promoters in America thought that was crazy,

getting into a fight the night before a major American tour.

We were on such a great run at that point,

mentally, physically, playing-wise, everything.

I mean, we just knew that was going to be the tour that was going to break us.

It's kind of hard to get all the stars all lined up again,

to get that kind of exact feeling again.

This one hurt, and it hurt real bad.

In 1977, with Robbo now out of the band,

Gary Moore was invited back to take his place,

for a hastily-arranged US tour supporting Queen.

Lizzy had rarely played to such huge audiences.

So being on the road with one of the world's biggest bands was a revelation.

We started to learn what it was like touring at this level.

Seeing Freddie work the audience.

He realised if you have fans out there,

and if you do ask them to clap, they will do it.

I've never known anyone enjoy being a rock star so much.

Unless Philip got into a pair of leather trousers in the morning,

and walked out the door - or in the afternoon, should I say -

and walked out the door and there was limousine...

That's what life was, isn't it?

He got wrapped up in this suit that you should wear as a rock star.

You know, when you were sitting chatting to him,

he's this really quietly spoken character.

And then when he'd go on stage, he'd step into this suit, zip it up

and he was the Rocker.

Now all they needed was a hit album to match their growing rock-star status.

And for 1977's Bad Reputation,

they went to the man they knew could deliver it.

Tony Visconti was already a legendary producer,

who'd helped turn David Bowie and T-Rex into huge stars.

But if the Lizzy boys were intimidated

by meeting such a big name, they certainly didn't show it.

I saw them from my first floor window and opened the door, let them in.

And they were drunk. They were just drunk!

It was about 3pm in the afternoon.

I invited them up to my front room.

My then wife, Mary Hopkin, was about to offer them tea.

She saw the state they were in and said,

"Forget the tea, forget about it!"

She just disappeared up in the bedroom somewhere.

# You've got a bad reputation

# That's the word out on the town...

They were looking for a new sound.

All you have to do is compare the production values of Bad Reputation

to the previous one.

We were getting into a full-blown choir,

synthesised sounds, and they wanted anything I could throw at them.

They really wanted their guitars to sound different, especially the bass.

We used these things like phasing and flanging on the bass.

And then my wife, Mary Hopkin, came with our kids.

And as Mary was right there, she was elected to come into the studio

and sing this beautiful, beautiful choir arrangement on Dear Lord.

And I'll never forget that.

The band thought they were in heaven.

TRACK PLAYS

All of a sudden, Brian Downey's drums were sounding great.

I was getting good guitar sounds.

Phil was singing and playing great bass.

It was all coming together for us.

By now, Gary Moore had left for a second time,

leaving Scott to record all the guitar parts himself.

Feeling some of the old magic was missing,

he convinced Phil to invite Robbo back in.

But the angry young Scotsman was still licking his wounds,

and wasn't going to make life easy for anyone.

When it was time for Brian's solos,

he'd be sitting either in the studio apart from us,

and he'd have a bottle of Courvoisier in his hand, be drinking.

And Phil said, "Are you going to do your solo, Brian?"

Or I would say, "It's time for the solo."

And he'd say, "Yep", something like that. "OK," you know.

And...

couldn't talk to him.

So he'd march out to the studio, pick up his guitar, and just shred like...

Play beautifully.

And we'd go, "Wow!"

We'd clap - press the talkback button and clap and all that.

He wouldn't even look up and acknowledge us.

I would say, "Come and listen to it,"

and he would either walk through to the next room where he was hanging out,

or wouldn't come in the control room at all.

I'd go, "Brian, do you want to hear this?" "No."

Maybe I was feeling a little bit angry.

Er...

And being a bit stroppy again.

You know, "I'm not doing that."

I mean, I sat in the hotel and I wouldn't go out with any of them.

You know? I'd finish recording and I'd go back to my room.

What, cos you felt stabbed in the back or...?

No, it was because I was just being a little git, basically.

Despite Robbo's behaviour,

Bad Reputation became Lizzy's highest-charting album to date,

going gold in just four weeks.

A leap forward in song writing and production,

it delivered fan-pleasing rock songs,

alongside surprises like the pop classic, Dancing in the Moonlight.

# I always get chocolate stains on my pants... #

He was just an unbelievably great man for lyrics.

"Chocolate stains on my pants"?

We used to go to these flea pits, we used to call them - the Star cinema in Crumlin.

You'd sit down on these seats, you'd come out of there destroyed

with chewing gum on your trousers and all sorts.

I think that's where that line came from.

