THIN LIZZY CONNECTION

Ils ont aimé PHIL ou LIZZY, ils en ont joué dans leur propre carrière, ou mieux encore, ils ont joué avec PHIL ou LIZZY.

Henry ROLLINS / THE CARDIGANS / SODOM / TERRY WOODS / SMASHING PUMPKINS / GUN / ANDY TAYLOR / SKYCLAD / JOHNNY THUNDERS / DAREN WHARTON / ROBIN GEORGE / WILD HORSES / LAURENCE ARCHER / / MORDRED / PRETTY MAIDS / IRON MAIDEN / BAD 4 GOOD / BRIAN ROBERSTON / TEN SHARP / SCOTT GORHAM / DAVE EDMUNDS / BRIAN DOWNEY / METALLICA / U2 / JON BON JOVI / JOHN NORUM / HUEY LEWIS / ERIC BELL / CRANBERRIES / THE CORRS / GUNS AND ROSES / SNOWY WHITE / RITCHIE BLACKMORE (deep purple ) / MOTORHEAD / MIDGE URE / KING'S X / WHITE LION / MARK KNOPFLER / PHIL COLLINS / JOHN HELLIWELL & BOBBY C. BENBERG (supertramp ) / GARY MOORE / JIMMY BAIN / PAUL DI ANNO / BERNIE TORME / NEIL MURRAY / JOHN SYKES / CHRIS SPEDDING / PAUL COOK & STEVE JOHNS ( sex pistols ) / CORROSION OF CONFORMITY / MEL COLLINS / SANDY DENNY / BOB GELDOF / ROBERT SMITH ( the cure ) / CARCASS & BLACKSTAR / RORRY GALLAGHER ... ...

Une INTERVIEW très intéressante de BONO ( U2 ) à propos de Phil Lynott

Bono talks to Stuart Bailie about Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy and the thrill-power of Dublin's first superstar

Where do Thin Lizzy fit in? How do they matter in the sphere of rock and roll?

Well, I can't tell you in terms of the history of rock and roll music where Thin Lizzy fit in. I can tell you where they fit in in my life. Which was the combination of machismo and lyricism, is actually what did it for me. Because when we were kids, Van Morrison was for grown ups. He still steeped through and I couldn't imagine life without him, and since then I've caught up with him, and I think he had a huge influence on Thin Lizzy... but (with Lizzy) it was the grrrr that was leading up to punk rock. When you're 15 and16, you just want to crash the car, to hear those power chords and all of that. And so you had a lot of these metallic groups that had that power, but none of the lyricism, and Thin Lizzy had both.

"Thin Lizzy on Top Of The Pops was like Ireland being in the World Cup. That's the way it was. And so they became the centre of the universe for people who were writing about rock and roll or writing in rock and roll. I know they really helped The Boomtown Rats, and indeed, they helped us too, here and there.

"I know Adam thought that Phil Lynott would be his way to win the world. Because Adam was managing U2 at the time and he rang Phil at, I guess it was about eight in the morning, after their gig in Dalymount Park. He hadn't quite figured out yet, that rock and roll people don't get up at eight o' clock. So I think Phil might have told him to fuck off. I think Adam has since figured it out, as he himself is not an early riser.

"But that was it: they were over the wall and for anyone else on the other side, you're gonna ask them how they did it."

You listened to Thin Lizzy's 'Live And Dangerous' for clues about stage performance, didn't you?

"Yeah, we did. It was a great, great live album. 'Live And Dangerous' was amazing. It was the blueprint for a live record that would have a beginning, a middle and an end. And that's the way U2 still approach playing a show. We want the whole to be more than the sum of the parts. It was this concoction of romance and aggression that just took you away.

"I come from an area in the northside of Dublin between Ballymun and Finglas. It was a nice little street, but things could get rough, and that was a thing, again, that Thin Lizzy seemd to reflect that aggression, just hanging out on the streets. You couldn't dodge it really. People have said that he glorified it, but I think in that sense he was just being a journalist, that's the way things were. I think that gave them their status as boys' band as well. There were in those days, boys' bands and girls' bands."

You lived for a while in Howth, near Phil's home, didn't you?

