As the former musical backbone of Whitesnake and current frontman for hard rock's mammoth concoction, Blue Murder, guitarist John Sykes has made his mark on metal. As 'Jelly Roll," the current single off Blue Murder's self-titled debut LP, shreds up the charts, we sat down with the British-born, blond axeslinger for his musings on-what else- his precious six-string sound machine.

My first guitar was one that my stepfather won in a store lottery (we call it a Tom Bollar [think they mean tombola - S]) when I was 14. He knew that I really wanted one, so he entered this lottery and won. It was a real piece of shit guitar, but it was great to me. It wasn't more than a nylon-stringed plank of wood, but it was something I could scratch out a tune with. I came by my second one when I was 16. My family had moved to Spain, and there was a guy who knew how much I was into playing. He was rather well off, so he gave me this electric framer. It was like a Gibson to me at the time. It was a really nice semi-acoustic. When I moved back to London, I went into a pawnshop and swapped it for a Columbus Les Paul copy. It looked like a black Les Paul, a Black Beauty, but it had a bolt-on neck. It cost me the trade-in and about 40 dollars. I thought I was really living then. I would sit around and listen to old Queen, trying to pick up Brian May's riffs at 16. I liked old blues, early Zeppelin, but I'd always jam to Queen, the Sheer Heart Attack album.

My main incentive in playing wasn't the girls. I never cared that much, and besides I never really had too many problems with them in the first place. I just enjoyed playing. People would ask me to come down to a club and jam, but I never did. I was shy, a real introvert, and liked playing on my own. I was on my third guitar when I ended up going out with this chick fairly seriously. I picked up a few acoustics in the meantime, but ended up selling them all. I was doing a nine-to-five construction job, and she really didn't want me to play anymore. I almost got completely tangled into that way of thinking permanently, until I saw a concert special on TV that starred Gary Moore and Coloseum II. I wanted to play again immediately, but I had sold all of my guitars and hadn't played in a year in a half. The next morning I went out and borrowed this horrible old Kramer with a steel neck from a friend of mine. He lent me a Hoffner as well. I got back into playing a bit, then bought an SG I had been eyeing for awhile and made payments on it until it was completely mine five months later. As the guitar came in, the girl got pushed out. The more she nagged, the more I practiced.

I saw an ad in Melody Maker for a guitar player and headed off to the auditions in London. It turned out to be for the Tygers of Pan Tang, and they wanted me to start straight away. I went back up to my house, grabbed my gear and told the old lady that it was over, and that was that. I tell you one thing, there isn't a girl in this entire world that could get me to put down a guitar again. . .well, for no more than a couple of hours, that is. Shortly after joining the Tygers, I got my favorite, the Gibson Les Paul Custom. The funny thing was that it once belonged to another guitar player who I had been in one of my first bands with. I recognized it when I found it in this pawnshop. I don't know what happened to him, but his Gibson is sure in good shape.

When I was younger and learning, Gary Moore was my guitar god. I had never seen anyone play as he does. That was actually another reason why I quit playing that time. The music scene was getting very boring. Other kinds of music were more popular on the scene. It seemed like rock and roll was out of the picture for the time being. When I saw Gary that day, it was really inspiring. It gave me a reason to pick up the guitar again. As far as having a guitar god these days, I don't really know about that. There are so many good players around these days, it's just a case of what you're liking at the time. It's hard to say. I don't look at people as guitar gods, because I've put too many years into it myself. I'm still a fan of the old classics: Pagey, Ritchie Blackmore during his Made in Japan times. These days you're lucky if you can get a distinguishable sound or a unique feel due to the fact that there are so many players. Eddie Van Halen and Gary Moore are my very favorites, but I like Michael Schenker and Ulrich Roth. Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe is a favorite too. I took a lot of shit off of him when I was growing up. He was one of those players that never got the acclaim he deserved. You listen to an album like Sun Burst Finish, and it blows your mind.

