Gary James' Interview With
Scott Gorham of
Thin Lizzy



They've been an inspiration to bands like Metallica , Alice In Chains, Testament and Guns 'n' Roses. They were named Ireland's number one band in both 1972 and 1973. Their second album was runner up for Best Album Of The Year in Ireland. In 1975 their first tour of the U.S found them on the bill with Bob Seger and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Along the way the opened for Aerosmith, Rush, REO Speedwagon, Status Que, Queen, Deep Purple, Motley Crue and KISS. The song that made the Top Ten in the U.S. and the U.K. was "The Boys Are Back In Town". You know the group we're talking about - Thin Lizzy. Thin Lizzy's guitarist, Scott Gorham spoke with us about his background and the group's history.

Q - Your publicist tells me that you are "super focused" on your next projects. We're just talking about drawings, correct?

A - Right. I've never used brushes, paints and oils and all that. You can't carry all that crap around with you on the road. That's where I started a lot of these drawings - out on tour. So really it consisted of a pen, pencils, erasers and a drawing pad, and that's it, 'cause the rest of it has clothes and no shoes. I really never intended to do this. One day we were in Amsterdam and I just kind of wanted to break away from the herd a little bit, if you will. We'd been on the road for God knows how long. I just wanted to get out there by myself. I walked out of the hotel and there's this really cool looking shop, the window dressings. It was one of those things that really caught my eye. And it was this art store. I thought, "Okay. I'll walk in. I'll see what they've got," not intending to buy anything. I started to ask this one girl, "What's the difference between this paper and that paper? Or that pencil and that pencil?" I started to really get into it. I walked out and I had this whole bag of stuff with me, (laughs) that I brought back to the hotel, and I just started drawing. It just became a thing with me. When the time was right I would just sit by myself in a hotel room and just start drawing, just to see what would come out. And that's kind of how it all started. So it was like over forty years ago.

Q - You must have a lot of drawings in that catalog of yours.

A - I do. Not all of 'em are like great. Most people who do art will tell you. But, there's some cool pieces in there. I will say that for myself.

Q - So, where are you selling these drawings? Is it strictly online or gigs?

A - It's strictly online. I would never force my own personal merchandise onto everybody else in the band. That's almost like selling your own t-shirt, right? "You guys sell the band t-shirt and I'll take some of that, but I'm going to sell some of my art in the booth also." I would never do that. But Gary, this whole project has only come to light about three years ago. Nobody even knew I was doing this. I didn't feel any compunction at all to tell anybody that I was drawing these things. I never asked anybody for any approval or, "What do you think of that?" I kind of didn't care. I think I was a little too afraid if I would show somebody something and they'd go, "Well, that's a pile of shit. You ought to give it up now." (laughs) And, I might have. You know what I think it is? Musicians are always under the microscope anyway. There's always going to be criticism whether it's good, bad or indifferent. I just thought, "In the art thing I just don't need another set of critiques. I'll critique myself on this." So, I just left it for myself. In fact, my wife and I have been married for forty-three years and I only showed her three years ago. (2021) what I've been doing.

Q - You must have been hiding those drawings under the bed!

A - That's what it was. It was under the bed the whole time. (laughs)

Q - On my very first visit to Los Angeles in 1977 I took the tour of NBC Studios in Burbank. And of course, Midnight Special was filmed there. The tour guide pointed out that there in the hallway was Thin Lizzy's equipment. I also got to see the sound stage where the show was filmed. I was surprised to see how small it was. It only held about five hundred people.

A - Right.

Q - What do you remember about being on that show? I only ask because when I interviewed Helen Reddy she told me she was not always present to do the introductions. She would film them later. Was she there to introduce you when you performed?

A - No, not at all. In fact, there was another guy there, an actor. Maybe he was one of the guys from Hawaii Five O. I can't remember. He came in the dressing room. "Hey guys, you know I'm a big fan." Yeah, sure pal. He was that kind of guy where the hair was coiffed perfectly and so was the makeup. We all kind of looked at him. It all smacked of real Hollywood. It was like ultra-Hollywood. I enjoyed doing it, and all the guys did. I thought it was filmed really well and I don't have any problems with that. But it had this real Burbank / Hollywood tinge to it. Do they even do Midnight Special anymore?

Q - I don't think so. They might have released a DVD set of past shows. I liked Midnight Special. It was a good show.

A - Yeah, yeah. The production of it was always first class. Before I came to England I used to watch it all the time. There were a lot of English bands and American bands that I really liked. So, you knew it was a show that all the bands really wanted to get on. I agree with you. You walk onstage and there was like five hundred people. But camera-wise it looked like there were ten thousand people out there, but there's not. It's just a regular TV studio. So that kind of kills the vibe for you a little bit, right?

Q - No, not really. I'm glad I saw it. Johnny Carson's Tonight Show was filmed at NBC Studios in Burbank and that too was a small sound stage.

A - That's right. I think comedians love that, the smaller stage, the smaller the audience, so they can eyeball a lot of different individuals in the audience rather than a stadium or a theatre that's got five thousand or six thousand people in it. That's one of the things I really loved about Phil Lynott. He was one of those kinds of guys, a front man who could turn a ten thousand seat audience into like a club atmosphere. He could shrink the audience down and everybody felt like they were part of the show. They felt like he was looking right at them. I always loved that guy for that. He had that ability to do that.

Q - He was a communicator.

A - Yeah, a great communicator. Absolutely. Great way of putting it.

Q - Is there a Thin Lizzy group today? (2024)

A - Well, there is. It's if and when I want to go out and put the band back together again. There's only a few people I will go out and do this with and trust these people with. It's kind of on my shoulders. I'm willing to take all the criticism. I don't have a problem with that. It's me that wants to get out there and do this and show everybody what this music was all about. I don't have a problem with that part. The problem is who is in the band. Who's available at that particular time and moment. So, I have to kind of wait. I have to wait for these different musicians who I really respect to get up on the stage with me and do this.

Q - Where is the marketplace today for a group like Thin Lizzy? The only thing I hear about these days is Taylor Swift.

A - Right. Or Rap. I've been kind of questioning that myself. Where does this whole Rock music thing fit in right now? I know for guys like me you tend to turn on the radio and go for, I don't know, the Grateful Dead station, so you can hear a lot of your pals that you've known throughout the years. You hear yourself. That kind of thing. It's funny Gary, if you asked me to name two Taylor Swift songs I could not name you one. You know what I'm saying? And she's the biggest thing on the planet right now. I can't name you one song that she does. And I don't care. Is that terrible?

Q - I don't think she necessarily appeals to a guy like yourself. She has a pretty big following among very young girls. But maybe you could record a Hard Rock version of "Shake It Off".

A - I don't think so Gary. No, no, no. (laughs) I can't even imagine myself going to those lengths. It's a funny question. I've never been asked that before.

Q - For a guy who was born in Glendale, California, wasn't it difficult to get used to an entirely different environment / culture in England?

A - You know, you would have thought, but I was so ready, so absolutely mentally ready to get out of not only Glendale, but the United States, to go to a completely different foreign land if you will. It sounds ridiculous for me to say England was this foreign land, but back in 1974 it really was. You still saw a bombed out building from World War II in different places you went in certain parts of London and around the country. Those are things you don't see in America at all. In fact, you don't see them here (London) at all anymore either. Back then you did. It was a strange and wonderful culture shock really. People went to pubs. Everybody bought everybody a drink and the pub was always well lit, where in American bars everything were always dark and low lit, like nobody wanted to be seen. Completely different atmosphere in London. I took to it completely. Even the rain. I loved the rain. Coming from Southern California, I can remember as a kid it would rain and I would run out into the street with my shirt off in the Christ position. "Please rain all over me." I loved it. The first day that I landed in England, I left California when it was 90 or 92 degrees and I flew all the way in blue jeans and a white t-shirt and tennis shoes and I got to see St. Paneras Station and it was absolutely hammering with rain and I thought, "Yes! I'm in the right place. I love it!"

Q - You just got tired of the nice weather in California.

A - I probably did, but for me it was just that that signified a total abject change in my life right then and there. For me, I was not gonna blow it. I was not gonna blow this chance. Somehow I was given this chance and I was not gonna blow it. I did everything I could to hopefully make sure that didn't happen.

Q - It is also fitting that for a guy born on St. Patrick's Day you would be part of an Irish band.

A - Right. We discussed that a lot during the years, myself, Phil and Brian Downey. It's not only that I was actually bona fide half Irish, but my mother's maiden name was McComb and her parentage comes out of Northern Ireland in a city called Enniskillen, which is one of those kind of cities that seem like every other shop was a pub. Unbelievable. I just couldn't believe I saw so many pubs. Do people have an alcohol problem here? I didn't understand so many pubs. Not only was I an Irishman, but I have green eyes at the same time. It seems like all the stars kind of lined up for me at this point.