"I used to meet Phil Lynott around, and he was quite the rock star. And I was an apprentice. I still feel like an apprentice rock star. It's a part-time job for me; the swagger and the attitiude. But it wasn't for him - he was full-time at it. And then, as the years went by, he got a house in the northside, in a place called Howth. I lived about four doors up from him, in a little three room cottage which was U2's rehearsal room. I used to bump into him a lot there. And he used to say; 'we have to meet up, we'll go out for dinner', and I didn't quite know how to react to that. I didn't follow up on that ever. I was kind of in awe of him, I think that's what it was. I didn't know what I'd say, if I was sitting down in Philo's house.

"But there was another side of it too, which was that he'd really gotten into the lifestyle of self-destruction at that point. I guess we were a bit... not just naive, but kind of anti that. I didn't like to see what he seemed to be doing to himself. When he died, I must say I really resented the fact that I hadn't dropped in to see him more often. Because maybe he was looking for some people who were outside of his scene, I dunno. He was probably just being a good bloke, decent to the youngster that was up the road."

Was Phil a 'Dub', and if so, what is a 'Dub'?

"I dunno what a Dub is. People would would always say Philo was a Dub because he talked like that. My old man is a 'Dub'; my family on both sides grew up in a place called Cowtown. you couldn't get more Dub. But I think it's a bit of a cliche, the Dub thing. He definitely was one of the lads, and though that might have been part of his appeal when I was 15 or 16. But in the end it was the lyricism of records like 'Shades Of A Blue Orphanage' that actually got to me. So the machismo in a way was how he got away with being able to be so raw, emotionally on those records.

"And in the later years, when he used to write those ballads for his children, he barely got away with it. But becasue he was a Dub and one of the lads, people could actually excuse him wiritng a song for his baby. I'm so glad he did it. From how I see it, it was a very rock and roll thing for him to do. I thought he had real balls to do that."

U2 supported Thin Lizzy at Slane Castle in 1981. Was there a rivalry between the upcoming youngsters and the established band?

"I've heard that. Our sound was shite, and I think people were saying that they wouldn't give us the full run of the desk and things like that, and that Philo was a little nervous. I van't believe that, to be honest, because we were actually just crap. I don't think it was anything to do with the sound desk. We walked out on that gig in Slane Castle and played a load of songs that we'd never played before. We opened with uilleann pipes on a song called 'Tomorrow', and I think it's much more a case that we were a mess.

"But there was a bit of rivalry between the old guard and the new guard. Even though we weren't a punk rock group, we were part of a new wave of groups with their fingers up to the younger groups. And I think that's where that story came out of, that there was a bit of a tangle. But I don't think so."

A lot of Phil's songs reveal a person who was sensitive about illegitimacy and the father he never knew. Yet his stage

personna never gave any of that sadness away. Did you ever see the façade crack?

"Personally, I never saw into his more fragile side that you can hear it in the songs, and what people tell me they saw in him as a person. I saw him occasionally out in clubs, looking a little worse for wear. And apparently in those times, he was brutally honest about what it was that made him tick. But he never was to me.

"It's the classic rock and roll story, isn't it? It's usually a mother, but in his case it was a father, leads to this desperate attempt to identify yourself. If you lose a mother or a father that's what it is. it's true from Johnny Lydon to John Lennon to Phil Lynott... even myself. There is some drive to find out who you are, in the absence of not fully knowing, that leads to the kind of person who will write books or paint pictures. But more so to make the kind of noise that rock and roll throws up."

And your favourite Thin Lizzy music?

"I love that album 'Shades Of A Blue Orphanage'. It had all those poetic references. There was that moment where people were tying in rock music with the Celtic Twilight and all of that. That was a brave and bold move that he got started there. It hasn't been fully picked up on, and I think it will be at some point. I think that's my favourite. "But the glam rock side of them was great too. Even thought they never wore glitter, they had that glamourpuss thing that hasn't dated. They don't look as ridiculous as a lot of the glam rock groups. And here again is something that is the most defining difference about them, was this silky voice that he had. He was never a screamer and there was a sexuality that I think was much more evolved than the usual Viking, beating-of-the-breast-and-I'll-bite-your-head-off-missus, side of the other bands, y'know?"