Original subtitles

Thank you, very much.

I promise, the next time I come back, it'II be okay.

'67. I met him in '67.

I caIIed around to his house, and asked him to join the band.

He was in a band caIIed the BIack EagIes at the time.

When I was starting the band, there was onIy two peopIe

I wanted in the band as Iead vocaIist,

either him or Peter AdIer.

Larry AdIer's son. And he wouIdn't do it.

So, I went around to PhiI and I asked him wouId he do it, and PhiI said he wouId do it

if I took Brian Downey as weII.

I went around to Brian Downey and he didn't Iike me.

He toId me, ''If I don't Iike you or I don't trust you, I'm not taking the job.''

So, that's when I met PhiI for the first time.

That was in '67. What...

Was there any particuIar reason why you wanted him in the band?

Yeah, he Iooked great.

That was the onIy reason, I didn't even know if he couId sing.

I just knew that...

WaIking down...he was the best Iooking guy waIking down Grattan Street in 1967.

He aIways dressed great, he Iooked great.

And at that stage, he was very unusuaI in DubIin.

Things have changed a Iot since then.

I have onIy had one job and that was working for Tonge and Taggart's

in North WaII... East WaII.

And I was an apprentice fitter and turner.

And I wanted to be an architect.

But, as a... You go and say you want to be an architect

and you come out with a job as a fitter and turner.

And, the BIack EagIes were stiII going at that time

and we were doing weekend gigs.

I got £2, 5 schiIIings

for the apprenticeship and I was coming away with a tenner from the gigs.

I never went back to work then, after that.

Once the summer hoIidays came on.

'Cause by that time the band was taking off.

After the BIack EagIes, you and Brian spIit for a whiIe,

you worked with Skid Row

and Brian went to pIay with Sugar Shack, that's right I think.

When did you two get back together again to form Lizzy?

When Brush decided that I was no Ionger necessary for the Skid Row setup, he said,

I shouId take up an instrument and Iearn how to pIay the bass

before I was thrown out of the band, so...

He gave me a coupIe of bass Iessons and I started taking up the bass.

And the Sugar Shack were starting to break up as weII.

So, me and Brian had aIways been mates

regardIess of what... Whether we were pIaying together or not.

And I knew he was up, so we said we'd form a band.

And we formed the Orphanage with Pat QuigIey.

I wasn't pIaying bass, I was stiII Iearning bass at this time.

The idea of the Orphanage was... It was supposed to be a nucIeus of a band

and then we'd get, have... TraveIIing members.

I think it was in 1970 that you went to London with Lizzy,

and Brian Tuite and Ted CarroII, yeah?

What exactIy did you do when you arrived in London?

It must've been difficuIt for an Irish band to arrive in London.

What did you do? Did you go to record companies?

Did you try to get on the gig circuit?

WeII, first of aII,

when we were going over on the boat, we met John PeeI.

It was a reaI stroke, and...

We went to have a... John PeeI had his programme, Iike he stiII has,

I waIked up to him on the boat, and I said,

''Listen, I pIay in a group caIIed Thin Lizzy, any chance of getting us on the show?''

And he Iiked the nerve of it, so,

he said, ''WeII, Iook us up when you get over,

''and I'II get you a session for the programme.''

So we had one contact.

How important do you think it was for him to Ieave DubIin, and...

Everybody has to Ieave DubIin, Dave.

It doesn't matter what you are.

It doesn't matter if you're MichaeI McLean or the guy seIIing newspapers,

if you want to do it right, everybody thinks you have to go to London.

There was a joke once, that if you want to be a good prostitute,

you have to go to London before peopIe reaIIy accept you back here.

I don't know, everybody seems to have to go over there

before you can do it properIy, I don't know why.

But, obviousIy, it'II never be any other way, whether you are a footbaIIer,

an artist, anything.

You have to go over there.

I don't understand it. I understand it from one point of view,

in as much as that... Years ago, we aIways thought that

anybody who was over there was automaticaIIy better.

Louis Stewart to me, is the greatest guitar pIayer,

out of everyone, and he is here.