# It's three o'clock in the morning and I'm on the streets again

# I disobeyed another warning I should have been in by ten

# Now I won't get out until Sunday

# I'll have to say Hey, I stayed with friends... #

It was fairly lightweight.

It was a real pop song.

If someone who couldn't sing as good as Phil sang that,

if someone who was just twee sang Dancing In The Moonlight,

it probably would have come off very saccharine or very silly.

# The last bus heads home... #

At a time when Britain was in the grip of punk, the young rockers were more popular than ever.

With Robbo now back in the band full-time,

Lizzy were selling out huge concert halls and headlining festivals with crowds of 40,000 people.

# Dancing in the moonlight It's got me in its spotlight... #

They were brilliant live.

I mean, he really knew how to work a stage and get an audience by the scruff of the neck.

# Dancing in the moonlight

# Dancing in the moonlight... #

At their best Thin Lizzy were the best live band in the world.

Nobody could touch them.

They knew that Phil was a great frontman.

And Scott knew he looked good.

Phil knew Scott looked good.

Robbo said so arrogantly, he thought everybody looked good.

And Downey, who's a complete muso, Downey knows everything.

# On this long hot summer night

# It's so goddamn hot! #

The problem was that they'd never been able to capture the energy of their live performances on an album.

The live-album genre really wasn't that big at the time.

You know, Peter Frampton, yeah.

I think he was the first that I'd known about that actually had a huge successful live album.

And...

quite honestly we thought we could do a better one.

CHEERING # Baby, baby, baby

-AUDIENCE:

-# Baby, baby, baby

# B-b-b, b-b-b, baby... #

For Live And Dangerous, they went back to Tony Visconti for the second time in a year.

But by doing so, they would unwittingly create one of rock's great controversies.

# B-b-b, b-b-b, baby... #

I'm going to go down on record

as saying it was not my choice to do this.

Phil said, like on the first song he goes, "I made a mistake on the bass.

"I have to fix it. I was singing at the same time."

I said, "OK, Phil."

We listened to it. There's the mistake, it's certainly there.

So Phil replays that entire track, and we don't need the live bass anymore.

Then when Scott and Brian Robertson came to the studio to hear it, they said, "That's not fair,

"if you let Phil fix his parts. We made a couple of mistakes."

So to remedy this I had Scott and Brian replay their live parts.

I used some of the original sound, but mostly the overdubbed parts.

So the blend was say,

30% live guitar and 70% in the balance, you know.

And it sounded fantastic.

Within the first couple of tracks, we established a sound

that now we had to follow through with the rest of the album.

All these rumours going around that it's not a live album, it's not true. There's only...

As far as I remember, all the drum tracks,

from start to finish the drums are live on that album.

There's not one extra overdub on the drums. There's nothing.

Everything is just completely live.

And as far as I know, there's a couple of overdubs on guitar.

But nothing major. There's only little parts here and there.

I didn't touch any of my guitars on the whole album.

The only thing I overdubbed was a couple of backing vocals.

I don't know where Tony Visconti got 75% from.

But... And certain people have said that was overdubbed and dah-dah-dah.

And it wasn't. So...fuck them.

There is a big dispute about what came from where.

Who gives a shit? It sounds great.

You know? And Visconti is the man who pulled that together.

I have the distinction

of Bono from U2 coming to me, when I worked with him later, saying,

"That was the most fantastic live album I've ever heard.

"It was a primer for us.

"That was our textbook for U2.

"We wouldn't be U2 unless we'd heard Live And Dangerous."

Still consistently voted one of the best live albums ever,

Live And Dangerous catapulted the band into the big league.

Thin Lizzy was now a massive rock machine. But despite the success,

once again, all was not well between Robbo and the rest of the band.

It was just the way that we were at the time.

I was sort of in a certain frame of mind, and Phil was in another frame of mind.

Scott was in another frame of mind, so...

I kind of wanted to move on a bit, you know.

So...

And I guess me and Phil were...

like that, so...

It wasn't working that well at the time.

I kept telling Brian to, "Shut the fuck up, man, just do the gig, man.

"You don't need to do this, you know."

And then it just got to a point that I just... We...

just couldn't defend it any longer and so unfortunately he had to go.

Even with Robbo gone, this time for good, things were still looking bright for Lizzy.

By 1979, Philip was heading for a showbiz marriage, to Leslie Crowther's daughter, Caroline.

Gary Moore was back in the band to record Black Rose.

This would become the highest charting studio album of their career.

We chose Paris to make this album, and we picked EMI Studios.

EMI Studios was used by The Rolling Stones.

By this time, Phil had grown as a songwriter.

He always was a great songwriter.

But now he was fine-tuning.

The title track is a beautiful piece.

