Moore's almanac

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Recent events in Northern Ireland have struck a chord with everybody - even legendary guitarist Gary Moore who left Belfast at 16. "It was historic to see Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting down together - who'd have thought that of those two arch-enemies?" muses Gary, who played a memorable gig at the city's Waterfront Hall on April 2 and has released his new album, Close As You Get.

"But it's a bit early to say if there is a real state of peace now. When we were over there, somebody was going to blow up one of the trains between Dublin and Belfast because a few people didn't agree with what was happening.

"We've just got to wait and see. But I don't feel it's fair for me who's not lived there for so long to start mouthing off about politics in Belfast. If I lived there, I wouldn't appreciate hearing someone like me go on about it."

Trouble

One of five children of a promoter named Bobby and housewife, Winnie, Gary was born (on April 4, 1952) and brought up in Belfast. But he quit as a teenager because all was not well in their household. His parents parted a year later.

"Although there were loads of troubles in our house, I left Belfast just before The Troubles started," he explains.

Gary went to Dublin wanting to become a musician, and he joined Skid Row which then included Phil Lynott.

Two and a half years Moore's senior, Lynott was born in Birmingham, England, the illegitimate son of a Brazilian father and Irish mother, and at three he was sent to live with his grandmother in Crumlin, Dublin.

He also started his music career at 16, and Gary's first impressions are of "a tall skinny cool black guy. "There weren't a lot of black guys in Dublin then, and Phil stood out like a sore thumb," he recalls. "People thought he was African and had come over with the missionaries. It must have been bloody hard for him being that colour for a start, but he was a strong guy."

Moore and Lynott went on to share a bedsit in Ballsbridge, and Gary remembers: "He was like a mum, up early every morning cooking breakfast, and he'd say 'Here, f***ing eat this'. One time he got me to order something from a Chinese restaurant which he knew I wouldn't like, and he ate my food. From then on that's how our relationship was - Phil was pulling things on me and I was falling for them.

"Phil did like the women. He didn't look upon that as falling for them; he looked at it as having the time of his life. He made me look like an altar boy - I was never in his league, I promise you. If anything moved, Phil would be on it in a shot. You couldn't leave your girlfriend in a room with him. Even if he knew you were really into this girl, he would be vroom straight in there.

"We once had a big row over a girl, but we never had a physical fight in our lives. That would never happen. Anyway, he was from a hard area in Dublin and he was bigger than me."

Skid Row

When Lynott left Skid Row, he formed Thin Lizzy which Gary duly joined ? three times in between other bands and collaborations.

"Phil was very much his own person," reckons Gary. "I got to spend a lot of time with him away from other people over the years, and that's when I felt we'd get to know each other more. But, having said that, I'd be p****d and he'd be out of it, so the memories aren't as clear as they should be which is a shame.

"When Phil got into his 30s, he'd gone downhill and a lot of his energy had gone from the drugs and the booze. At that point I wasn't into any of that s**t at all; I was just trying to make music. But he never wanted me to be into what he was into. I'm sure he warned me about it. Around the time of Out In The Fields, I knew he was in trouble.

I'd go round to his house at lunchtime when he'd just got out of bed and he'd come down with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a spliff in the other.

"You could tell he wasn't very happy. But he couldn't admit that he had a problem, or a weakness in any way. It's the old cliché, but if you don't want to help yourself it's not gonna happen. But that's what he needed. He wouldn't listen to anybody, but don't think I didn't try. I spoke to him on various occasions, once when he was in bed in Brussels and I said, 'Don't you wanna see your kids grow up?' He said, 'Thanks, yeah', but nothing changed. As far as Phil was concerned, he could handle anything. But that s**t catches up on everyone. It doesn't matter who you are - it'll get you in the end." In late December 1985, Gary and his then wife were visiting her parents in the Canary Islands when her father delivered some sad news.

Gary recalls: "He'd read a report in the papers and said to me, 'Your mate's not very well ?'"

Wildman Lynott, who was only 36, was paying the tragic price of excess.

"Phil collapsed on Christmas Day, went into hospital and didn't come out after that."

Lynott had taken a heroin overdose which put him in a coma for eight days. He died on January 4, 1986, officially from 'multiple internal abscesses causing blood poisoning leading to kidney, liver and heart failure'.

Gary shakes his head at the memory. " It was awful. I couldn't believe it. Even though people had been saying, 'He's next ? he's gonna go ? ', when it happens, man, whoa forget it. I couldn't believe I was never gonna see him again.