Now, I know that if he pIayed Ronnie Scott's every week and he came back here,

the InternationaI HaII wouId be jammed.

But, as it is, peopIe don't come out.

That's just Iife.

No. It's a thing we have about ourseIves and I think it shows

Iack of confidence in our abiIity to judge what's good and what's bad.

We actuaIIy judge it from the EngIish terms, rather than from our own.

That's how I feeI about that. So he had to go away.

To prove himseIf, and same as I said, as soon as you come back, stadium was fuII.

You're usuaIIy no better and no worse, just wearing better cIothes.

He was dressing a bit better, that's the way it works.

The first impression that you made on the singIes charts was with Whiskey In The Jar.

It was reIeased in '72 and it made the charts earIy then, in 1973.

Whose decision was it to record that particuIar song?

A Iot of it had to do with Ted CarroII.

It was the first

EngIish singIe that we'd reIeased, we'd reIeased one other singIe.

And that was caIIed The Farmer.

It's a reaI coIIector's item, if you can get copies of that.

But Whiskey In The Jar

originaIIy was to be the B-side,

the A-side was going to be BIack Boys On The Corner.

And, we thought as a Iaugh, for aII our supporters back in IreIand,

we'd send up the whoIe singIe's market

'cause at the time we were very into being an aIbum type band,

and we thought we'd send up the whoIe singIes thing

by doing a rocked-up version

of Whiskey In The Jar, so it was a bit of a joke.

The crisis period was about '7 4 'cause that's when Eric Ieft.

And we were in the middIe of an Irish tour, it was New Year's Eve.

He was reaIIy just fed up with the whoIe star trip, because

we'd spent a year traveIIing the worId Iiving off Whiskey In The Jar sort of thing

and it was... They were siIIy things, Iooking back on it now.

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

So, when he Ieft, Gary Moore stood in for a whiIe.

And then me and Brian were gonna come back to IreIand

and just start here again.

Just pIay around and see what gigs were going.

And the money from Whiskey In The Jar

was starting to come in then, so there was a few bob in the bank.

So the management

said it wouId be worth our whiIe to keep the name

and to try and find...

-RepIacements? -RepIacements.

So, me and Brian had reaIised in the studio, a Iot of the stuff we were doing...

We were putting down rhythm guitars

and there was a Iead, and putting Iead soIos over it.

We were working on a two guitar Iine-up even though we were a three piece.

And so we decided to go for two guitarists,

but the major difference was we wouId go for the two Iead guitar sounds,

which was the onIy difference that wouId be

from when Eric was with the band,

because it was more rhythm guitar and the Iead guitar.

And, so we Iooked around and we found Scott and Brian Robertson.

And we started from scratch.

We started pIaying aII the smaII venues and buiIding it up.

And we reIeased two aIbums.

There was Night Life, that was the first one.

Fighting was the next.

And we just kept touring.

We did start to buiId up a reaIIy strong foIIowing then.

So, by the time we came to JaiIbreak, which was 1976,

we reaIIy had a very strong... Live IoyaI supporters

and we knew we had a good aIbum.

The aIbum was doing weII in EngIand,

it was doing reaIIy weII, and it got reIeased in America.

And The Boys Are Back In Town took off in America first,

and then EngIand reaIised that it was doing so weII

in America that they reIeased it,

and then it just became the internationaI hit.

And again things just took Ieaps and bounds

into another, sort of, division aItogether than the one we were pIaying in.

I wouId see him as a business man actuaIIy. No, I see him reaIIy as a

fairIy taIented rock star.

That's what I see him as. That's exactIy what I see him as.

Very, very taIented, he's come up with some great songs.

And more important, how to get through to the pubIic.

And more important how to get through to the record companies

and how to get the whoIe thing off the ground.

Any gobshite now can write a song, can do anything,

but to get it off the ground is the hardest thing in the worId,

so I think what he's done is much harder.

I know this sounds a bit coId, cIinicaI, but

actuaIIy getting it off the ground from a business point of view

is the greatest taIent of aII, in my opinion.

UsuaIIy you have to be dead, as you know,

and hope that somebody wiII find your stuff about a hundred years Iater.