I would call it Celtic music by a rock band.

Phil finally got his wish to record an album with Gary Moore.

I think that was one of the things he really wanted to do, was,

"Before I leave this earth, I will record an album with Gary Moore."

You know. And that was basically Black Rose.

# There are people that will investigate you... #

But the band Gary joined in the studio was very different from the one he'd left just a year before.

Black Rose was the beginning of the end.

Things were going really, really well, but there was a certain point in the album

where Phil thought he could relax a little bit, and he was drinking a lot.

He would chop out copious lines of cocaine.

There were three days where Phil was stuck in his hotel room in his bed.

He couldn't leave his bed, he was so sick.

Obviously this wasn't the flu or a head cold.

This was something serious.

I knew then, after that, I couldn't work with him anymore. It was too...

It was too hurtful for me.

I mean, I would just feel

that, "I can't watch this guy kill himself." He was killing himself.

# I've got to give it up

# I've got to give it up... #

There were drug dealers all over the place.

Tony Visconti says to me, he told me that if you listen

to the Black Rose album, you'll hear Phil's voice is very...

Like he has a head cold, because he was taking so much coke at the time.

# I've got to give it up

# That stuff... #

Paris was probably the wrong city for Thin Lizzy to go and hang out in.

I mean, we literally used to get the drug dealers pounding on the door trying to get in.

And we let them in. Before then, it was all kind of recreational.

Now all of a sudden it starts to get serious.

You know, the smack starts to come in.

And, "Hey, we haven't tried this yet!

"Let's try a little bit of this!"

Halfway through a US tour to promote the album,

Gary Moore packed his bags and left Thin Lizzy for the third and final time.

The right-hand side of the stage needed filling once more.

This time, Lizzy chose a guitarist no-one could have anticipated.

# Falling and falling I'm choking and calling... #

Midge Ure had left Visage and was just about to join Ultravox, when Phil the rocker came calling.

I was in the studio and I got a phone call from Philip.

saying, "I'm in Arkansas in the middle of a tour with Lizzy,

"and we're opening up for Journey and you know, special guests, and it's huge stadiums and whatever.

"And Gary Moore is not in the band anymore. Can you come out and finish the tour?"

Now why he asked me to come out and do it, I'll never know,

because I'm not a twiddly-diddly whizz-kid guitarist like Lizzy has.

I'm fairly standard.

In fact, I could probably...

I think I hail myself as the worst guitarist Lizzy ever had!

But he invited me out because I think he saw there was an association with...

Maybe I was cool, or the band I was in was cool, or the music that I was playing was cool.

And Phil wanted to integrate this into Lizzy.

His management company sent over a bunch of cassettes

and said, "Learn these and we'll fly you out tomorrow."

I'd never been to America. I'd never been anywhere. And I thought, great.

So I got home from the studio that night, packing my bags, I thought, well, I've got the set list and I've

got the cassettes, I'll take my big ghetto blaster, because it

was before Walkmans, and I'll learn the songs on the plane.

And, of course, they sent me out on Concorde.

And halfway through the second song, learning it, the plane landed.

So I turned up completely unprepared.

I hadn't learned any of the set.

So the first night in New Orleans, when I finally got there, I spent

the evening with Scott, the two of us with two guitars, desperately trying to learn all these harmony parts.

And then the next night I was on stage for 45 minutes.

# I am just a cowboy, lonesome on the trail...

The most complicated part was every song had the harmony guitar part in it.

And trying to remember which harmony guitar part went in which song...

It was almost like...

You know those jigsaws you get of the sea?

Or the sky? You could put any bits in any bit of the jigsaw!

It was a bit like that. You could put any harmony guitar part in any Thin Lizzy song.

And it kind of in your head sounded all right, until you heard what Scott

was playing and realised you were playing the wrong one.

It really was Spinal Tap.

It was hotel suites and limos to and from the airport, and hanging about the airport for hours, and

then getting on a flight that took 20 minutes to get to the next city.

Then you'd get picked up by another limo and back into another hotel.

By the time it took you to do all that, you could have driven between the cities.

I was bored after a week.

You had to hang about an airport AGAIN because it was perceived that's what a big band did.

Oh! Crap!

The worst guitarist Lizzy ever had.

When Midge Ure left at the end of the tour, Lizzy's revolving door never stopped turning.

Three guitarists came and went in four years.

Ex-Pink Floyd player Snowy Wight and John Sykes from the Tygers Of Pan Tang were just two to grace

the Lizzy line-up, who by now were starting to sound more like a full-blown heavy-metal band.

Every few months we had a different guitar player playing.

That's what happened.

