Latest album: Heavy Fire
Label: Nuclear Blast
Website: http://blackstarriders.com/
Hard rock band Black Star Riders grew from the potential of a new Thin Lizzy album from the bulk of the latter band’s line-up in 2012. The resultant new band allowed the experienced musicians that included long serving Thin Lizzy lead guitarist Scott Gorham to showcase blistering new material. Now with three albums released, their latest album titled Heavy Fire sees the band producing ten top quality tracks chock full of twin guitar melodies, plenty of soaring yet gravelly vocals and guitar solos galore to savour. The majority of the album was co-written by the band’s American co-lead guitarist Damon Johnson and front man Ricky Warwick. Paul Southwell chatted to Damon about the band’s evolution, his vast experience in the industry and elaborated on the odd entertaining anecdote.
The new album is great. It’s fair to say that Ricky is as great a vocalist as any of the top line names that you’ve worked with in the past.
Yeah man, that boy is very passionate. He is very inspired and very disciplined in his work ethic. It is a real privilege to be in a band with someone like Ricky.
How would you say that your songwriting has grown over the last three albums?
I’d say we are more confident. I don’t know if we are necessarily better songwriters. I just know that the songs are better and whatever energy there was in the room this time was very productive. There is just something intrinsic in these songs that I feel like they seem to have a little bit of a longer life, if that makes sense. You have to remember that we have been listening to these songs now since September last year and I enjoy putting the album on myself and more so right now than I did many months ago. It isn’t always like that because a lot of the time when you make an album with your band or even when doing your solo stuff, you focus on it, you get it done and then you kind of move to start thinking about the tour or the next album. I very much enjoy playing this album still and I listen to it quite a bit.
Older artists might get a bit jaded by the cycle of making music and touring. Do you think that might have ever been the case for Scott Gorham whilst in Thin Lizzy?
I don’t feel that he has ever been jaded as such but he knows that he has played those Thin Lizzy songs for a long, long time. He also knows that Thin Lizzy, more than anyone else, was Phil Lynott’s band. Phil has been gone a long time now and just last year was the 30th anniversary of his passing so the fact that the band has been able to accomplish the things that it has and to have the influence and impact that it has had on so many people for so long means I know he doesn’t take that for granted. At the same time has was very ready to create some new music and be a part of something new just to see what else he could come up with and what else he could put together. Black Star Riders is without a doubt a testament to Scott and just his desire to keep moving forward. Ricky and I were very fortunate and honoured to be asked to be a part of all of that.
Would you say that Ricky and you ultimately provided the impetus for him to get moving again?
Yeah, there is no doubt man, I mean, Scott talks about it a lot. He feeds off of our energy and our discipline. Ricky and I have both been songwriters for quite some time and I think that is good news for Black Star Riders. All of us have been musicians for a long, long time and we have all been involved in different bands, tours and studio situations. But Black Star Riders has got a lot of hard working and experienced song writers within it and I think that is really the ultimate difference in our band maybe compared to some other bands that are comprised of veteran musicians, if you know what I am saying.
Do you feel any pressure to fill a role of say Gary Moore or Brian Robertson in Black Star Riders?
No, I think I felt maybe a little bit of that pressure in the beginning because I had only been in Thin Lizzy for about a year and a half and it was all still very new for me. You’ve got to remember, I was and still am a fan of those records of those different and various line-ups. I love both Gary and Brian’s guitar playing as well as Eric Bell, Snowy White and John Sykes, you know, all of them, man. That was all really exciting but by the time we starting making the first Black Star Riders album, you know Ricky and I had spent so much time together by then, working out material and bouncing ideas back and forth. I think that we were more focused on the songs than I was worried about my reputation as a guitar player. I felt really confident because I knew that I had played a long time and recorded a lot and I am very proud of guitar playing such as the lead guitar stuff, the harmony parts that Scott and I worked out. But without a doubt I am much more focused on the quality of the songs, the parts and how the arrangements work. I just hope that people will pay attention to the song because guitar playing is like icing on the cake; that is the fun part. Playing guitar is easy but writing good songs isn’t always easy.
I seem to recall Ricky was also quite competent at playing guitar when you toured Australia supporting Mötley Crüe and Kiss in early 2013.
Oh yeah, Ricky has been a guitar player his whole life, man. He played guitar in The Almighty and he has had various side projects that are more kind of punk oriented things that he has been a part of so the guitar is very comfortable for him. It is a bonus for all of us in Black Star Riders because he is such a good guitar player. It is great to have that extra sound on stage. It is also very nice to have that in the studio when it comes to the songwriting. Many of the riffs on the Black Star Riders albums are ideas that Ricky comes up with initially. He’ll play something on a guitar and I’ll take and bend it or make it shorter, longer or in a different key. Ricky has tonnes of ideas, man, it is a lot of fun to work with him.
There are some really decent guitar solos on the albums as well including some fast playing that is not just the standard middle eight part solo but some ripping outro leads too. Is that something your producer encouraged or did you just let go during recording?
I think that is a combination of us and our producer Nick Raskulinecz [Foo Fighters, Rush] and you know, man, I love that stuff. I love it when it is time to do the guitars and I bring in all my favourite Gibsons, ESPS and we get a wall full of amplifiers and it is always so much fun to start that process. Nick is a rocker; that guy loves hard rock, heavy rock and more than any producer that I have ever worked with, Paul. He will be the first guy to say, ‘okay Damon, we’re going to work on this outro solo and I want you to burn, I just want you to shred right here’ and yet shred is not a word that I have ever associated with my guitar playing so there is no question that Nick has gotten some performances out of me that I certainly would not have executed on my own. So, he has been great for me and great for the band.
