Transcript of an interview I recorded with RICKY WARWICK. - 20210219. Full article here. RICKY-
Hey Mal. MAL- Hey, how are you man? RICKY- I'm doing okay. Thank you. How are you? MAL- Yeah, yeah, not too bad. Thanks for taking my call. RICKY- No, thank you for having me, appreciate it. MAL- I like the album, by the way. RICKY- Thank you. Thank you very much. MAL- We'll get to that in just a moment. I just want to pin you down on a couple of things if I can that sort of (sure) led us to where we are, and that is the phone call, if it was indeed a phone call that led you to singing with (THIN) LIZZY. How did it come about and what went through your mind? RICKY- It was a phone call from Scott Gorham in January 2010, you know it's obviously a date I'll never forget. I've known Scott for a long long time Scott and I have been friends for over 30 years and you know Scott actually played guitar on my very first solo record way back in 2003 called 'Tattoos and Alibis'. So Scott knew me as an artist, obviously was aware of THE ALMIGHTY. We'd been mates, so he called me, you know, and it wasn't like he was calling me out of the blue because now and again we would call each other and just you know, touch base. So I just thought, 'Great, Scott's calling me now', haven't heard from a while, I wonder what's going on, you know, so we did we obviously do the pleasantries thing and then he just goes, 'I'm putting THIN LIZZY back together. I think you're the guy to front the band and you know, I immediately said 'yes, you know straight away and then I listened to what Scott's ideas were for putting the band back together and how he wanted to present the whole thing. And then you know, I put the phone down and then it was 'Oookay. What have I just agreed to do here? How the hell am I going to do this? Can I do this? Will anybody.. I'll be crucified' all that stuff just hit me like a ton of bricks. There was 2 people that I turned to straight away after I got the call who if they'd said to me, 'No, you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't go near it', I would have taken their advice. And one of them was my wife and she said, 'You should absolutely do this'. And the other one was a guy called Del James. Now Del works for GUNS N' ROSES and he's been working for GUNS N' ROSES since the beginning. I've actually written some songs with Del. He's just a great guy. He is a LIZZY fanatic and he's like, 'Absolutely you should do it'. And that was it. But the beauty of it was Mal, that from that phone call, we then went to London and had a rehearsal and Scott basically said 'look, you know, unless you really suck. It's yours to lose, you know auditioning here. The gig is yours. So unless we go in this rehearsal and you're bloody terrible, you know, don't worry about it'. So we wanted into rehearsal and obviously, being the LIZZY fanatic that I am, you know, I seemed to do okay, and you see the guys seemed happy, so the gig was mine and then we had about eight or nine months till the first LIZZY show. And so I was able to submerge myself in everything Phil for nine months and just get in my head how I wanted to present it how I was going to do it. Learn everything and just kind of get all my ducks in a row before before the first show. Yeah. I mean, credible. It's so incredible and it's still unreal. It's still. It will never really sink in you know and never will. I don't want it to and it shouldn't you know? MAL- Yeah exactly right, now the transformation over to BLACK STAR RIDERS, (I) couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be in your shoes in that time releasing new material, basically which you've written as the same band that you are touring THIN LIZZY, but not releasing it as THIN LIZZY. What's your view from the inside if you like? Was the scrutiny going to be like out of control? RICKY- Yeah my my head was wrecked. It was already a huge undertaking just singing Phil and the boys' songs and doing them live and the sense of enormity and importance that just comes with that. But then again, going a step further and actually recording an album without Phil was weird and my head is wrecked to be honest with you, was really wreck because we'd written these great songs, and you know, my head's going 'killer you're going to be on a Thin Lizzy album. You're going to be,.. Ricky Warwick, you know, blah blah blah. New THIN LIZZY album, down in history', and my heart's going 'what the f are you doing? What's wrong with you? You know, you're pushing this too far. This is sacred, hallowed ground. This is Phil. This is your boy. This is a boy who you grew up with, the band you gre up with in Ireland, the soundtrack of your life. One thing playing those songs live. It's another thing writing new material and that was going on, that conflict was going on and the way I look at it, my gut's never wrong. I trust my gut all the time and I had that feeling you get when you agree to something and your gut's you know screaming at you 'What have you just said yes to? Why have you agreed to it?' I had that going on the whole time. So I knew that it was a mistake, but you're going with the flow because the band was doing so well live and the shows are doing so well and everybody was excited about the new songs and then I could sense that feeling wasn't just me. It was everybody else, you know, and I think finally somebody just said, 'What are we doing?' It was like 'Oh God. Thank God you said that', you know because this is what we were all thinking and it was, the relief was huge. It was the best decision. Honestly I'm so glad we never recorded stuff without Phil because it's wrong. It's wrong to record without Phil. It's just not right. It's just not right. I say this in every interview and no different. I'm not the lead singer in THIN LIZZY. Phil Lynott is the lead singer in THIN LIZZY. He always will be, he always is that's who is the lead singer in THIN LIZZY. I'm just looking after the songs and I've been given that opportunity which I'm universally grateful for like you wouldn't believe, but I'm not really lead singer. It's Phil and that's the way people should remember and view it in the way they should see it going into the future because for me if I can get people maybe younger people to go and check out LIZZY or people never got to see Lizzy the first time around that's what I'm trying to do. Turn them on to how great Phil and the boys were. So to write a new album would have been crass and I'm really glad we didn't. MAL- Some good stuff recorded in the meantime. I'm going to pin you down on one more thing before we move on. 