You know, it was a bit strange, so many guitar players coming through the ranks.

You know,

that was just the way it was.

Guys leave and other people join.

By the early '80s, Thin Lizzy was still releasing album after album and touring as hard as ever,

all the while living life to the max, especially Phil and Scott,

now in the grip of serious drug habits.

# He knows this all too well...

The frightening thing about heroin is that it is very enjoyable to take.

It cuts off reality.

If you've got a lot of problems and you want to just...

So it's very easy to...

It would be so easy for me to just jump up on television and say,

"Hey, this is the pits. Don't do it."

The thing that's never put across on television very well is how enjoyable it can be.

Now, I never got to the stage where I became so addicted that my body craved,

like, physically for it, but mentally that battle will continue for the rest of my life.

I think it did destroy the band, no doubt about it.

It destroyed the band completely. When heroin gets in, it affects your

ability to play rather than anything else. I personally

physically after I tried it couldn't play.

I learned after about four or five weeks of being on it

that this was not for me and just stopped.

I've never taken it since, you know.

By 1983, it was becoming increasingly clear that the rock'n'roll

lifestyle they had pursued and that some band members had embraced had begun to catch up with them.

By the end of that year, Scott finally got out and hasn't looked back since.

Golf kind of saved my life.

When you take drugs as heavily as we did and then you stop, there's a

massive hole in your life and you're always trying to fill that hole.

It's amazing how just trying to hit that stinking little white ball with this tiny little club

is just all-encompassing. That's all you want to concentrate on doing.

I'd say kind of crunch time for me came when we were playing some massive festival.

I remember not wanting to go up on the stage.

I was absolutely out of my box.

You know, I started to think about that.

My whole life you work yourself into these positions,

to get into this position you've always wanted to be in,

and now you don't want to do it because you're not stoned enough.

I thought this just ain't right.

I remember Phil turning over and looking at me, and he just had this

horribly depressed look on his face.

He was sweating anyway, but it actually looked like

tears were coming down because the pain was so bad.

I thought, "Oh, man, you know.

"This is wrong.

"We've got to fix this."

The solution was a farewell tour seen by over 100,000 fans.

Then the journey that had started in Dublin 14 years before just came to an end.

At the last gig, literally at the airport, we just said, "See you, guys.

"Bye." We got on different planes and that was it.

Just went our separate ways and that was it.

No talk of, you know, seeing you in six months and reconsider.

Nothing like that.

That was the end of that.

The pop singer Phil Lynott died in hospital in Salisbury this afternoon.

The 35-year-old Irish singer had been taken to hospital from a clinic

specialising in drug and alcohol addiction.

Doctors say he died of pneumonia and heart failure.

# I think I'm gonna

# Fall to pieces

# If I don't find something else to do

# The sadness, it never ceases

# Oh, I'm still in love with you...

I do know that that band was his whole life.

He invested a lot of his life into that band, as we all did.

But, for Phil, it was something way deeper.

He just, just loved Thin Lizzy and he just loved that band.

# Is this the end?

# Still in love with you...

I just wish Philip was alive. I just wish he was alive,

you know, because they would have been kings, you know.

It's not just me imagining they were superb. They were.

Look at the guitar players they used.

They were the equivalent of an Irish Yardbirds or John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

It was like an academy of great musicians.

You only play with great people if you're great.

Lizzy built a bridge from Ireland over to the UK

and then on to the rest of the world, and that bridge has been used by many, many Irish bands.

I think there's no doubt that U2 owe a huge debt of gratitude. They paved the way.

When you're in Dublin, you don't see many statues of rock stars.

For some reason, for some magical reason, their music was completely timeless.

You see people in blogs saying favourite bands

and they'll list bands from this year and then somewhere among them will be Thin Lizzy.

They're totally timeless.

# Still in love with you...

I think if the original line-up

of Scott and Brian had stayed together and kept at it,

I think they would eventually have become one of the biggest bands in the world, you know.

Can you see a day when the three of you would play again?

-Um...

-No!

Well, we're trying.

You know, I'll go that far.

We're trying right now. You'll see a Thin Lizzy tour, absolutely.

We're trying to get as many of the original guys back up there as possible, you know.

And get back to the sound, the Thin Lizzy sound.

One last question, harping back to the fact Lizzy had been in existence

for 13 years and all those albums,

tracks and songs that you've recorded, is there any one song

or one album that in 20 years' time you would look back and say, "Yes!

"I created that."

Duke Ellington had a great answer to that question.

He used to say, "My favourite song is the next one."

And hopefully that will be my answer in 20 years' time, you know.

Right, thanks a lot, Phil.

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