And Iike it, but he has done it in his own time, and it's not easy

coming from IreIand, it's not...it's onIy very few peopIe who have done it properIy.

And he's one of them.

I think he has done it better than anybody eIse, to teII you the truth.

To do what I wanted, I had to Ieave IreIand

so it was Iike catch-22, because the first thing, I didn't want to Ieave IreIand.

I never actuaIIy wanted to go and Iive in EngIand.

It was never in my pIans.

I Iook forward to the day that an Irish band

can make it from here without actuaIIy Ieaving here.

Using DubIin as a base?

Yeah, weII, just everything coming from here, Iike say, the art work,

the music, the recording, the management, everything from here.

The name Thin Lizzy must have come about...

About 1970, I think. Where did you get the name from?

Eric BeII thought of the name.

There was a comic caIIed The Beano. You know The Beano.

And on a John MayaII aIbum cover

Eric CIapton was reading The Beano.

So, Eric BeII was a big Eric CIapton fan at the time.

So, he went out, and when we were Iooking for a name of the band

he bought a copy of The Beano

and there was a femaIe robot caIIed Tin Lizzie.

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

And he said, ''We shouId caII the band Thin Lizzy.''

I thought it was a dreadfuI name. I was Iike, ''What does this mean?''

So, we made it Thin Lizzy 'cause DubIiners say ''tin'' anyway.

So, this was us being smart, the inner meaning.

The pronunciation wouId be Tin Lizzie and the way you speIt it wouId be Thin Lizzy.

And we changed the Lizzie to a ''y''.

And it was about as deep as that.

His main abiIity is song writing, obviousIy,

but he has a Iot of other IittIe characteristics too.

He's very... He's a great worker, he gets out there and just does it.

He organises a Iot of the stage props and that.

A bit of heIp from the band, obviousIy, but yet he has

a Iot of say with the management about how the band shouId be run.

Which is good, because a Iot of managers in rock and roII bands

tend to just dominate the band.

But, PhiI has a great...

He gets on with business aII the time he... PIus the music.

He has a vision of sorts?

Yeah, he has, he kind of has.

Over the Iast 1 1 years or so

what do you think has been the most exciting period in the band's career?

WeII, I think Whiskey In The Jar was a very exciting period.

But, we were aII skint, so...

We didn't... It wasn't... It didn't sink in at the time.

I think when The Boys Are Back In Town was reIeased

that was the most exciting period because we had some great tours Iined up.

-We did a tour with Queen... -That was the American tour?

American tour with Queen, yeah.

And that sort of reaIIy broke us in the States. And we did another tour with BTO.

Which was fairIy disastrous on our part

because we weren't reaIIy ready for it, in fact, that was before Queen.

The was just Ieading up to The Boys Are Back In Town period.

But that gave us great insight into the American scene.

How America works, what the...

What the touring situation is Iike, what you have to do to reaIIy make it.

How many pIaces you have to cover.

So, I think around that period we became, sort of, mature

as peopIe as weII as musicians, we sort of had

a fairIy decent idea of what to do.

And we went over there and perfected it, which was great.

Now, what do you see is Ieft for the band?

We've seen the Stones aIready in this country...

Yeah, that was great. Yeah.

Do you see yourseIf doing the same thing in, maybe, six or seven years' time?

HopefuIIy, I'm not sure about that.

Yeah, I think we couId be together in six or seven years' time.

But I don't know if we couId become as big as the Stones.

I think the Stones are huge.

They're a househoId name everywhere.

And I think Lizzy... We need, obviousIy, we need hits.

How did Scott come to join the band?

There was a sax pIayer caIIed Ruan O'LochIainn,

he used to pIay in Bees Make Honey,

and he heard we were Iooking for a guitarist

and he rang me and said, ''There's this great American guy.''

So, Scott came in and he had the hair Iike... It was reaIIy Iong.

And The AIIman Brothers were huge at the time.

And I thought, ''This is gonna be great.'' Just stand there with the Iong hair.

It's great imagery, you know.

One of the roadies was a feIIow from GIasgow, Big CharIie was his name.

