Why Ricky Warwick lived and breathed Thin Lizzy every day

Singer Ricky Warwick will return to Wolverhampton for a rare solo performance at the city's Slade Rooms tonight (July 26).

Warwick is best known as the frontman for the Scottish band The Almighty and the reconstituted Thin Lizzy, celebrating the life and music of the band's late leader, Phil Lynott. He also fronts the new Thin Lizzy offshoot Black Star Riders.

Warwick spent his formative years in Northern Ireland but moved to Strathaven in Scotland as a youth with his family.

Touring with Thin Lizzy helped him to stand in his boyhood hero's shoes and be onstage alongside surviving Thin Lizzy members – guitarist Scott Gorham, drummer Brian Downey and keyboardist Darren Wharton.

Lynott's spirit is also present throughout his Black Star Riders' debut.

Warwick's experience of growing up in Northern Ireland had a profound influence on his life. He said: "At the time, a lot of bands refused to play in Ireland because of the violence. I lived on the outskirts of Belfast and the city wasn't a place you were allowed to go into at night. The bands that did tend to perform there were our own, like Rory Gallagher, Stiff Little Fingers and Undertones.

"When I was about 14 and really getting into music, Stiff Little Fingers were playing at Ulster Hall.

"It was the night I said, 'I'm going to sneak in and go to this gig. I have to see this band.' I went into the city and saw the band. "It was the night that changed my life forever."

He ended up playing with Stiff Little Fingers. "I did. Ironically, I ended up being great friends with their singer Jake Burns, who was my ultimate hero when I was a kid, besides Phil Lynott. I've been blessed. Today, Jake is one of my best, dearest friends and we share the same management

"I've been lucky that I have had the chance to meet most of my heroes that inspired me. People need to realize that when I got the Lizzy gig, I knew the songs. But Phil became like a brother to me. I have never learned so much from a dead man before and probably never will again.

"I lived and breathed him every day at an insane level. For five or six hours each day, I would listen to Phil's lyrical phrasing. I had to in order to do the music any kind of justice.

"In order to pull of the Thin Lizzy gig, I had to be that well informed. I had to absorb everything Phil Lynott put into those Lizzy records.

"For three years, that's what I did. I still do it now, though not to the same extent. Those three years of playing Thin Lizzy music, I really feel like I got to know Phil. I got to know what he was writing about and what he was trying to do. Phil was always there."

By Andy Richardson