Though the history books will record that BLACK STAR RIDERS first came together in late 2012, the band’s spiritual roots stretch back four decades, to the moment, in the summer of 1974, when a 23 year old Scott Gorham walked into The Iroquo Restaurant in Tavistock Hill, North London, plugged a cheap Les Paul copy into a humming valve amplifier and first ran through 'The Rocker' with THIN LIZZY’s Phil Lynott and Brian Downey. Together with fiery Scotsman, and fellow guitar prodigy, Brian Robertson, Gorham re-energized the Irish rockers, helping to transform LIZZY into one of the most exciting, brilliant, and influential bands of their generation. The Californian guitarist was an integral part of the band through to their break-up in 1983 and is recognized as one of the architects of a tough but melodic twin guitar sound that changed the face of hard rock.
In 2012, recordings potentially earmarked for a first THIN LIZZY album since 1983’s »Thunder« and »Lightning«, were collated instead under the BLACK STAR RIDERS banner, and with the release of »All Hell Breaks Loose« in May 2013, the new-look band hit the road running.
Due to the strength of their respective CV - Warwick having previously fronted THE ALMIGHTY and Johnson known for his work with ALICE COOPER and BROTHER CANE - BLACK STAR RIDERS were initially billed as a “supergroup”, but eighteen months on the road supporting the album bore witness to the fact that this was a genuine band of brothers, not a vehicle for inflated rock star egos. The release of »The Killer Instinct«, the group’s second album for Nuclear Blast, in February 2015, was concrete proof of this, illustrating that BLACK STAR RIDERS were no longer content to merely stand on the shoulders of giants.
That notion is hammered home emphatically by »Heavy Fire«, the group’s third long-form collection. 10 songs with their feet in the gutter but their eyes firmly fixed on the stars. Like Phil Lynott, Northern Ireland-born Ricky Warwick is a gifted storyteller, and his sharp, allusive observations on the human condition coupled with an ingrained empathy for the disaffected, the marginalized, the troubled, and the voiceless, shines through on the tracks. The album touches on matters both personal and political.