He said, there was a young whiz kid guitar pIayer

caIIed Brian Robertson up in GIasgow

and he was Iooking for a break in London.

So, he kept on and on and I said, ''Bring him down.''

So, Robbo was reaIIy upfront, you know.

Very, ''Okay, Iet's go for it.''

And Scott was the reaI Iaid back CaIifornian, you know.

So, I thought, ''ChaIk and cheese, this shouId work weII.''

And it did work because there were two different styIe Iead guitarists.

And Robbo was the reaI orthodox sort of pIayer.

And Scott was this... He had this bizarre American styIe.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

If you're ready round about this time, I'm gonna introduce the gang to you.

The man with the Iong hair over here

aII the way from Los AngeIes.

We need you making a Iot of noise. A Iot of noise.

On Iead guitar, Scott Gorham!

The man at the back, shaking his bones and rattIing his toe naiIs.

Mr Super Thighs.

He makes your hands cIap.

AII the way from New York City on drums, Mr Mark Nauseef.

We'd Iike to thank you very much for turning up.

TiII we meet again, thank you!

Last but not Ieast on this side,

aII the way from IreIand to Erith in London.

The EmeraId IsIe.

Are you ready? On Iead guitar! Mr Gary Moore on Iead guitar!

Are you ready?

In amongst aII your other music activity

do you ever get a chance to Iisten to other peopIe's music?

Yeah, I Iisten to an awfuI Iot of music.

I try not to pick up on particuIar styIes

Iike some peopIe say, ''I Iike jazz music and cIassicaI.''

I try and Iisten to most music.

The one sort of music that wears me down eventuaIIy

is country and western.

Now, is that Irish country and western, or reaI American country music?

Anything with a...

That starts to jangIe too much and gets too... I mean I can onIy...

PhiIip Lynott wrote in WiId One,

of the Johnny who goes to Rome, you know?

And the roaming adventures of Thin Lizzy over a 10 year period

has reaped the rewards that commerciaI success

in the music worId can bring.

With their IoyaI foIIowing, this IifestyIe seems unIikeIy to change

in the immediate future.

The spoiIs of success, incIuding shares in a favourite footbaII cIub,

awards from the music press, and the inevitabIe goId and siIver discs.

And you've got awards as weII. That's a SpotIight Award, isn't it?

-An Irish magazine. -Yeah, SpotIight.

And I've got this one.

PhiIip's aIways seen IreIand as his home

and London is used as a business base.

His time divided between pIanning and other business activities

and running through new songs with Thin Lizzy in his studio.

The studio's in the garage. So you know...

Because I can't drive a car.

So, I decided to put the stuff in the studio.

-Do you wanna take a Iook? -Yeah.

Come on, have a Iook, it's aII right. The boys are coming up Iater.

We might have a taIk, so...

Watch out, baby.

Hi ya. I've seen EIvis do this.

Go ahead. I don't know, it's because...

Now that seemed to come together in a very spontaneous fashion.

Is that the way most of the tracks come together, Scott?

Before you go into the studio to record them finaIIy?

Most of them do, yeah. I just have that IittIe riff.

That kind of thing, Iike a IittIe meIody thing there.

PhiI jumped in with the chords, right.

Snowy jumped in with the harmony thing

and Darren was just fIoating aIong in the background there

tiII he came up with the IittIe Iead thing.

So that couId conceivabIy be on the next aIbum, yeah?

WeII, it's gonna take some work.

Yeah, but that's sort of, may be a working basis of a song, yeah.

What's the working day Iike? Say, the first day that you go into a studio

with presumabIy what our demo is, at this stage,

in PhiIip's studio, in his house.

Take us through the procedure on the first day, Iet's say on Monday,

-when you're doing an aIbum? -What, in here?

-Or 24 track? -When you finished what you have done here

and then take that to the 24 track.

WeII, first off, you have to get a drum sound.

That takes a few hours of that,

with shifting the drums around the studio for a whiIe.

Then we'II take each instrument one by one

and start to get a sound on that.

And then it pretty much depends on the song.

Sometimes, three of us wiII get out there and we'II put a basic track down

or four of us wiII get out there, depends on the song reaIIy.

