{"id":861328,"date":"2025-07-09T21:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/i-wanted-to-say-theres-nobody-out-there-we-gotta-walk-away-from-this-but-i-couldnt-he-was-a-great-player-the-guitarist-who-saved-thin-lizzy\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T21:13:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:13:55","slug":"i-wanted-to-say-theres-nobody-out-there-we-gotta-walk-away-from-this-but-i-couldnt-he-was-a-great-player-the-guitarist-who-saved-thin-lizzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/i-wanted-to-say-theres-nobody-out-there-we-gotta-walk-away-from-this-but-i-couldnt-he-was-a-great-player-the-guitarist-who-saved-thin-lizzy\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI wanted to say, \u2018There\u2019s nobody out there. We gotta walk away from this.\u2019 But I couldn\u2019t. He was a great player\u201d: The guitarist who saved Thin Lizzy \u2013 and made their last album hit like a \u201csledgehammer\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scott Gorham has reflected on how the late John Sykes helped saved Thin Lizzy<\/a> for one final studio album \u2013 and brought a little heavy metal guitar<\/a> thunder to Thunder and Lightning<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the early \u201980s, Gorham recognized Thin Lizzy was a band in decline. After two bluesy albums with Snowy White<\/a> \u2013 China Town<\/em> (1980) and Renegade<\/em> (1981) \u2013 and some unfavorable off-stage habits, the guitarist told vocalist Phil Lynott something needed to change.<\/p>\n

His plan was for them to go away, get their act together, get clean and come back revitalized to \u201chit everybody over the head with a fucking sledgehammer\u201d. Lynott, though, had a different idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhil says, \u2018Let\u2019s do one more album and world tour. I know this kid, he\u2019s really good,\u2019\u201d Gorham recalls in the new print issue of Guitarist<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The kid in question was John Sykes, who was making a name for himself in a new-look Tygers of Pan Tang. The two albums he\u2019d featured on, Spellbound<\/em> and Crazy Nights<\/em>, were full of standout, shrieking shredding that put him firmly in Lynott\u2019s crosshairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo John Sykes comes down, and I couldn\u2019t fault him in any way,\u201d Gorham continues. \u201cI really wanted to say, \u2018See, there\u2019s nobody out there, so we gotta walk away from this.\u2019 But I couldn\u2019t. He was a great player. He was a one-guitar guy: never, ever did I see him play anything but his black Les Paul<\/a>. And he looked great on stage, too. So what was not to like?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thin Lizzy were a one-guitarist group before Gorham came in for the outgoing Eric Bell<\/a>, forming a tandem with Brian Robertson after a less-than-ideal audition<\/a>. The American guitarist was willing to return to that set up go it alone, but the fire and fury that Sykes could bring to the band were too good to turn down.<\/p>\n

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All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe were not a metal band,\u201d Gorham underscores. \u201cBut John brought in that metal edge, and I stepped up my sound to match his.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their one album together, 1983\u2019s Thunder and Lightning<\/em>, more than lived up to its name. Lizzy\u2019s fastest, heaviest, and most unapologetic album, it signs off the band\u2019s studio catalog with one hell of a bang. At times during its creation, his new bandmates couldn\u2019t keep up with Sykes\u2019 gung-ho enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, his strength was the quickness,\u201d Gorham continues. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t about subtleties. Every track he wanted faster. He\u2019d turn around to [drummer] Brian Downey and say, \u2018Hey man, can you kick it up a couple?\u2019 And I\u2019d have to say, \u2018John, it\u2019s getting out of control.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to show everybody how fast he was. But he was an excellent player, no doubt about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s muscularity didn\u2019t appease everyone in the fanbase, Gorham admits. He says they either loved it or hated it \u2013 it was as divisive as it got.<\/p>\n

Sykes passed away last year, with countless guitar greats paying tribute<\/a> to his talents. Earlier this year, Guns N\u2019 Roses covered Thunder and Lightning<\/em><\/a> as a nod to his legacy.<\/p>\n

Readers can pick up the latest issue of Gutiarist from Magazines Direct<\/a> to read the full interview with Scott Gorham.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog<\/em>, Guitar World<\/em>, and Total Guitar<\/em> magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis<\/a>, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He’s also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Raleigh Klemp
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Image credit: Getty Images) Scott Gorham has reflected on how the late John Sykes helped saved Thin Lizzy for one final studio album \u2013 and brought a little heavy metal guitar thunder to Thunder and Lightning. In the early \u201980s, Gorham recognized Thin Lizzy was a band in decline. After two bluesy albums with Snowy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":861329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,4876],"tags":[5205,10163],"class_list":{"0":"post-861328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-theres","8":"category-wanted","9":"tag-theres","10":"tag-wanted"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}