"He Had So Much Style"

“Over the years, many people have said Philip had to struggle because he was black. That was total shite! It was a complete and total advantage to be black,” Thin Lizzy’s first manager Terry O’Neill laughs.

The Ireland of 1970 was different to today and during Lizzy’s early days the 6’ 2” black man frequently received a hero’s welcome.
“We’d be walking down a street in Cork or somewhere and there would be people knocking on the bus windows and waving,” he exclaims. “This is before anyone knew who he was, just because he was black! There was no racism in Ireland then. People weren’t racist – there was nobody to be racist against.”
O’Neill first met Philo when he and Brian Downey were playing in The Black Eagles in the mid ‘60s.
“I was playing drums in a band which had Ronan Collins on vocals actually,” he remembers. “I was about 13 or 14. We were playing at a beat gig in The Star in Crumlin. We were first on and the second act was The Black Eagles. We met Philip and Brian in the dressing-room beforehand and they were so incredibly cool they were unreal. They were probably a couple of years older than us but they were ultra cool and the band were fantastic.”
A few years later Terry was roadying for Skid Row and working for the band’s manager Ollie Byrne. When Lizzy started out they approached Byrne to discuss management but due to his frequent absences they were in closer contact with O’Neill.
“One night I met them at a gig in the TV Club,” he recalls. “Afterwards we went around to Eric Wrixon’s flat on the South Circular Road. We were sitting there getting stoned and they said, ‘Why don’t you just manage the band?’ I was only 18.”
O’Neill took to the new task with relish.
“I immediately booked lots of shows,” he explains. “The first gig was in Swords and they were great from the word go. They even had some original songs then. The tracks that got a great response for them were their covers of Free’s ‘All Right Now’ and Hendrix’s ‘If Six Was Nine’.”
Philip always cut a striking figure during shows – but he was as image conscious off-stage as on.
“He had so much style. If we went into town in the afternoon for a band meeting, Philip would always look great. He would always have a bag with him. Then at 6 o’clock he’d change into his evening clothes. He was really stylish and sussed.”
O’Neill is keen to challenge the common misconception that showbands ruled the live circuit in Ireland at the time.
“In Dublin there were about 12 or 15 clubs like The 17 Club, The Scene and The Flamingo. There were loads of clubs that didn’t sell alcohol where bands played every night of the week. There was a great scene all around the country, there were rock bands playing all over Ireland every night. Showbands played to about 2,000 people a night and we were playing to about 300 or 500 but that doesn’t mean we didn’t exist.”
O’Neill booked Lizzy on bills with showbands too.
“I got them into ballrooms where they’d be the headline act. The showband would go on at 9 and then at 12 we’d go on for an hour and then the showband would finish the night,” he explains. “The showband would get about 40 quid and we’d get about 150 quid which was huge money at the time. It was when the showbands were really beginning to crumble.”
As the gig schedule got busier Lizzy were hiring vans and equipment on a regular basis. Despite the cash they were turning over, it was hard to make ends meet.
“I remember when I was trying to get people to come in with some money,” says O’Neill. “I went around to the showband managers and they all said, ‘they’ll go nowhere’. Then we had to let Eric Wrixon go as we weren’t making enough money. We were getting a good bit of money then as we had become quite successful but not enough. Eventually Brian Tuite and Peter Bardon said they would come on board if I left, but Philip was against this.”
Tuite and Bardon gave the band an ultimatum so eventually a settlement was reached where O’Neill received a cash payment.
“They agreed to give me 200 quid which was a lot of money then,” he says. “To put it in perspective carpenters probably got about 15 quid a week.”
Although Terry handed over the management reigns early in their career he continued to work with the band and with Philip as a solo artist in a publicity capacity over the years.
“He was very competitive. We’d chat about publicity campaigns and then we’d have a meeting a few days later. I’d say, ‘I got the cover of the Sunday World’ and he’d say, ‘Yeah, well I got The Late Late Show!’ You’d think, ‘well I have to get more now’. He was very competitive but very funny. He had a great Dublin sense of humour, a really dry wit.”
As well as being a charismatic frontman, O’Neill remembers Lynott being equally so in his personal life.
“Philip had such great communication skills. He was incredibly charming. He could mix with anyone. He got to know a set of people in Dublin that normally someone like Philip wouldn’t know.”
The working relationship continued until the last years of Philo’s life. In addition to the demise of his marriage and Thin Lizzy, Terry identifies other disappointments that affected his friend.
“I know a year or two before he died he was really upset because he didn’t get the part in a Jimi Hendrix biopic. The part had been dangled around for a long while. That affected him badly. Other people told me he was really dissappointed that Geldof hadn’t invited him to do Live Aid. That seemed a little odd to say the least.”
O’Neill is quick to rubbish the clichés which surrounded Philip’s death.
“I don’t think the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle killed Philip, I think drink and drugs did,” he says. “You can be a carpenter, an accountant or a bus driver, but if you do loads of drink and drugs you will die. If you think of all the people that work in the musc industry, it’s a very small percentage that die from drink and drugs. It might seem like a lot of people because you hear about them.”
Dark times aside, Terry has loasds of very fond memories of the Lizzy mainman.
“My favourite memory of Philip is when I first took LSD,” he laughs. “Phil and I were supposed to take it together. I went around to the flat in Clontarf, Clontarf Castle as we called it. He said he just had one tab but there were more on the way so he gave me the one he had. About 10 minutes later this guy came apologising that he couldn’t get any more. Phil said not to worry that he would guide me through it. It was just hilarious. He pointed out all the things I might see and hallucinate. ‘If you’re looking over there this might look like this’ and so on. It was fantastic, he guided me through and I never had a bad trip after that.
“He was incredibly funny in a subtle way. He would say something and his chuckle and wink would make it funny. I remember him being very happy and laughing a lot,” he concludes.