'Blindsided'. (Yeah), tell me about that. I've heard Damon Johnson's side of it, when he said he walked in and heard you playing it and said, 'whoa, what is that?' Tell me about that song. That's just absolutely ..... amazing. RICKY- Thank you very much. I had the riff for years. I had the guitar riff for, one of those riffs that I was kicking around and every once in a while I go back to it and I just couldn't seem to do a damn thing with it. I just couldn't,.. you know, I just couldn't get anywhere with it, and we were on tour and we were in Germany and we had a day off and we were staying right in the centre of Munich and the hotel we booked was overlooking a train station and you can see right into the platforms in the train station and I'm sitting in a room day off, winter's day in Germany. It's raining it's you know, pissy day. I'm kind of bored. I'm strumming the guitar and start playing that riff and I'm looking at this couple, you know, male and female under obviously a little bit the worse for wear. I think they obviously were living on the streets and they're getting into it. You know, they're really going at it and they're arguing and it's getting a bit heated and kind of watching all this from the hotel window and I start thinking about who are they? Why did they end up where they're at? And this little story starts developing, you know added with maybe some some people that I've known that fallen on hard times, adding that into the mix, and before I know it I'm just writing down these lyrics and about an hour and a half later I called Damon and I said 'look, I think I got something here.' I think that's when he walked and he heard me playing it, so I play him the riff and for the verse and the lyrics that I had and him and I sat down and we worked out the chords for the chorus and the middle eight together. And that's really how the song was born, It was written, you know, really written one day in Germany in Munich. MAL- Excellent. I love it. Right let's move on 'When Life Was Hard And Fast' tell me about how we got here and what can you tell me about it? RICKY- So I've been making solo records for almost 20 years now and something I want to continue to do because I just love the the narcissism and (selfishness? unsure), you know of doing them, you know of working with different people and not being constricted to the sort of four or five people who are in a band of much as I love that too. This was written predominately in 2018, with myself and Keith Nelson, we also produced the album together. The album was recorded in April 2019 here in Los Angeles. And you know, the reason I guess there's been such a big gap between us my last release, 'When Patsy Cline', is we'd just been on the road a BLACK STAR RIDERS put out two records. We were touring constantly with those guys. And so really I've got to try and work it round the day job as a call it which is BLACK STAR RIDERS. MAL- I can't remember the song last night, I didn't write a note to myself. But did I hear a Hammond and a Leslie on there? RICKY- Yeah, we've got Dizzy Reed from GUNS N' ROSES playing on there and he's playing on two or three songs, so that's who you're hearing. MAL- Always in the mood for that. What can you tell me about some of the songs on there? My favorite I will tell you is 'You don't love me'. (Thank you) 'Fighting Heart' and 'You'Re My Rock And Roll'. Any stories you can tell us about the songs? RICKY- Yeah, I mean listen Keith Nelson and I are roughly the same age we're both blue-collar working-class boys we're kind of both cut from the same cloth, same taste in music, both been in successful bands. Love of vintage guitars. We just want to get in and we want to write big anthemic rock and roll songs. That was our mandate, you know with bombastic guitar riffs and big hooks and that's really what we went after when we started writing this record. And you know, 'You Don't Love Me' lyrically is a 'you don't love me. I don't care.' It's one of those ones. You know, what? Why do you go out of your way to tell somebody you hate them or be negative and put that hate on somebody else, you know, when obviously, if you're doing that you really need to take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. It's one of those songs. 'Fighting Heart' is like an ode to Phil, got your name tattooed on my chest. I'm got the Chinatown tattoo on my chest, its kind of like, you know, 'I was never blessed with common sense all that blood ink and no regrets. Well, you're no angel yourself'. That's me. That's me. That's a little bit of a nod to Phil going you, going, 'You inspired me to live this outlaw life of rock and roll for the last 30 years. Thank you. You inspire me to be strong and not give up'. So really that's the sort of essence behind that one. MAL- Covid impact it? Or did covid help it along? RICKY- Nope, covid had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was recorded, finished, like I said, in April 2019, so way before the pandemic hit and it was always scheduled to be released in early 2021 due to the fact that I thought we were going to be touring all last year with BLACK STAR RIDERS. MAL- Okay, where to from here. What's happening over there? Anything opening up? You mentioned you're in Los Angeles. So how was everything affecting you over there? RICKY- Um, you know, it's been pretty horrific. You know, my daughter hasn't been in school for almost a year now. I think it's a year next week since she was last in school. We've been locked down pretty heavily here, you know, the numbers have been up and down, but we're slowly coming out of it. No, we've just got outdoor dining back and some places are starting to open up and obviously people are starting to get vaccinated now which is a great thing, but it's a slow road, you know, and I think the same for the UK. I really think it will be the end of the year before. We're anywhere near some kind of normality sadly. MAL- Hey, thanks so much for taking my call, man. Best of luck with the album, great album it is too, and looking forward to seeing you back in action on all fronts as soon as you can. RICKY- Sounds good. Thank you, Mal, appreciate it. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |