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The Latest Breaking News from Brian Downey

I’ll be listening to two iconic Thin Lizzy albums to celebrate their 50th birthday – you should too

1976 was a great year for Ireland’s best rock band

What Hi-Fi?

"All of a sudden, she started biting my tongue and wouldn't let go. There was blood everywhere. Then she went for my forehead": How Thin Lizzy made the albums that saved them, only to be plunged into chaos

Thin Lizzy went from being stone broke to recording the two albums that came to define their career, but bad luck always seemed to be lurking in the shadows

Louder

“We were absolutely convinced we were gonna just kill in the US. Then Phil gets hepatitis and – boom! – the tour just stopped there”: A metal fan’s guide to Thin Lizzy, the hellraising 70s rock icons who inspired Metallica and Megadeth

The late, great Phil Lynott and his band inspired many modern metal icons

Metal Hammer

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The first two albums recorded by what became their definitive line-up: Now a seven-CD countdown to Thin Lizzy's lift-off

74-75: Night Life / Fighting finds Phil Lynott, Brian Downey, Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pointing Thin Lizzy in the right direction

Louder

“Robbo had grown a beard. Phil says, ‘I’m the only one with facial hair, man – you gotta shave that thing off’”: Scott Gorham on his partnership with Brian Robertson – a golden era for Thin Lizzy even if they nearly split up over facial hair

The years 1974 to '78 were good times for Thin Lizzy creatively, with the twin-guitar dynamite of Robertson and Gorham in the engine room. But they weren't half volatile...

Guitar World

"How many times do you say you're gonna give something up and you don't?": Aggression and anger on the road with Thin Lizzy across America and Europe

With a new guitarist in their ranks, Thin Lizzy set off on an American tour with Queen, but trouble lay ahead

Louder

“Gary was so talented it actually haunted him. He wasn’t really in control of what was coming through him. That sort of thing always comes at a price”: How guitar icon Gary Moore snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with his early 80s solo albums

The late Gary Moore made some classic solo albums – but he never got the success he deserved

Louder

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“Phil Lynott said, ‘Gary Moore is out the band. Could you come over tomorrow?’ My initial reaction was, ’I’m not the guy you should be asking’”: When Midge Ure joined Thin Lizzy on a make-or-break US tour, he had just one day’s notice and no rehearsals

The Live Aid orchestrator and Ultravox synth-pop pioneer looks back at his trial by fire with Thin Lizzy, swapping out his Yamaha electric because it wasn’t cool enough, refusing to join the Sex Pistols, and how The Edge might have changed Band Aid’s charity single

Guitar World

"The only way I could approach this was making it up as I went along": Eric Bell on the controversial recording of Thin Lizzy's "new" album The Acoustic Sessions

Guitarist Eric Bell and producer Richard Whittaker tell us about Thin Lizzy's acoustic album, grass-addled sessions and why this project definitely isn’t AI

Louder

“The Boys Are Back in Town is at least as memorable for its guitar breaks as for its chorus”: Thin Lizzy inspired Metallica, Iron Maiden, and the Cure, practically invented twin lead guitar, and have had 15 guitarists. Here’s your guide to all of them

Thin Lizzy are tough enough for punks, heavy enough for metalheads, poetic enough for romantics – and their catchy riffs and licks have been played by some of the finest guitarists on earth

Guitar World

“It was Gary’s idea to bring the Irishness back into Thin Lizzy": Guitar hero Gary Moore made only one album with the band - and it’s a classic

“His style of playing pushed everybody to become better,” said fellow guitarist Scott Gorham

MusicRadar

John Sykes obituary

Guitarist and songwriter who worked with Tygers of Pan Tang, Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake

The Guardian - UK

Former Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes dead at 65

The death of John Sykes, whose contributions to Whitesnake spurred them to become one of the biggest-selling bands of the eighties, has been confirmed

Metal Hammer

"To this day I don’t know how Brian Robertson got back to the hotel. He had been missing for a day": Through thick and thin - on the road with Thin Lizzy in 1976

In 1976, Thin Lizzy were touring Jailbreak in the US and breaking big. Then disaster struck. Band manager Chris O’Donnell details the roller-coaster year in which they were cruelly robbed of their American dream

Louder

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BANG Premier

Thin Lizzy announce acoustic album

Thin Lizzy have announced the release of their first album in more than 40 years, 'Acoustic Sessions'.

Louder

“Lemmy and I got on fine most of the time, but we had our moments. Being in Motörhead was crazy 24 hours a day”: ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian ‘Robbo’ Robertson’s wild tales of Phil Lynott, Lemmy, David Bowie and more

Phil Lynott, Lemmy, Rush, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins – former Thin Lizzy/Motörhead guitarist Brian Robertson crossed paths with them all and has the hangovers to prove it

Louder

“I don’t think we’re a band that will last forever. We could break up any time”: On the road with Thin Lizzy in America in the late 1970s

Thin Lizzy hit their stride between 1977 and 1979 – and journalist Harry Doherty had a front row seat for their American tours

Louder

"He'd cook you a breakfast like your mother, then go out trawling through the markets buying second-hand clothes": A tribute to Phil Lynott, by the guitarists who played alongside him

Phil Lynott's bandmates share their memories of their late, lamented, but inimitable frontman Philip Lynott

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Louder

"Lots of careers have been made from regurgitating the same record. If I'd made millions, I'd be making jazz records": A spiky interview with Gary Moore

After three spells with Thin Lizzy', the late Gary Moore turned solo artist, ditching hard rock for the music of his childhood, the blues

Louder

"People in Dublin thought we'd made it and were living like kings. Little did they know": Thin Lizzy and the struggle of Vagabonds Of The Western World

It was on Thin Lizzy's third album, Vagabonds Of The Western World, that "you really get to hear Phil the poet", says drummer Brian Downey

Guitar World

“I think Metallica thought that I knew who they were. I didn’t. They thought I was in awe of them – not true… it wasn’t enjoyable”: Whiskey in the Jar was the hardest song Thin Lizzy’s Eric Bell ever tackled, and he didn't enjoy playing it with Metallica

In a wide-ranging conversation with GW, Bell also acknowledges that he could never have returned to Phil Lynott’s band after an infamous onstage meltdown in 1973 – but at least he apologized to his beloved Strat for his behavior that night...

Louder

"They're as good as anything anyone's ever written": My 10 favourite Thin Lizzy songs, by Brian Downey

Drummer Brian Downey, who co-founded Thin Lizzy with Phil Lynott, picks his 10 favourite Lizzy tracks

Louder

"I sat down on the stairs of my basement and just cried. It killed me that he wasn’t going to be there any more": The final struggle for the life of Phil Lynott

The final year of Phil Lynott's life saw him try to get his career back on track. Instead, it was 365 days of missed opportunities, lost passports and crazy deals

MusicRadar

"Phil picked up my second guitar and went up to the microphone and just started singing all these silly songs" – Eric Bell on the unlikely success story of Thin Lizzy's version of Whisky In The Jar

"As the taxi driver's talking to me, I suddenly made a riff in my imagination"

Dublin Live

Phil Lynott Convention will honour late Dublin legend on 73rd birthday

Brian Downey is set to perform a two-hour class of the best of Lizzy

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