Q - Call it fate or call it luck.

A - I think luck has a lot to do with all of this. Meeting that right person at the right time of your life and your ability. Luck plays a major role with all of us.

Q - And nobody can really define what luck is. It's being in the right place at the right time with the right stuff.

A - And with the right person, shaking the right hand at that moment in time, making the right impression. I'm a big believer in luck. If it was strictly down to ability I would've been in Glendale years ago. (laughs)

Q - It isn't so much talent that counts, but luck and personality.

A - I think it's a combination of the the three. You've got to have a good personality. You've got to have a lot of luck. But then you have to have ability at the same time. Everybody loves a good time guy, and a great personality, but if you can't play your instrument, you're kind of useless to everybody.

Q - Hold on! Some people have said Ringo wasn't all that good of a drummer.

A - Do you believe that?

Q - I do not. He had a certain style that helped define their sound.

A - Yeah. He made it work. He came up with a lot of bits that were extremely cool in all those Beatle songs.

Q - Ringo turned out to be a great front man. I don't know if you've ever seem in person.

A - I've seen him on TV. He's got a great personality up there. He really has. The only Beatle I actually met was Paul McCartney. I had a jam with him for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. Something like that. I got invited to the studio he owns, MPC Studio. It was myself, Elvis Costello, Costello's drummer, and I can't remember who was on bass. McCartney was late. "Let's just do a three chord Blues thing and warm-up." We're playing away and all of a sudden here comes Paul McCartney and everybody stopped. (laughs) "Holy shit! There's a Beatle in the room." McCartney was great. "No, no. You shouldn't stop. That sounded great!" He went right over and grabbed the bass and said, "Right, let's go!" And he started jamming away. We had a great time. At one point he suggested we take a break and get a coffee. I remember going into a little cafeteria they had there and I went over to this corner table and sat by myself. Paul came right over and sat with me. We talked about everything but music, which I thought was really cool. He knows he's that kind of guy that he's going to put the shits right up just because of who he is and what he's done and the amount of songs he's written. Everybody is going to be in complete awe of him and he knows this. But, he'll come down and sit next to you and he'll just start talking like he's one of the guys. After awhile he turns into one of the guys, kind of. (laughs)

Q - Yeah, You're always aware this is Paul McCartney!

A - Yeah. I've got a god damn Beatle sitting right in front of me!

Q - As long as we're on the subject of famous people, did you ever meet Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin?

A - I met Jimi Hendrix one night, myself an a couple other guys. We snuck into a concert he was giving and he was the support act. I won't go through the whole story. We snuck in. The corridor was really dark and we were just looking for a way into the audience kind of thing. At any moment security is gonna grab your collar and throw you out the back door. But, they didn't. I saw a light coming out of this door and I'm thinking, "That's it! That's the way into the auditorium." I turned the corner and there he was, leaning against the table, dry humping his guitar, just like warming up. And a buddy of mine had a camera and he walked straight in. "Hey Jimi, how you doing, man? Mind if I take a couple of pictures?" He was so cool. I'm thinking he's gonna throw us out. "Yeah, sure, C'mon in. Not a problem." We all asked him a couple of questions. He said, "Listen guys, you mind? I'm on in about fifteen minutes. I just want to warm up." "Oh yeah, sure." He shook all of our hands. We walked out and finally found our way out to the audience. (laughs) And he played a blinder of a show. And the great thing is, after his show finished, three quarters of the audience got up and left. So, I would have hated to have been the headlining band that night, to walk out and there's only a quarter of the people left. How demoralizing would that have been?

Q - Do you remember what year that was you saw him and where?

A - God, that had to have maybe '67, something like that. He was supporting some Bay Area, San Francisco band that none of us really cared too much about. I saw him in Northern California.

Q - Did you meet Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison?

A - No. I was a big Doors fan. I saw them four times, but the last two times Morrison ended up laying on the stage with the microphone and I thought this is crap. I thought, "That's it. I'm done with The Doors. It's like these guys aren't even trying any longer." Janis Joplin? I wasn't a huge fan. It's just a taste thing.

Q - When you first picked up a bass guitar and later a guitar, did you envision making a career out of music? Did you ever want to do something else? And did you ever work at another job?