"It took me a couple of days to take in what had happened. I'm not one of those people who get emotional. But I went out for a drink in a bar and they started playing our songs, and a guy came up to me and said, 'I'm sorry about Phil ? ' I went home that night, man, and f***ing let rip. It was terrible."

Gary is right. He's not one of those people who get emotional. But he's extremely likeable and unexpectedly chatty. His appearance has hardly changed over the decades.

He's always been a denims, T-shirt and trainers-type, and still has his trademark helmet of dark hair. Occasional use of the word 'man' completes the old-style rocker picture.

Close As You Get is Gary's 25th solo album and he's a healthy 55, which makes his friend's brief existence all the more poignant.

"Phil read the Jimi Hendrix version of How To Be A Rock Star, and that wasn't a good thing for him in the end because he kind of bought into all that and he was a kind of live fast/die young guy.

"I was no angel, but I didn't get into what Phil got into - you know, the kind of harder drugs and everything. At that time it wasn't trendy to go into rehab. He'd have probably been alright now; he'd have been in the f***ing Priory trying to pull Kate Moss. He'd have loved it in there with all the models. He'd have got himself a habit just to get in there."

Gary is eternally grateful for the part Lynott played in helping him achieve success, particularly as a solo artist through the 1979 hit Parisienne Walkways. Long hailed as a guitar great, Gary has gone on to work with everyone from Bob Geldof to Bob Dylan. And he won't hear a word against Geldof. Or Bono, for that matter.

"There's a lot of cynicism about those guys, but not many people would do what they've done. When Bob Geldof did the original Live Aid in the 80s, he effectively killed his music career. The guy gave up more than he realised - he couldn't get arrested as a musician after that. But he did so much good at that time, but everyone thought, 'Well, we won't take him seriously as a singer anymore ? '

"That was it, he was Saint Bob and he was stuck with that whole thing. Still to this day that's what people associate him with more than anything he ever did with The Boomtown Rats or as a solo artist, which is a shame because Bob wrote some really great songs in his time and he was quite a good bona fide rock star - he had the moves, the look and everything - and The Boomtown Rats were a pretty good band.

"Bono is Bono. Bono always likes to do things on a big level, doesn't he? Even with the band, everything is big. They've always thought big, and Bono thinks big outside of the band as well. But the guy has put a helluva lot of time into helping other people, so I don't know why people get off on knocking him. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter why they do what they do. People say to Bono, 'What are you doing up there shaking hands with f***ing George Bush?' and he replies, 'Well, I'd shake hands with the devil if I could get the money for these people'. It's a practical thing at the end of the day - you either get the money or you don't."

Gary Moore rattles off rock star stories as if they were everyday occurrences for everyone.

Squidgy hands

"One night I went round to George Harrison's house and he introduced me to Bob Dylan. I remember he had soft squidgy little hands, and he had a nutritionist travelling with him, but he was really shy and hardly said two words. A few days later George said, 'I wouldn't do it, but Bob wants to know if you'll be in his band on his next tour ?' I was like 'Oh my God ?' because I'd heard all these stories about Bob not doing what they'd rehearsed and changing keys, like he did with Tom Petty. But it was nice to be asked anyway, as I'm a Dylan fan for sure."

"A few years ago, I supported Dylan on some Irish dates. That was just like playing any gigs really as I didn't have much to do with Dylan. At the Odyssey in Belfast, I tried to walk up the steps at the side of the stage to see who was in Dylan's band.

Bouncer

"The bouncer said, 'You're not allowed up there', and that was the end of that. The stage was quite high and I couldn't really see, so I spent the next 20 minutes jumping up and down to get glimpses of what was going on."

Gary is touring England from May 24 until June 9. He moved there in 1970 and, despite two spells in the States, has remained there. Five years ago he bought his present home (a 5-bedroom detached Edwardian house) in Brighton, Sussex. "I moved there because I'm gay," he jokes, because of Brighton's label as The Gay Capital Of Europe. His real reason was to be near his locally-based sons, Jack and Gus, from his marriage which lasted from 1985 to 1993. He currently lives with his partner of 10 years, an artist named Jo, and their eight-year old daughter Lily.

So is this prolific artist inspired by Sussex?

"Not particularly, no. I got a lot of inspiration when I was in Ireland actually. When I was just walking around in Belfast, a lot of little melodies came into my head. I found it very inspiring to be back there."

Gary Moore's new studio album Close As You Get is out now on Eagle Records