{"id":12802,"date":"2014-04-14T01:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T05:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12802"},"modified":"2014-04-14T08:02:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T12:02:39","slug":"blowin-wind-with-black-star-riders-damon-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12802","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind with Black Star Riders\u2019 Ricky Warwick: \u201cI could sing \u201cJailbreak\u201d 1,000 times a day and I wouldn\u2019t get sick of that song. It\u2019s just genius for me.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ricky_warwick_2012_04\"<\/a>Ricky Warwick is someone whose music has been part of my life since 1988.\u00a0 When I first heard The Almighty as a young fella I remember being blown away and thinking what an awesome band they were with their punk meets AC\/DC kind of sound.\u00a0 As the years would roll by I would follow Ricky all through the Almighty but it was his solo album, 2003\u2019s Tattoos and Alibis, where I truly felt a strong connection with Ricky and his songs.\u00a0 Fast forward to 2009 and Ricky seemed to do the impossible as he was picked to be lead singer\/guitarist for the reformed Thin Lizzy who is now known as the Black Star Riders?\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, read on and you\u2019ll find out!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had the pleasure of talking to Ricky Warwick for nearly an hour and he was such a great guy to talk to.\u00a0 Ricky really opened up and talked about the personal connection of his solo material, what it was like to front the legendary Thin Lizzy, his love of Stiff Little Fingers, and what his favorite thing to do on a Friday night is.\u00a0 This was a really fun interview and I think you\u2019ll all enjoy getting to know Ricky Warwick.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ricky Warwick, you\u2019ve made my day sir.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been looking forward to this interview for some time now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] That\u2019s good to know.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve done something right so thank you [laughs].<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

Ricky, you live in LA.\u00a0 Have you ever seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Well, I\u2019m from Belfast so I\u2019ve seen quite a bit of that myself.\u00a0 It\u2019s a different kind of scum and villainy and the kind that I\u2019m actually scared up.\u00a0 I\u2019m not so scared of the scum and villainy here in LA [laughs].\u00a0 They\u2019re not that scary here at all.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

How long have you been in LA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ten years this year believe it or not.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

So how does some punk kid from Belfast end up living in LA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Love, you know?\u00a0 I feel in love with my wife.\u00a0 She\u2019s a Texas girl but she lives in LA.\u00a0 She\u2019s based here and she had two young kids when I met her and I was living in Dublin.\u00a0 One of us had to move and I was the one that was going to do it.\u00a0 She has a great job and a good life already made here and I was spending a lot of time in America touring at that time anyways.\u00a0 As a kid I was always fascinated with the states and I figured what the hell?\u00a0 Let\u2019s give it a go and here I am ten years later.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

How do you like living in the states compared to where you were living before?\u00a0 Is it everything you thought and hoped it would be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s different [laughs].\u00a0 Living in California, the weather is stunning.\u00a0 I come here and the sun is shining and I feel that there\u2019s better opportunities for my wife and I since having another child and better opportunities for the kid as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a different way of life compared to the upbringing that I had.\u00a0 Ireland is a different country.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love it to death but the weather will drive you insane.\u00a0 It\u2019s just dull and cloudy and it rains way more than what is comfortable.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

Well it\u2019s been raining and cold here in Atlanta for days so this must be what living in Dublin is like.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Honestly, you can put up with that for a few weeks a year, no problem.\u00a0 When it starts to be a few months and half a year it\u2019s tough.\u00a0 It gets to people and people get down because of the weather.\u00a0 When the sun is shining in Ireland there\u2019s no country like it in the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best place to be but it just doesn\u2019t happen enough for me.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

