In a revealing chat with Classic Rock, Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy opened up about his early days with the band, the recruit process, and the band’s dynamics, especially with the late frontman Phil Lynott. For those seeking a deeper dive, Thin Lizzy’s “Rock Legend” boxset is available for purchase.
Scott Gorham’s Early Impressions and the Dismissal of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’
Reflecting on Gorham’s initial experiences with Thin Lizzy back in 1974, the conversation took an interesting turn when the guitarist was asked about playing their hit song ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’ With captivating honesty, Gorham recounted, “When I auditioned for the guys, the whole thing was wild and raucous and guitars were out front. Phil asked me to join that night and gave me their records because I’d never heard anything Thin Lizzy had done.”
His first encounter with the band’s music wasn’t quite what he expected. He explained the dissonance between what he expected and what he heard. “And here’s their one hit single, ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’ I take it home, and I’m expecting to hear what I heard at rehearsal, right? Except what I’m hearing is ‘da-derderble-derble-derble…’ I’m going, ‘What the fuck is this?’ Took an instant disliking to it.”
After half a year of performing the chart-topper, Gorham broached the subject with Lynott. “‘Whiskey in the Jar,’ it’s great, but we got a new band now, we gotta stand on our own two feet, you know?” To which Lynott casually agreed, “Yeah, I get it. Let’s get rid of ‘Whiskey in the Jar.’”
Gorham humorously reflected on the ease of that decision, contrasting it to how he would have felt if someone suggested dropping ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ from the setlist: “Now if I reverse the whole thing, and say, a new guy comes in years later and goes, ‘You know, Scott, ‘The Boys Are Back in Town,’ this is a whole new thing. I think we’ve got to drop it. I’d be, ‘You’re so fucking fired!’”
Evolution of Thin Lizzy’s Sound: ‘Nightlife’ and Beyond
Discussing the band’s direction, Gorham brought up the ‘Nightlife’ album, noting how it diverged from the band’s established sound. He shared, “The rehearsals for that album were exactly the same way as when I went down and jammed with them: everything was loud, it was big. But when we got into the studio, Ron Nevison, the producer, kept saying, ‘Just turn the guitars down a little.’”
This shift in sound was largely due to Nevison who had previously worked with Led Zeppelin. Initially trusting his expertise, Gorham and fellow guitarist Brian Robertson complied. “We’ll just take it down a notch,” he recalled. But as the volume dial kept turning down, the energy surprisingly did too. Gorham described the aftermath: “We all walked out scratching our heads, going, ‘What the fuck just happened there?’ That’s when Phil goes, ‘Fuck these producers, I’ll produce the next one.’ I went: ‘Oh shit. What have we let ourselves in for now?’”
‘Nightlife’ wasn’t the peak of the band’s ambition. The follow-up album, ‘Fighting,’ took a different approach. Gorham shared about the variety and progression over the years, specifically the time around ‘Jailbreak’ and ‘Johnny the Fox’ in 1976, saying, “I think every album we did, there was an element of, ‘Well that song’s killer, maybe not so much that one…’”
Thin Lizzy’s rise to fame wasn’t without its challenges. Gorham mentioned the relentless schedule after ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ took off: “Then after ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ hit, all the time just evaporated. Writing on the road and no time to demo things, it became a much bigger chore to push us to be able to write and record. But thank God for that song!”