Great Scott
The co-creator of Lizzy’s trademark dual guitar sound, Scott Gorham remains one of the all-time great rock ‘n’ roll players. Here he talks to Peter Murphy about the other guitarists who’ve passed through the ranks, getting into scraps with Philo and Lizzy’s proud legacy.
Peter Murphy, 07 Mar 2011
When we catch up with Thin Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham, he's preparing to begin rehearsals for the band's reformation tour, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Phil Lynott's death, with former Almighty frontman and solo artist Ricky Warwick assuming vocal duties.
“We had a one-day get together a few months ago, just to see how this was gonna work out,” he reveals. “You can pretty much tell on the first day how people are gonna gel. As soon as I saw him step up to the mic and heard him sing on the first song, you knew it was there. I recorded with him, a couple of tracks on his first solo album a few years ago. That’s when I got reacquainted, ‘cos I’ve known him for about 20 years now. A lot of people have a lot of really great memories of Phil, so whoever sits in the middle there is going to be judged against what Phil did in the past. But Ricky’s got a big personality, and his vocal tone is pretty much in the same range as Phil. He’s one of those guys you end up loving.”
Given that twin-guitar synergy is integral to the Lizzy sound, who’s been Scott’s favourite guitar partner over the years?
“That’s always a good question, because there’s so many guys on the right hand side of the stage who have come floating through. It’s been particularly interesting for me because there has been no cookie-cutter kinda thing, each guy’s been completely different from the last, and that was done for a reason. Each person that came in we always wanted to get a little bit of a change happening. What was actually said to each guy was, ‘Okay, there’s history here, and you have to go along with the history, but from that point on it’s time to bring your personality out.’ We’d always let the new guy have his moment, to get him integrated into the whole system.
“Now as far as a favourite guy to play with, that is a tough one, just because the styles have been so varied. You’ve got Robbo, who had the British blues style, and Robbo liked to improvise a lot around what he was doing, off the shoulder guitar solos, all the delays and the wah-wahs and all that thing. Gary (Moore) was always a little bit more precise in what he did, he was a much more regimented kind of player, he wanted all the ducks lined up there. Snowy (White) was a flat out blues guitar player, and he was asked to play in this rock genre, and I don’t think Snowy was actually ever completely comfortable with it. I think he had a lot of fun and we did a lot of great things together, but in the end he was probably a little relieved on the day that he left so that he could actually go out and play blues guitar again.
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