Ricky, I\u2019ve been an Almighty fan since I was in high school but I felt like that when you started putting out your solo albums that this was where you truly began this whole other life as a songwriter.\u00a0 I felt like I got to know more about Ricky Warwick than I ever did through the Almighty.\u00a0 When you started putting out those solo albums I feel like we also got to hear a lot more of the music of your roots and your homeland.\u00a0 Was the beginning of your solo stuff a kind of coming of age thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow, thank you for saying that, Don.\u00a0 That\u2019s really sweet of you to have picked up on all of that.\u00a0 You nailed it.\u00a0 In a nutshell, I was in my 20\u2019s while in the Almighty and it was an amazing time but it was crazy.\u00a0 The band made some great music, we didn\u2019t get on, we raised hell, and we did everything we shouldn\u2019t have done [laughs].\u00a0 We did things our own way.\u00a0 We pissed people off, we made people happy and it\u2019s something I\u2019m really proud of.\u00a0 It was a real roller coaster and it was crazy.\u00a0 When I got to the point where I felt we had taken it as far as we could I walked away from it but I didn\u2019t think about what I really wanted to do with my life after that.\u00a0 I was staring 30 in the face, I had just gone through a terrible, messy divorce, I had just left the band I started with my buddies from school, and I was probably doing too much stuff that I shouldn\u2019t have been doing.\u00a0 It was a real turning point for me.\u00a0 I got to 30 and it was the first time in 10 years that I had no manager, no record deal, no publishing deal, no nothing.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even know if I wanted to make music anymore.\u00a0 I had just become disillusioned with everything.\u00a0 I retreated back to Dublin to just sort my head out and lick my wounds and I hadn\u2019t picked up a guitar for about 7 or 8 months.\u00a0 I knew Joe Elliot (Def Leppard vocalist) really well and he\u2019d always been a good friend of mine and still is to this day.\u00a0 He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I really didn\u2019t know and that I was lost.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou should be making music.\u00a0 That\u2019s what you do.\u201d\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t know if I could be in a band again and with all democracy, the egos, and everything else that comes with it.\u00a0 He told me to just write songs and try playing solo.\u00a0 He gave me some studio time and we did some demos and he really turned it all around for me.\u00a0 I can\u2019t give that guy enough credit.\u00a0 He really believed in me and as soon as picked up a guitar good things started happening again.\u00a0 That first album Tattoos and Alibis, I really poured my whole soul into that album.\u00a0 It was a definite pivotal moment and it turned my whole life around completely.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

Your 2009 solo album Belfast Confetti<\/i> is such a great album and I remember hearing this back in the day and thinking, \u201cThis has a lot of Thin Lizzy influence to it.\u201d\u00a0 Was this album a bit of foreshadowing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great story.\u00a0 I like to live and I need to get out before I make a record.\u00a0 I can\u2019t just go in and say, \u201cHere\u2019s another record with 10 songs about blah, blah, blah.\u201d\u00a0 I need to get to a place where I can write a body of songs that mean something to me.\u00a0 I had written about 8 or 9 songs for what was going to be the 3rd<\/sup> album but I wasn\u2019t happy with them.\u00a0 I just felt that the songs weren\u2019t good enough.\u00a0 A good friend of mine, Tom Vitorino who actually manages The Cult, said, \u201cYou\u2019ve never really written about your days in Belfast.\u201d\u00a0 I just said, \u201cI don\u2019t know that anyone wants to hear about me being from Belfast.\u201d [laughs]\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou\u2019ve told me stories and they\u2019re great stories.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t you write about that? These stories are great.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s how Belfast Confetti was born.\u00a0 I just started writing about stuff that had happened to me while growing up in Belfast and the influence that being from Northern Ireland had on me, my friends, and my family.\u00a0 How I felt about conflicts over there and what I\u2019d seen it do to people and do to the country.\u00a0 That was really the whole subject matter for that album.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big fan of traditional folk music and storytelling and Belfast Confetti really reminded me of that.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of record you can hope that 30 years from now someone will stumble upon it and see it as almost time capsule of sorts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you, man.\u00a0 At the time I was also listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy at the time.\u00a0 Tracks like “Wild One”, “Philomenia”, and “Borderline” and some of the real mellow stuff that they did.\u00a0 I just love Phil\u2019s voice on that stuff.\u00a0 I was also listening to a lot of Van Morrison which was really inspiring me when I was making this album.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

