By STEVE MASCORD
AFTER 40 years, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell has corroborated band-mate Joe Elliott’s story about Phil Lynott dissolving Thin Lizzy because he could not compete with Pyromania.
It’s a yarn written into rock history that the late Lynott told Elliott in a rock club bathroom he had become so despondent at how good the album – which went on to sell 10 million copies in the US alone – was, that he saw no point in Thin Lizzy continuing.
But it has often been posited that Lynott may have been joking or that it was a throwaway line to compliment Elliott on his new album.
Leppard drummer Rick Allen said in February during a radio interview “I don’t know how serious Phil Lynott was .. I hope he was joking.”
But Irishman Campbell, who was in Dio at the time, has now revealed he met his late compatriot – possibly on the same night – and was told the same story.
And Elliott himself says he was unaware of the conversation until now.
“I remember, actually, Phil Lynott, in a club in London that was called Frank’s Funny Farm,” Campbell told a Def Leppard book launch in the UK capital.
“It was in Camden. It was the only time I was ever in there. I was with Jimmy Bain, I was playing with Ronnie Dio at the time.
“Phil Lynott was there and I’d know Phil through Sweet Savage. We opened for Thin Lizzy a bunch of times.
“And Phil was very despondent that night. I said ‘what’s up, mate?’
“He says ‘have you heard this Pyromania, this Def Leppard?’ I said ‘yeah, it’s great’.
“He said ‘I just don’t feel like Thin Lizzy is relevant anymore. I feel like we’ve got to move over’.
“He says ‘I’m thinking of splitting up the band’ and I was ‘Nooooo!'”
Elliott, who was also on stage at the launch, then chimed in: “You know, it’s really funny you should say that because I was in Frank’s Funny Farm…
“I can’t believe, it might have been the same night. It doesn’t make any sense.
“But I went upstairs and Phil Lynott and Midge Ure were having a chat in the toilets.”
Campbell then interjected: “I think they were having more than a chat!” (in reference to drug use).
The crowd laughed and Campbell said: “Yeah! It was that time!”
Elliott continues: “And I walked in and I’m like … we had sold a few records. I think Pyromania had just come out and Phil Lynott had heard the album.
“As a fellow label(mate), he’d heard and advance copy of it. I think it was winter of ’82, early ’83.
“And I was, like, ‘Jesus!’. I’d only just seen them at City Hall in Sheffield. I walked past and he was talking to Midge Ure so I didn’t want to interrupt him.
“I went to the toilet, had a pee and I came back and as I came back I stuck my hand out and I said ‘Phil, I just gotta say: I’m Joe from a band called Def Leppard and I just want to say…’ and he said ‘stop! I heard your album and it’s the reason I’m going to split the band’.”
Campbell then said: “Thanks Joe! I really liked Thin Lizzy.”
Elliott concluded: “I’ve said many times when this has come up: I wish I was as ballsy then as I would be now and just slam him against the wall and go ‘make a fucking better record’.
“‘Do something!’
“It’s the worst, horrible-ist, left-handed compliment you can ever receive in your life that you hear one of your heroes say ‘I split the band because of you’.
“It’s like, fuck, really?
“I was 22 years old. I didn’t know what to say to him. It was awful because I’m such a fucking fan.
“Which is why, many, many years later, 2011 … Scott (Gorham, Thin Lizzy guitarist) said ‘we’re going out, we need a guitarist’.
“I said ‘we’re going to take a year off. How about you get Viv in the band?”