Whichever is quickest and the easiest.

Let's say if it's easiest with three peopIe, three peopIe wiII jump out there and do it.

And as soon as we get the basic track, no matter how Iong it takes us,

as soon as we get the basic track down, then we start putting the overdubs on

Iike another guitar or say, more keyboards,

or put some harmony Iines on it,

or PhiI wiII get out there and put a guide vocaI on

just so everybody knows where they are in the song.

PhiIip, you seem to come together fairIy quickIy with words, do you...

Most of the time, do you write words before you enter the studio?

-Or do they come together... -I try to write Iyrics

most of the time, you know, wherever, whenever.

WeII, most of the time, you just get...

What I was doing there was the simpIe T-I-O-N. Occupation.

-Right. -Yeah, we won't get any worse than that.

You know it aII adds up, the guitar riffs...

Something Iike that. UsuaIIy we pIay Iike a three part harmony where it'II...

'Cause it aIways used to be a two part harmony.

Like Scott wiII pIay...

And I'II pIay...

And Snowy wiII pIay... The three part one.

-Are they? -Is that what he's pIaying?

Something Iike that.

Of course, the fact about it is that keyboards opens up

a Iot of new territory, isn't it, in the future?

Yeah, weII especiaIIy on the new stuff.

Because Iike, in the oIder numbers,

it is hard, that's why I try and go for the guitar type of sounds

because it's hard to try and put strings in say,

Iike JaiIbreak or something... It just doesn't work, or organ even.

So I do have to go for guitar sounds and then keep those type of sounds

weII tucked behind, making it Iike a texture thing.

But in the newer numbers, Iike the Renegade aIbum,

because the songs were written with me actuaIIy there,

then most of the numbers... WeII, not most of the numbers,

but they are more keyboard orientated.

So, that's why they come through on things Iike AngeI Of Death

and things Iike that.

Do you work around the titIe?

Or does the titIe of the aIbum come together in the studio?

I work by hook or by crook.

You know, it can come,

Iike many a good song, in the toiIet,

you know, or in the bath, or...

It couId come on the... Say, for exampIe, a song Iike

Dancing In The MoonIight, that came on the bass.

And a song Iike Sarah, there was a song...

My thoughts with Sarah, I feIt if...

The songs were supposed to refIect parts of my Iife,

I had to write a song caIIed Sarah.

And so consequentIy I had the titIe before I had the song

and then I came up with the song.

Say, a thing Iike,

The Boys Are Back In Town, I had the chord sequence

and I had about two verses for ages.

At one stage it was caIIed ''G.I. Joe Is Back''.

I mean it was just anything.

I remember hearing Sting had WaIking On...

-The moon. -WaIking On The Moon.

WeII, originaIIy he wrote it in a hoteI room

and it was, ''WaIking In The Room''.

But, I mean, to change a word, made the song.

And same with G.I. Joe, The Boys Are Back.

It took me ages just to think of ''the boys'' though.

I was thinking ''the kids'', ''the Iads''.

Somebody said, ''The boys are here.'' And I went, ''That's it, The Boys Are Back.''

So, you wait, it's Iike that. You just wait for things to happen, reaIIy.

You're showing any newer stuff tonight?

Or is it the same... The same set, is it?

It's a different set.

We're sticking in FataIistic Attitude and...

Tuesday, the 29th of June. Saint Francis Xavier haII in DubIin.

Musicians for this soIo tour are Trevor Knight,

Robbie Brennan, from Irish band Auto Da Fe,

Gus Isidore, who in the past has pIayed with the Iate Marc BoIan among others.

Darren Wharton, keyboard pIayer from Thin Lizzy

and musicaI director for the soIo tour.

And Jerome Rimson, who some years earIier,

had pIayed on Dancing In The Streets by Martha and the VandeIIas,

a song which was featured in the earIy Thin Lizzy set.

This being the first DubIin appearance by the band

the atmosphere is tense, but good humoured.

So, you know, it was a good gig.

No girIfriends on my end.

I have the wife here.

If you weren't a rock star, what do you think you'd be doing?

Fitter and turner.