I don't take too many guitars out on the road-usually only as many as I'll need, and hopefully I'll only need the one. But I bring out two spare Les Pauls in case something happens to the first. The pickups on the rhythm one are the same ones that came on the guitar when I bought it. The other one has Dirty Fingers pickups on it. Mainly I use the black Les Paul for everything. Sometimes I'll use a Strat in the studio, or whatever I feel suits the song for certain tones and sounds. For clean sounds you can't really beat a Strat. Sometimes I'll use a Charvel for certain harmonies, like on "Is This Love" for sweetness. But for the most part I use the black Les Paul.

Naming a favorite solo is difficult, because there are so many bits and pieces of them. I don't know. I like, not for playing, but "Is This Love" because it's different. I like "Jelly Roll" and "Still of the Night" because they're not your standard arrangements. None of them are any more difficult to play than the next. If you come up with them, you usually know what you're doing. I'm not into rivalry. I think that anybody who can turn people on is worth something. There's enough room at the top for everybody. I'm not one of those blokes that gets all bitchy and starts slagging everyone off. I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you're confident in your playing and with the instrument you're playing, and you and the people you're playing to enjoy it, what more could you ask for?

I was pleased to find out people accepted my voice. I was the one that didn't want to sing. Carmine and Tony were pushing me to do it. We ended up having this debate for about a year while we were looking for someone to sing. It just goes to show you that you never know until you try. I would have never ended up singing if this situation wouldn't have come up. These shows with Bon Jovi were my first at singing, and it felt pretty funny because you've really got to be on top of it. I can't be as wild as I used to be, but then again I'm getting too old for that anyway.

I know this sounds kind of strange, but my guitar means everything to me. It's like a child to me. If anything were to happen to my Les Paul, I'd be as sad as if something happened to my kids. Sometimes I try and think what I would be like if anything happened to it. I don't let anybody touch it. I take it with me everywhere. My fingers and that black Les Paul are one and the same. If I lost it, I would be devastated for a long long time. It's got so much of my history, my past bands, Lizzy, Whitesnake and all this. That guitar has got so much emotion put into it, I just couldn't imagine being without it. I've got about 25 to 30 guitars, and none of them mean that much to me. It's a waste having all of them really. I have this thing of not letting anybody clean the old Les Paul, either. I feel that it takes the character out of it. I string it up every night myself and stretch it in. I don't let the roadies do that, because I'm the only one who knows exactly how I want it to be. I'm religious about it.

John Sykes doesn't make plans. For Blue Murder's impetuous chief assassin, things just happen. Like getting married, for instance. "I didn't really know I was going to get married until I decided," Sykes explained, fresh from a quick honeymoon. "It was a very spontaneous little thing. I ended up getting the old vicar to come out and we got married in the back garden." Another spontaneous little thing was his decision to sing lead for Blue Murder; Sykes never planned on it. "It's really restraining as far as tearing about the stage and stuff-I really like doing that," the former Whitesnake guitarist explained. "The other thing was, I wasn't really sure whether I'd be able to get the coordination down." So Sykes, former Firm bassist Tony Franklin and original drummer Cozy Powell (now in Black Sabbath) set out to lasso a singer. They saw the cream of L.A.'s crop, including Ray Gillen, formerly of Sabbath and now with Badlands. "Ray could sing like two or three songs really well and he could jam on old Zeppelin songs," Sykes candidly recalled. "But a lot of the other songs he didn't really do that well. " Nine months of stagnation proved too taxing a wait for Powell, who was superseded by veteran drummer Carmine Appice, and the search continued. "We ended up auditioning so many singers and taking time off from the album," Sykes recalled. "Finally, Carmine and Tony said, 'Look, John, we really like your singing and we'd like you to do it!'"

Impulsive decision making hasn't always been a positive force in Sykes' career, however. The burly blond Englishman, who once played in Thin Lizzy, was fired from Whitesnake on a whim of David Coverdale's in 1986, before really tasting that band's success. "He wanted me and everybody else to go so he could keep control of the money situation," beefed Sykes, who co-wrote and played virtually every guitar lick on the multi-platinum Whitesnake album. "That's the only reason I can really put it down to. " But John Sykes harbors no grudges. "I got some really big [royalty] checks off it," he joked, before reverting back to what he really wanted to discuss - Blue Murder. Sykes enthused, 'Tony and Carmine are probably the best rhythm section I ever played with. If I could have found a band with 17-year-old players that played like Tony and Carmine, I probably would have been with them-but you just don't find players like that. And everybody gets along really well, [that] makes life so much easier." At press time, Blue Murder's self-titled debut album just cracked Billboard's, Top 75 albums and their Egyptian-tinged "Valley of the Kings" was an MTV Hip Clip of the Week. Haste makes waste? Not always.