A - I worked at a ton of other jobs because playing in bands in Glendale, they weren't going to pay you anything. But that was always, Gary, the number one goal for me, to get in a kick ass band and make albums and go out on tour. I had no idea how you did it at that point, but god damn it, this is what I want to do and I'm going to do it! Thankfully I did do it several times over. That was a real, honest to God ambition of mine. My whole thing, especially when I got into Thin Lizzy. I didn't really care about the whole money side of things. That really wasn't a main goal for me. My main goal was just to be in a kick ass band that everybody really loved and respected for what we did. That was the goal for me. The money thing... If you're good enough and you write enough songs, all of that is gonna come. But in my book you gotta be in a kick ass band that can write some really great songs. So, that's what it was all about for me.

Q - When a band changes its members, is it fair to the public to keep the "name" going? Or maybe the public just doesn't care. They only come to hear the songs. The Stones are Mick and Keith, Skynyrd has no original members left.

A - There's none of 'em left in that band. The difference with us us, this was Phil Lynott's band. It kind of didn't make any difference who came in and who came out. Phil Lynott was Thin Lizzy. He was known to own that whole thing. He said to me, "If you ever leave, then it's over. Then we're done." I said, "I have no plans of ever leaving this thing, so you don't have to worry about that." I don't think that at all. I think that would really be cheating the audience because one guy left. That would mean that you were relying so much on this one ancillary player. It was because of him that the whole sound happened. I suppose you're talking about Gary Moore at this point, who did one album, or John Sykes, who did one album. Those two guys never defined the whole sound that Thin Lizzy was all about. In fact, they had to adhere to what we did in the past. The idea was whatever album you're on, we'll make sure you get a lot of writing credits. We'll throw a lot of interviews your way because we want to make your name as big as we can possibly make it. And that's how we worked it.

Q - Don't you know that a hundred years from now historians are going to look back on the 1960s and 1970s and wonder what the attraction was to drugs for Rock musicians.? And you would say what to that?

A - That's actually a good question because a lot of us guys got fucked up. I'm sure there were many guys out there who felt they were so under pressure and they were so not ready for the criticism or the praise or whatever they were getting at the time, they just couldn't handle it and the drugs made 'em feel better. I think with myself it was completely the opposite. I did it purely as a recreational thing just because it felt good. I didn't need my ego pushed or anything extra to get me out on the stage because I couldn't wait to get out there. For me it was purely a fun thing to do that got way out of hand. It was the same with Phil. Things just got out of hand. I think another problem was there just wasn't enough information at that point to let everybody know that damage was going to be done. We all knew that heroin was not good for you. For God sakes you don't need a guy with a baseball bat clubbing you over the head to tell you that. We knew that already, but you did not find that out until it was too late and you found yourself in trouble. As far as what the correlation between drugs in the '60s and '70s music is, I think it was because it had never really been done to that extent before. We were all in this experimental stage in our lives and in society. It just felt, "Okay. This isn't really a bad thing." We all knew that not to be true at all. The best thing you can do is steer clear of all of that. If you want to hang in (there), especially in the entertainment industry, you gotta stay away from that. But there's guys like that made it through. But, there's other guys like Phil, and we could name numerous other guys, that weren't able to make it. That's just such a terrible loss to everybody really.

Q - Getting back to Taylor Swift, she's a billionaire. Selena Gomez is a billionaire. Rhianna is a billionaire. Beyonce is a billionaire. These women made their money by having their own clothing line and selling cosmetics and shampoo. If you're in a Rock band like Thin Lizzy you almost have to be saying to yourself, "How can we get a piece of the action? How can we become the first billionaire Rock group?" It's probably not going to happen by selling t-shirts and baseball caps. Do you have any answers to that?

A - I really don't. It's funny, for all those years before all those women hit the top, I was always saying, "How is it that the female voices aren't heard enough, because obviously they all have better voices than all the guys." Yeah, it's a different timbre, but they have scales that they can hit that none of the guys can hit. But, the thing of it is, most of us don't wear make-up. We don't wear the customized clothes that these manufacturers put out. Maybe there are bands out there right now that do wear the customized clothes. I don't know. It seems like it's more of a female thing to be comfortable with, to be able to push those kinds of products, where the guys, especially guys of my age, were just focused on music.

Q - Even if you had your own guitar line, I doubt if that would lead you to becoming a billionaire.

A - I don't think you could. Its almost like the guitar has gone out of fashion. God, I hope I'm wrong on that one. I can't even believe I'd say something like that.

Official Website: www.ThinLizzyOfficial.com





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