In 2009 when you were contacted about joining Thin Lizzy, did you have some mixed emotions about the band being called Thin Lizzy and if so how did you get past that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a great question.\u00a0 I\u2019d know Scott (Gorham; Thin Lizzy guitarist) for a while and he played on Tattoos and Alibis<\/em>.\u00a0 Scott knew me as a person, a singer, and a writer so he knew I what I could do.\u00a0 I was very honored that he picked me for the job.\u00a0 I was blown away.\u00a0 When I got that phone call the phone literally dropped out of my hand [laughs].\u00a0 I said \u201cyes\u201d right away and then once I hung up the phone I said, \u201cShit.\u00a0 What have I done?\u201d\u00a0 Phil was my hero and I just didn\u2019t know if this was the right thing to do.\u00a0 I called up my wife and we talked and I said if there is ever one second that this doesn\u2019t feel right, I\u2019m not going to do it no matter how long into it we go.\u00a0 I love Thin Lizzy too much as a fan and she agreed.\u00a0 I called another buddy of mine who\u2019s a Thin Lizzy fanatic and I knew he would tell me the truth and he said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do this. You\u2019ve got to go for it.\u201d\u00a0 I just said that if I was going to do this I was going to it with as much grace and respect and love that I possibly can.\u00a0 That means singing those songs the way we all know and love them and as close to Phil\u2019s renditions of them as we possibly can without standing in that great man\u2019s shoes.\u00a0 I would never try and stand in Phil\u2019s shoes.\u00a0 All I ever want to do is stand beside them and if I can do that, that\u2019s good enough for me.\u00a0 There\u2019s days when I wake up and I\u2019d say, \u201cThis is great.\u00a0 I\u2019m the singer for Thin Lizzy and it\u2019s going to be a great show\u201d and the next day you wake up and say, \u201cOh God.\u00a0 What am I doing?\u00a0 I shouldn\u2019t be doing this.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s always days like that no matter what you do in life.\u00a0 I\u2019d be lying if I said that the pros and the belief and the feelings that I felt that I was doing the right thing.\u00a0 Meeting Phillip\u2019s mother had a big impact on me as well.\u00a0 The minute I met her and the minute she hugged me and gave me a kiss and told me that Phillip would be proud, it didn\u2019t matter what anyone else thought ever again and never will.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

This kind of thing has been done with great success and with class.\u00a0 Alice in Chains did it.\u00a0 Blind Melon did it really well.\u00a0 So why not Thin Lizzy?\u00a0 In the end of it all, it\u2019s all about the spirit of the music and being true to the original music.\u00a0 I saw you guys on the Download Festival on TV and I remember just loving it.\u00a0 It was so intense and it really hit a chord with me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aw, thank you, Don.\u00a0 The music is timeless.\u00a0 People will die but the music lives on and the legacy lives on.\u00a0 The thing for me that I\u2019ll take from this is looking out into the crowd and seeing kids out there with their mom and dad and their grandparents and they love Lizzy and they love Phil and they\u2019re here to hear those timeless songs.\u00a0 To see the smiles on their faces is such a great thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s just such a great thing to be able to do for somebody and that\u2019s what I love about it.<\/p>\n

============================================<\/p>\n

At any point has singing songs like \u201cJailbreak\u201d, \u201cWaiting for an Alibi\u201d or even \u201cCowboy Song\u201d lost the novelty of being classic Thin Lizzy songs or do you feel something special every time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh it\u2019s always special.\u00a0 Every time, without a doubt, hand on my heart, I\u2019ll look down at the setlist and go, \u201cWow.\u00a0 Emerald\u2019s next.\u00a0 Oh brilliant.\u00a0 \u201cMassacre\u201d is next?\u00a0 OH man, what a song!\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ll be honest, I\u2019ve been in bands when I look at the setlist I\u2019ll say, \u201cOk, that one\u2019s next.\u00a0 Ok.\u201d\u00a0 With these songs, man, I could sing \u201cJailbreak\u201d 1,000 times a day and I wouldn\u2019t get sick of that song.\u00a0 It\u2019s just genius for me.<\/p>\n