John Sykes sat in Los Angeles' Pasha studios, his guitar resting across his knees. Surrounded by tapes, countless instruments and an impressive array of recording machines, the tall, blond Sykes seemed at home in the cramped confines - so why did he look perturbed? Why should a guy who many feel will be the next superstar of the metal realm look concerned? Why would this handsome, blond Englishman - who has already banked a reported $500,000 signing bonus for the first album by his new band Blue Murder - have a care in the world? Evidently, that intensity is part of what makes Sykes tick. "I'm just trying to get this project together," Sykes said, casually strumming on his guitar. "I get very intense when I'm working. That's the only way I can get things done. If some people have trouble with me because of that, I'm sorry, but I don't really want to change. The results will speak for themselves."

Whether Blue Murder's debut LP will justify Sykes' agitation remains to be seen, but the turmoil he has caused for other rock musicians is legendary. During the late '70s, Sykes was part of the Tygers Of Pan Tang, a British band that came along at the tail-end of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal started by the likes of Def Leppard and Iron Maiden. Then known as John James Sykes, the guitarist appeared on the Tygers Of Pan Tang's 1981 release, Spellbound, before the traditional "artistic differences" forced him to leave the group late that same year. Less than 12 months later, Sykes emerged as part of the legendary Thin Lizzy. Teaming with co-guitarist Scott Gorham and Lizzy's leader, the late Phil Lynott, Sykes added his stellar licks to Thunder And Lightning as well as to the band's farewell live set. But Lynott, who was already suffering from several maladies brought on by an excessive interest in controlled substances, soon died, leaving Sykes out in the cold once again.

Then John encountered another good-looking Englishman named David Coverdale. Coverdale had just lost his two guitarists in Whitesnake, Mickey Moody and Bernie Marsden, and inquired whether Sykes was interested in joining his band. Sykes agreed to test the Snake's musical waters and immediately went into the studio with Coverdale to add some last-minute overdubs to the group's LP Slide It In. "Originally, Coverdale wanted two guitarists in the band again," Sykes recalled. "He was used to that and felt comfortable with it. I was coming out of Thin Lizzy, the ultimate two-guitar band, so I knew the strengths and weaknesses of that lineup too. I was anxious to try my hand at playing the guitar parts alone - especially onstage."

The one-guitar Whitesnake attack worked like a charm for a while. The band toured America after the LP's commercial breakthrough and received an incredible response, despite their opening act status. Problems began, however, when Coverdale became aware of Sykes' tendency for spotlight- stealing theatrics. These difficulties were then compounded by the lengthy delay between the end of the Slide It In tour and the recording of the Whitesnake album, due mostly to Coverdale's throat problems. Though that album went on to sell over six million copies - thanks to songs like Still Of The Night and Here I Go Again - by the time it hit the streets, Sykes was already long gone from the Snake fold, a victim of a personality clash with Coverdale. "John is a wonderful guitarist," Coverdale said at the time, "but he's also the kind of person who wants a spotlight on himself in his own living room. After working as hard as I have in Whitesnake during the last decade, I'm not about to let someone's runaway ego get in the way of this band's success."

The Whitesnake debacle was unquestionably a blow to Sykes, but with the royalty checks coming in regularly, he was in a position to wait for the right opportunity to come along. He was tired of being a "sideman"; he wanted a band of his own. So when Geffen Records knocked on his door, checkbook in hand, John knew that what he wanted even more than a lucrative deal was to be given total control over his new project.