Speaking of making things great, lyrically, this album is a bit more acerbic than previous albums. For example, the song Who Rides the Tiger is upfront. How do you think that will go over in this climate?
You know man, I am really proud of Ricky Warwick for that lyric on Who Rides the Tiger. I had brought him that piece of music and was excited about the riff but I could never have anticipated that he would make such an acute, heavy, political statement like that. I guess it is a bonus that we both feel the same way about a lot of those issues but even if we were on different sides of the debate table about that, I would still respect the honesty and you know, the guy had done his homework. For a guy that grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has really read a lot of books, he has studied American history, he watches the news and he keeps up with what is going on. I would feel differently if I had a lead singer in my band that was just throwing a bunch of lyrics around that were either lacking substance or were a bunch of fluffy opinions. Ricky is really well read, very smart and very passionate. I have a lot of respect for Ricky.
It is certainly a bit of a contrast to say playing with Ted Nugent.
Yeah, well, there is a great example right there because Ted Nugent is a great, great friend of mine however, Ted and I sit on very different sides of the political discussion and that’s okay. We can still be friends and we can still be musical brethren. I’ve stayed at Ted’s house, I know his family and we have written songs together. Ted Nugent is a great man but he has just got some political views that I disagree with and sometimes I wish that maybe he wouldn’t be quite as intense as he is at voicing some of his opinions. Look man, we want to do things that bring people together. We want to say things and we want to do things that bring Americans together. We’ve got a lot of challenges and we can do a better job at getting us together. There is just a lot of mud-slinging right now man and there is a big line drawn in the middle and people are picking sides. It is tough over here right now, I won’t kid you.
I imagine so but you’ve also played with Alice Cooper and others who are quite simply brilliant at entertaining huge crowds through pure musical escapism.
Honestly, I think it is down to the individual. I think it is the thing that we all are passionate about no matter what country we’re from or where we stand religiously or politically. You know, you want to hang on to those rights to express yourself and say what you feel. The one thing that Ted and I do agree on is freedom of speech. But yeah, I think that people come to music to escape. They want to come to see a band and they want to come and see a show. They want to escape a lot of the challenges of day to day life and what is on the news and just the things that people are being bombarded with on a daily basis. Alice Cooper is a great example man; what great escapism with vaudeville entertainment. It was almost like fantasy land and that was cherished for me to get to work with Coop as long as I did. I learned a lot about a lot of things with him.
What sort of skills in live performance would you say you picked up from being in his band and watching him perform up close?
Coop definitely made me a much better performer. I’ve been playing live my whole life but when you work with Coop you get a front row seat to an education in proper performance. You know, looking the audience members in the eye, projecting your motions and presentation to the back of the venue and not just to the people in the first ten rows. It is an incredible thing man, I would never have been ready for an opportunity with Thin Lizzy had it not been for my time with Alice Cooper. He really prepared me for something like that.
On the album, one of the songs Ticket to Rise sounds like it has a gospel choir on there.
You know what, thank you brother; Ticket to Rise has a trio of female background singers [Wendy Moten, Gale Mayes and Drea Rhenee] from here in Nashville which is both where I live and where we made the album. Nick, our producer, had worked with them before and they have performed background vocals on hundreds of albums. They have actually gone out and toured with a pretty diverse array of artist such as country music legend Vince Gill and Michael McDonald from the Doobie Brothers. When we told Nick that we were interested in having some female vocals on the album he brought them in and he said, ‘I’ve got the perfect girls’ and they did an amazing job, man. They also sing on When the Night Comes In.
That also shows how good quality variety can work well on a hard rock album.
Yeah man, all five of us in Black Star Riders are music fans and we listen to a vast array of different stuff. I know that Ricky and I were in a deep Steve Marriott and Humble Pie phase when we were writing last year and he said to me one day, ‘man, wouldn’t it be great if we could have some girls to sing some backups on some songs,’ and I agreed. I always love that stuff.
Any chance you might be able to tour back down in Australia again?
I very much think so as there has been a great reaction to our new album and everyone on our team – our management, our booking agent and everybody involved know that it is important to the band to get down there so I’ve got my fingers crossed, brother. I hope we get down to Australia this year.
Not too long ago you appeared on That Metal Show with both Michael Schenker and Kirk Hammett. That must have been an experience to be there with those two guitar legends.
That was an experience, my friend. That was something I was so proud of but I am happy in some ways that it is behind me because, you know, on paper, somebody says, ‘okay man, we want you to be on this TV show and we want you to play guitar. You’re going to have to play in front of Kirk Hammett and Michael Schenker’. I was just like, ‘what?,’ ha ha, man, it was pretty intimidating and I didn’t really think about it until it was time for me to begin to play because everything was moving so fast and they get you in position and you know, the audience is there. So, there is a lot of activity to keep you distracted but when they did the intro to the show, I’m waiting and then Michael Schenker walks out and then Kirk Hammett walks out, it was like, ‘oh man, I’d better try and play something good right now,’ ha ha.
People like Schenker and Hammett must be aware that many hold them in very high regard.
Yeah, without a doubt and let me tell you something, both of those guys were incredible to me. They were very gracious and very complimentary. Michael and I had done a couple of festival dates together earlier that year but I had never actually met Kirk before but he is a lifelong Thin Lizzy fan. So, he had a lot of questions for me about Thin Lizzy, he was very familiar with Black Star Riders and had heard the new album so it was very cool, man. It was a great experience and I am very proud of that opportunity.