Thin Lizzy and Black Star Riders guitarist Scott Gorham unveils new artwork

Scott Gorham, legendary guitarist for Thin Lizzy and their spin-off lineup Black Star Riders, has unveiled six new works of art, with limited edition prints available to purchase through the artist’s website.

Gorham’s first encounter with visual art came in his teens. At a high school in Glendale, California, the 14-year-old student took a semester in art to avoid enrolling in a typing course. His first and only art lesson, Scott slowly garnered the confidence to submit a line portrait of his sister, Vicky, for competition. However, he still struggled with self-belief in comparison to his peers.

“All the kids were sat around this big table, and whenever the teacher set us a project, I would look around and think, ‘God, these people are so much better than me,’” he remarks. “But then she would grab my drawing and go, ‘Look, class! Scott understands what I was talking about.” I could see the other kids all looking at me, growling.”

Once the course finished, so did Scott’s art education. As such, the experience and technical skills he acquired fell by the wayside, more or less.

“I couldn’t remember a thing – maybe some perspective training, and some stuff about shading, but I’ve always said the most important instrument in drawing is the eraser.”

By then, Scott was mainly invested in honing his guitar skills. In 1974, he moved to the UK and joined rockers Thin Lizzy as one of two lead guitarists alongside Brian Robertson. From the outset, he also began a longstanding songwriting partnership with frontman and bassist Phil Lynott. Scott would perform on ten best-selling albums, including Jailbreak, Johnny The Fox, Bad Reputation and Live And Dangerous, as well as several hit singles: ‘The Boys Are Back In Town,’ ‘Rosalie,’ ‘Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me In Its Spotlight)’ and ‘Waiting On An Alibi.’

In his spare time, Scott clandestinely carried on drawing, keeping it from his fellow musicians and even his wife Christine. By happenstance or divine providence, Christine discovered a folder containing numerous drawings, some of which dated back to the early 1980s. These images were inspired by Scott’s life on the road, his journey towards sobriety, the diminished wellbeing of the planet and other seemingly innocuous yet watershed moments, such as the time Phil Lynott took him to his first football match.

Thin Lizzy, by Liam Quigley

“But none of the band, even Phil, saw any of them,” Scott reflects. “I do wonder what Phil would have thought. But on tour, these drawings were me taking myself away from the music for a few hours.”

Then, three years ago, Scott posted a drawing called ‘The Fanatic’ on social media to commemorate what would have been Phil Lynott’s birthday. The work was inspired by the aforementioned football match which Lynott and Gorham attended.

THE FANATIC by Scott Gorham

“This very personal drawing drew thousands of positive responses with fans asking whether there were other drawings and where they could buy it,” he explains. “It took a further three years to persuade me and agree to introduce some of my collection to the public…. I never expected to show them to anyone.”

That is, until now.

Scott’s work drew massive attention in March when he provided a piece for use in UK’s Planet Rock radio campaign supporting their own Cash For Kids charity. Led by Scott, his design was used for limited edition t-shirts, joined by artwork from Terrorvision’s Tony Wright and Lzzy Hale from Halestorm. The t-shirts are on sale now for £25 at planetrock.com.

Alongside ‘The Fanatic,’ the guitarist shares five more works: ‘Pain,’ ‘The Missing Link,’ ‘Free Speech?,’ ‘Curiosity’ and ‘Apocalypse.’

‘Pain’ draws from Scott’s struggles with chronic migraines and cluster headaches, which he said would last hours and leave him completely debilitated. Commenting on the impetus for creating ‘Pain,’ he says: “Years later, when I remembered all the pain I used to go through, I started drawing this character.

PAIN by Scott Gorham

"That’s why the bone is going into the right-hand side, because I always used to get the stabbing pain behind the right eye.”

Scott first started drawing ‘Curiosity’ in a hotel room in the early ‘80s during his downtime from touring with Thin Lizzy. It came from a need to escape an exhausting life on the road: “No one ever saw these drawings. If Phil [Lynott] or one of the guys in the band came in, I’d have probably hidden it under the pillow. We were so focussed on the music and the performance on tour, so drawing became a way to pull myself out of it – even just for a couple of hours.”

CURIOSITY by Scott Gorham

Scott’s palpable artistic talent quickly caught the eye of longtime Thin Lizzy artist Jim Fitzpatrick.

“I was so impressed when Christine showed me Scott’s work for the first time. Secret work too, and very unexpected. Of course, Scott was and is a rock genius, we all knew that, but an artist too, and a damn good one also? That was a surprise - a wonderful revelation of real quality work from an unexpected source,” Jim comments. “Of course, I wish Scott well and hopefully he will have more art treats in store for us all. I wish him every success.”

Limited edition prints of Scott’s six pieces are available to purchase here. For further information on his other works, please visit the artist’s website.