American Songwriter magazine – which offers in-depth interviews with up-and-coming, established and legendary songwriters - spoke to guitarist Scott Gorham of THIN LIZZY and the hard rock supergroup BLACK STAR RIDERS about new album tracks “Bloodshot” and “Blues Ain’t So Bad” from this year’s release All Hell Breaks Loose and also discusses classic, guitar-driven tracks off of THIN LIZZY’s Jailbreak (1976) and Black Rose (1979) albums.
When asked about the differences in the songwriting process between BLACK STAR RIDERS and THIN LIZZY, Gorham responded:
“I knew before even starting this album that with [vocalist] Rick Warwick, [guitarist] Damon Johnson, and [bassist] Marco Mendoza, we were going to have at least four songwriters in on this. Hopefully it was going to come very easily for us – and it actually did! On ‘Bloodshot,’ that opening riff there, I’ve had that for a little while now. It just reminded me of some sort of Irish pipes or something, and I just kinda dug it. Its unrelenting groove works out really well live – even better than it is on the record. ‘Blues Ain’t So Bad’, that was actually the first song we put down in the demo studio. I started playing that grove, then Marco Mendoza sat straight down and copied the riff with his bass. Eventually everybody just started to jam on this particular groove I had.”
A prolific contributor to the THIN LIZZY catalog, Gorham also reminisces about the first song he co-wrote with THIN LIZZY’s Phil Lynott.
Read the entire American Songwriter.com interview here: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2013/08/the-great-collaborator-an-interview-with-thin-lizzys-scott-gorham/
Scott Gorham & BLACK STAR RIDERS vocalist Ricky Warwick were recent guests (together with Clutch vocalist Neil Fallon & guitarist Jake E. Lee) of Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson, and Jim Florentine on That Metal Show.
Watch the July episode online at VH1.com: http://www.vh1.com/video/misc/936152/that-metal-show-ep-7-act-1.jhtml
All Hell Breaks Loose entered the Billboard Heatseekers chart at #5 & the Billboard Hard Music chart at #19 the week following its May 28th release. It remained on the Billboard Heatseekers chart at the #19 position during its second week.