Once his autonomy had been assured, Sykes put together the initial incarnation of Blue Murder. The first person he asked to join the band was noted drummer Cozy Powell; then singer Ray Gillen, who was fresh from his short-lived stint with Black Sabbath. Immediately, personalities began to clash, as Sykes belabored the fact that this was his group. Within two months, both Powell and Gillen had split from Blue Murder - Powell headed home to England, while Gillen began a partnership with former Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee in Badlands. "Everything was great in the beginning," Gillen said. "John's an amazing talent. But then a story appeared in the press, quoting me and making it sound like he and I were equal members of the band. His people really flipped over that. In a way, I was lucky that it happened before we got too deeply into the project because that would have happened sooner or later."

With Powell and Gillen gone, Sykes had to start from scratch with Blue Murder. The label was still insisting that he use a proven vocalist on the album, while Sykes wanted to try his hand at singing lead, as well as playing guitar. Slowly but surely the band came together, with the addition of legendary drummer Carmine Apice and bassist Tony Franklin, and the group's debut LP was recorded. With luck, things will now go more smoothly for Sykes. He's unquestionably had a bumpy journey climbing the rock mountain, but with his looks and talent, he should have a long and successful career ahead of him - if he can curb his temper. "I think John's gotten a bum rap," Appice said. "People hear one side of the story and assume John is always the one to blame. It's just that he's one guy who would rather let his music talk for him - and when it does, it says a lotl He's a great guy and a great musician. I think once the fans get to know him better they'll see what kind of person he really is."

Syked Up! Blue Murder's back and guitarist/vocalist/mainman John Sykes is ready to rock! - By Mike Smith, Livewire Magazine, 1993

A normal residential neighborhood in California's San Fernando Valley isn't the type of place you usually expect to find a famous rock star kinda guy living. But Blue Murder's John Sykes seems right at home in his upper-middle class surroundings. As Livewire arrives at his home on a quiet little street, John is busy taping with HBO, and his lovely wife shows us into the living room. The housekeeper is straightening up, the kids are off at school, and the dogs are playing by the pool. Then John walks in the room, looking like he's ready to walk onstage in front of thousands of rock fans. Just an average day in the Sykes household...

After he's done with the filming, John and I get comfortable in his elaborate home studio to talk about his new Geffen release, Nothing But Trouble. As I get the honor of strumming a few chords on his trademark black Les Paul, Sykes tells me how having his own recording facilities was a big advantage working on the new disc. It ended up taking 18 months to build it from scratch," He explains. "But you always end up in a situation when you're making an album, 9 times out of 10, where you haven't finished it in the time you're supposed to finish it. I just thought it'd be just so more beneficial when you can go in any time you like. I mean, I'm a real night person, I stay up all fucking night playing, because it's peaceful. I think most musicians do that. The thing of having the place there, you can always go in there. I can always crank up the Marshalls or whatever, any time of the day. Once you paid the initial expense, you have no more expenses other than the electricity."

Other than building his own studio, it turns out there were more personal reasons for the two year delay between this new album and the first Blue Murder effort. "When I got off the road after the first album, I just threw the fucking Les Paul in it's case, and said, "F*ck it," Sykes says. '"I'm just going to have a little vacation from you.' So six months went by and I thought, 'Well, maybe I should get the Les Paul out.' And another few months went by where I managed to avoid it, and then it started talking to me. 'Come and pick me up motherfucker.' You know you're not going to be any good now, because you've had too much time off. Come and play me, and see what you've got.' So I thought, 'I'll just side-step that today, and I'll play it next week.' And I ended up leaving it, because I had all this sh*t going on with the studio, I just got the place. I just wanted a break from it. It took me about two years, until the studio was finished. After a couple years, I broke down, and picked the thing up and started playing it, and carried on our loving relationship together."

