26 Facts About Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969.

Thin Lizzy featured several guitarists throughout their history, with Downey and Lynott as the rhythm section, on the drums and bass guitar.

Thin Lizzy moved to mainland Europe before returning to Belfast, rejoining his old band, Them.

In mid-1972, Thin Lizzy were asked to record an album of Deep Purple covers, which was released under the title Funky Junction Play a Tribute to Deep Purple.

Thin Lizzy left the group after being concerned about his health and struggling to compete with Lynott for control, and formed Colosseum II with Jon Hiseman.

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In early 1975, Thin Lizzy toured the United States for the first time, in support of Bob Seger and Bachman–Turner Overdrive .

When BTO toured Europe later in the year to support their hit single "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", Thin Lizzy again accompanied them on what was a very high-profile tour.

Thin Lizzy toured the US in support of various bands such as Aerosmith, Rush and REO Speedwagon, and they planned to tour there again in June 1976, this time with Rainbow.

Thin Lizzy flew to Canada in May 1977 as a trio to record Bad Reputation, with Gorham handling all the guitar parts.

Also in 1977, Thin Lizzy headlined the Reading Festival, and played Dalymount Park on 21 August.

In 1978, Thin Lizzy released their first live album Live and Dangerous.

Thin Lizzy was replaced for the tour by American drummer Mark Nauseef.

Thin Lizzy contributed guitar parts for The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans, a compilation album of remixed and overdubbed versions of Eric Bell-era tracks.

The tour was completed successfully, but the line-up now contained two temporary members, and Lynott was spending a lot of time on projects outside Thin Lizzy, including composing and producing material for other bands, as well as putting together his first solo album, Solo in Soho.

In 1996 John Sykes decided to reactivate Thin Lizzy, presenting the band as a tribute to Phil Lynott's life and work.

Thin Lizzy decided to take on the role of lead vocals himself in the absence of Lynott, and persuaded Scott Gorham, Brian Downey and Darren Wharton to return to the fold.

Thin Lizzy performed sporadically during this period, recruiting some musicians for single tours, such as bass guitarist Guy Pratt for the Global Chaos Tour of 2003.

Wharton later stated that Thin Lizzy would have been better suited to playing fewer concerts, in bigger venues.

Thin Lizzy felt that after the experience of fronting his own band Dare, it was not satisfying enough to play keyboards behind Gorham and Sykes.

In 2004, Thin Lizzy worked together again, with Sykes and Gorham bringing in ex-Angel bassist Randy Gregg, and drummer Michael Lee, who had played with Robert Plant and The Cult among others.

Sykes stated that Thin Lizzy was now "more of a tribute thing" and that it would be wrong to record new material under that name.

Thin Lizzy added that while the existing band members might record together, it would not be as Thin Lizzy.

On 10 October 2012, Thin Lizzy announced that the new material would not be released under the Thin Lizzy name, but would be released under a different name in due course.

Thin Lizzy is still on the horizon, we will still go out and do that but in the meantime we have Black Star Riders that we are going to concentrate on.

Thin Lizzy were one of Burton's favourite bands, and Lynott had a major influence on him as a bass player.

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Thin Lizzy are a major inspiration for modern heavy metal bands such as Metallica, Alice in Chains, Mastodon and Testament.