- Music
- 04 Jan 16
The Thin Lizzy legend died 30 years ago today
On this day in 1986 the tragic news broke that Phil Lynott had died aged 36 in London.
When Hot Press launched in 1977, Thin Lizzy were at the height of their commercial powers with that year’s Bad Reputation fending off the punk onslaught to chart on both sides of the Atlantic.
Over the next decade, Philo became one of our staunchest rock ‘n’ roll allies and supporters, and on one occasion even took over the editorial reins here.
To mark this most poignant of days, we’ve rounded up a selection of the tributes to Phil that have appeared in Hot Press over the past 30 years.
These include a fascinating chat with Lizzy superfan Bono in which he reveals: “We were 16 when we formed the band and we were trying to learn other people’s songs and we weren’t very good at it,” Bono recalls. “Occasionally one would speak to us, and I remember us trying to work out ‘Don’t Believe A Word’ and I couldn’t understand exactly what he meant. ‘Don’t believe me when I tell ya/Not a word of this is true/Don’t believe me when I tell ya/I’m in love with you’ – just a great lyric device. We tried playing that, just murdered that one.
“They were such good songs to murder,” he added with glee. “‘The Boys Are Back In Town’, we murdered that one. We still play that one in soundcheck. ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’, we play that one in soundcheck too, that’s so beautiful. So Van Morrison.”
Also qualifying as a Thin Lizzy obsessive is Slash.
"A lot of the bands that I liked were two-guitar bands,” he told Hot Press, “be it the Stones, AC/DC, Aerosmith or Thin Lizzy or whatever, even The Scorpions. You just got more out of two guitars! I never really set out to be in two-guitar bands, but when Guns N' Roses started, that's the way it came together. When Scott and Brian Robertson were playing together, that's the Thin Lizzy sound I most identified with stylistically.”
Phil’s appeal isn’t limited to the hard rock brigade with The Cure’s Robert Smith informing us that, “I’ve got every single one of their albums on vinyl. I saw Thin Lizzy in the Brighton Dome in 1976 and it that was one of my all-time favourite concerts. It was just genius…. Phil Lynott with his mirror bass picking girls out. I loved Thin Lizzy.”
We kick off, though, with a 1984 interview in which Phil talks music, politics, religion, sex, drugs, Ireland, parenthood and rock'n'roll stardom.
A lot of years have passed, but we still miss him like crazy...
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