Signed, Sealed, Delivered

“I wasn’t even working in A&R when I signed Lizzy,” laughs Nigel Grainge. The affable Englishman was working as a clerk in the accounts department when he brought the classic Lynott/Downey/Gorham/Robertson line-up into the Phonogram stable.

“I used to buy records on Saturdays in a market on the Portobello Road that was owned by Ted Carroll. We were chatting one week and he told me about a band that he was managing. When he told me who they were I was gobsmacked. I said, ‘I love Thin Lizzy! Decca’s the worst company in town. Why don’t you come with us?’ So he said, ‘Make me an offer!’” recalls Grainge, relaxing in his LA home, where he now runs a successful music consultancy.
“I remember going into the office on Monday morning and saying, ‘I think I can get us Thin Lizzy’. My boss, who was reasonably new, said, ‘If you want them, go get them!’”
The day-to-day management of the band was handled by Chris Morrison and Chris O’Donnell, who brought Nigel the demo of ‘Still In Love With You’.
“I heard the track and freaked out,” he says. “It was amazing, the guitar solo was incredible. I was raving over the solo and the two Chrises were kicking each other under the table as Gary Moore plays that and he wasn’t in the band anymore! They kept quiet though.”
Then came the difficult business of drawing up a contract.
“Negotiating the deal was very much a case of the blind leading the blind. I didn’t know what a record deal was and the Chrises weren’t much better. The final agreement was actually quite low but we didn’t realise that.”
As Nigel had no experience in A&R he left the band to their own devices on their first Phonogram album Nightlife.
“The first album fell together,” he notes. “They really did their own thing. I went into the studio once and had no A&R chops at all. It was an okay record, not particularly great and it didn’t have a single at all.”
Grainge realised he had to change his approach to the next record.
“When they brought me the second album and played it, I turned around and said, ‘Lads, I’m disappointed. There’s no single and it’s nowhere near as dynamic as you are live. It’s got to be way better than the first album,” he says. “They went away and came back with ‘King’s Vengeance’ and three other songs, although they weren’t hits they were much stronger tracks.”
The album was not a big success but marked a huge step forward for the band.
“We were knocked out with the final record,” he reflects. “At the time record companies didn’t have the pressure that they have now, that they had to deliver with the first album. There was a thing called artist development. If the act was seen to be moving forward and growing we were allowed to get away with it. We weren’t spending a lot of money.”
Grainge attributes poor sales of Fighting to another factor.
“The cover was shit!” he laughs. “Phonogram was like the civil service at the time, it had a lot of departments with old people who had no degree of cool at all! I thought the title was naff too!”
But the impact of the album saw Lizzy move up bills and do more headline shows. The Lizzy live performances were the stuff of legend even then.
“I had worked with Bachman Turner Overdrive doing the marketing for ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’,” he remembers. “Lizzy landed the support slot. The band were absolutely fantastic. Most of the crowd had come to see BTO but they were loving Lizzy. That was the band at their pre-stardom peak, they were killing it live.”
What does he remember from his time on the road with the band?
“Lots of drink! There was a lot of mayhem on the road. And Phil and women was legendary. It was literally turnstiles at the hotel room door!”
As fellow record nerds, the two bonded over their shared love of vinyl.
“We were quite close for a time,” he reflects. “He loved old records and he loved R&B. He’d come in and we’d play 45s and albums for hours.”
The big time was about to come knockin. Grainge remembers clearly the first time he heard the album that broke them.
“The first time I heard Jailbreak I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s mindblowing!’”
Things were changing for Nigel too. He was about to leave Phonogram to form his own Ensign Records label whose roster included The Boomtown Rats, The Waterboys and Sinéad O’Connor.
“I stayed in touch over the years and went to the odd gig,” he comments. “I remember going to a party at his flat in Hampstead towards the end. There were people off their face and Phil was pretty morose. He had lost control. There were all sorts of people hanging around. It was rock ‘n’ roll mayhem. It was taking him over. That was really upsetting. The tragedy is that if he hadn’t have gone into that downward spiral, he could have made great records if he had come through it.”