Scott Gorham recalled wanting John Sykes to fail his audition with Thin Lizzy.
The late British guitarist, who was around 22 years old when he joined the band in 1983 at Phil Lynott’s suggestion, brought a heavier edge to the music, as heard on that year’s album Thunder and Lightning.
In a recent interview, Gorham told Guitarist that he hadn’t wanted the entire episode to take place at all.
READ MORE: Ranking Every Thin Lizzy Album
“I told Phil we had to stop this whole thing,” he recalled. “The drug addictions. Phil losing his voice. The mistakes we were now making on stage: that really hurt because we were a band that just did not make mistakes; then you hear a recording and you go, ‘What the hell was that?’
“So I said, ‘Let’s wrap this thing up. Let’s get our shit together and when we both get healthy, we’ll hit everybody over the head with a fucking sledgehammer.’”
But Lynott rejected the idea. “Phil says, ‘Let’s do one more album and world tour. I know this kid. He’s really good. He’s with Tygers Of Pan Tang.’ I’d heard the name in magazines but never heard anything they’d recorded. Phil says, ‘I promise you, you’re gonna like him; and if you don’t, we’ll look for somebody else.’”
Scott Gorham Names Thin Lizzy’s Best Song With John Sykes
Gorham admitted that when Sykes tried out, “I couldn’t fault him in any way. I really wanted to say, ‘See, there’s nobody out there, so we gotta walk away from this.’ But I couldn’t.”
He added: “We were not a metal band, but John brought in that metal edge. He had a fiery style, and I stepped up my sound to match his. Really, his strength was the quickness. He wasn’t about subtleties.”
He identified “Cold Sweat” – written by Lynott and Sykes – as the best Lizzy track of the era, and went on to allow that “there was no middle ground with Thunder and Lightning … fans loved it or hated it.”
Bands With No Original Members
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
