“I can’t compete with that”: The band so good they made Phil Lynott break up Thin Lizzy
While dwelling in the lofty realm of hard rock legend across the 1970s, one big name from the UK prompted Phil Lynott to pack in his Thin Lizzy day job for good in 1983.
He was diffident about fame anyhow. Never one to chase superstardom, nor indulge in the usual hard rock tropes of cock rock, skirt chasing and cartoonish machismo, it took a while for Lynott to summon the quiet charisma he’d wield on stage when fronting Thin Lizzy, reportedly with Slade manager Chas Chandler urging the young singer to dial up the presence when supporting the glam outfit early on.
Easing into his rock duties, a more sensitive songcraft emerged from the Black Irishman’s lyrical pen, tales of romantic belonging, heartache, working-class rebellion, and his home country’s folklore all scored by Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson’s twinned guitar attack.
Evident in Thin Lizzy’s work, even among the hallowed heights of ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ and ‘Jailbreak’, is swagger, confidence, but never ego. It’s a quality that radiates from Lynott in archive performances or interviews, someone naturally armed with an anchor to the ground and never to lose himself in his own hype.
Such a modest spark would shine from his open-hearted fandom. Crossing paths with fellow Vertigo labemates Def Leppard, Lynott caught their lead singer and confessed that he was so floored by their new album he had to pack in his Thin Lizzy gig after nearly 15 years on the go and clocking 12 albums.
“I remember meeting Phil Lynott…” Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot recalled to Classic Rock in 2016. “We’d delivered Pyromania and, with us sharing a label with Lizzy, he’d heard it. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I heard your album – it’s the reason I’ve split the band. I can’t compete with that.’”
High praise indeed. Def Leppard were primed and ready to take their hard rock chops to the American arena, slathering their hair metal guitar with gleaming, radiant coats of pop gloss and synthy shine that would thrust Pyromania to number two on the Billboard 200. While alienating some Sheffield old timers with their new chart-friendly glow, Def Leppard and AC/DC hitmaker Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange were gunning for the zenith of pop-metal’s MTV domination, a conquest they’d truly herald with Hysteria four years later.
It was a creative trajectory Lynott shared, too. While never glam metal, Thin Lizzy did embrace the day’s new wave keyboards for some electronic fizz, with future Ultravox singer Midge Ure playing synths in the late 1970s and the band’s Billy Currie playing the ARP on Lynott’s solo efforts. It was an intriguing new road Thin Lizzy could have pursued, a lamentable demise Elliot found no pleasure in amid Pyromania’s gargantuan success.
“The crappiest backhand compliment I’ve ever had,” Elliot confessed, concluding, “I wish I had been brave enough to shove him up against the wall and say, ‘Well, make a better album then!’ But I just said, ‘Oh,’ and scuttled off.”
