After decades of secrecy, Scott Gorham reveals he’s handy with a paintbrush and a pencil.
Scott Gorham launches his first ever art exhibition, in London on April 22. You were probably unaware that the Thin Lizzy and Black Star Riders guitarist likes to wield paintbrushes and pens as well as a Gibson Les Paul, probably because Gorham hid this ‘other’ talent under a bushel for decades, drawing in the secrecy of hotel rooms around the world, and without informing bandmates or even his wife of several decades, Christine. Indeed, Gorham insists that he would never have disclosed this artistic side but for the stubborn insistence of Mrs Gorham, who stumbled on a folder of his drawings at their home.
While discussing his art with Classic Rock, Gorham appears almost apologetic, at times close to embarrassment. “With a guitar around my neck you can throw me out on stage in front of a crowd of a hundred thousand, no problem,” he says solemnly. “But put me in a room with ten people looking at the art that I hid for forty years, I will turn into jelly.”
Gorham’s artworks were inspired variously by life on the road, getting sober, the state of the planet, and even the time that Phil Lynott took him to his first football match, a game between Lynott’s beloved Manchester United away to Newcastle United.
“The experience left an indelible stamp on me,” Gorham recalls of going to that game. “A few months later we were on tour in Germany, and I went out and bought an art pad and some pens and drew this figure I called The Fanatic (see opposite page).
Back in his native California, just before flying to England in 1974 in the hope of joining Supertramp, 14-year-old Gorham took an art course. Apart from that he is entirely self-taught.
“The only reason I took that lesson was because the alternative was another semester of typing,” he says, laughing. “I knew I’d never want to work in an office, so I figured I’d try art.” So how would Gorham describe his style? [Long pause] “You know, I really haven’t even thought about styles,” he replies, before a smirk appears on his face. “All I can say is the way that I draw is complicated, so how about that?”
Having stepped away from Black Star Riders in 2021, Gorham continued to draw in an unused but suitably sunny and solitary room at home, concealing the designs under the bed. “And then one day Christine was cleaning and found my folder. When she asked who had drawn them, I was hesitant to admit it was me. There was nobody else around to blame, my big secret was out.
“This was four years ago,” he continues. “Since then Christine chipped away, persuading me into letting it go [to the outside world]. Whenever she brought up the subject I would leave the room, I just didn’t want to know. But she finally talked me round.”
Three years ago, Gorh