The two-year break also lead to the original Blue Murder line-up parting ways. "It's kind of difficult to take people like Carmine Appice, and Tony Franklin, and put them in a club situation, and try and get them to start from scratch, you know what I mean." John explains in his English accent. "So we knew it was coming. If the album had took off it would have been great, but it didn't. To keep a band of that calibre of musicianship of those two, it's kind of difficult to say, 'Hey look guys, wait around for four years.' I couldn't expect them to do that. We're still buddies and stuff, but things change." The good news was that all this upheaval resulted in Sykes finding his new, more ideal line-up. 'The drummer I ended up finding, Tommy O'Steen, through my old guitar tech. He used to work for his band," He says. Tommy used to play in a band called Mannequin. He's a great player. With Marco Mendoza, I was auditioning a bass player in the studio, and he wasn't really what I was looking for. And I said to him, 'If you know anybody that plays fretless let me know.' And he said, 'I know this guy, who's amazing who's playing down in the valley in Ventura. Tommy went to see him first, and said, This guy is just fucking phenomenal. You've gotta get down to see him. He's unbelievable.' So I go down, and he's playing a six string fretless Pedula bass. I was fucking amazed. I like to play with good players because it always gives you that extra kick in the ass. And he came over and we jammed. And that's how we got Marco. I also used a guy named Kelly Keeling. We were originally going to use him as a singer for the album, 'cause I had all these different opinions from people. I still enjoy just playing the guitar. So we ended up working together for a while with Kelly. And due to a few different reasons, personal things, I ended up playing the tape for Geffen's John Kalodner. John just said to me, 'You should just do it.' So I ended up singing."

The next step was figuring out what songs the prolific Sykes wanted to record. "I just narrowed it down by picking the songs that I liked," He states simply. "They're all really totally different. "She Knows" is more like a Beatles lullabye, and then you've got "We All Fall Down" which is an upbeat, almost Lizzy-type tune which is a good rocker. Then you've got "I'm On Fire", which reminds me of early Deep Purple stuff, back to the Made In Japan vibe, you know. Cause I always did those upbeat songs and I really liked "Highway Star," and "Speed King." And then you've got "Runaway," which to me is more of almost a Bruce Springsteen type of track. There's a mish-mash of all sorts of stuff. In order to get a sound where no two tracks sound like the same song. I think it's good to have a mixed bag rather than the one vibe on everything."

Ultimately John ended up with an album that at last lived up to the promise he demonstrated in writing the multi-platinum Whitesnake record. "That whole thing was a shame. Because if we had kept that situation together, we'd have three or four good albums under our belt by now," Sykes ponders. "I think we would have developed more, and grown more, but he decided he wanted to go it alone. So be it. I mean, it's sort of like the Jagger/Richards thing. You put them together and you get something great out of it. And when they go on their own, it's still great but it doesn't have that same appeal. I think it's healthy to add that fire between two people, when you can get that, that's when the magic happens. And sometimes it works really well. We had all the ingredients but he sort of let them all go one by one. Subsequently, the whole thing fell apart anyway. His castle just crumbled from underneath him."

From his earliest days in the Tygers Of Pan Tang, to his involvement with Thin Lizzy, to Whitesnake, to the present, John Sykes has covered a lot of ground.But it turns out his motivating factor in the earliest days of his career is the same drive that led him to get this new Blue Murder incarnation together-the sheer enjoyment he finds in playing guitar."When I decided I was really going to pursue music was when I was working construction," Sykes says looking back. "And I had a girlfriend who was nagging the fuck out of me. I was just sick and tired of that, and working, and getting up early. And I looked in the newspaper one day, it was in Melody Maker, and it said, 'Guitarist wanted for recording band.' So I said, 'What the fuck.' So I gave them a ring, and it was the Tygers. So I made an appointment to go down and see them. They offered me the job. They were offering me that job at $35 a week. Plus I was living in a fucking room which was 8 feet by 6 feet, with a mattress on the floor. It was rough times, but I just wanted to get away from that whole fucking straight life, and all that boring working, getting up, sleeping. I don't like getting up early. I want to play my guitar until five in the morning. So I thought, 'I don't mind living like that, I'll make the most of it.' I couldnt' afford to eat in those days.But It was what I wanted to do because at least I was playing my guitar, and that's really all that mattered then, and now."

When you think of a Rock Star's'not so humble' dwellings, you think of sprawling lawns, pools with geisha girls, eight car garages stuffed with Rolls, Ferraris and Mercedes, i.e., decadence. Well, I was on my way to the home of John Sykes one sunny afternoon in Spring of '89, expecting all of the abovementioned, and ending up with none of it! Okay, he does have 1 red Ferrari, and he does have a normal-sized swimming pool, but as far as rock star decadence, there wasn't a pittance in sight. John's home is beautifully decorated and very comfortable. As I entered, through the garage I noticed a wall of amps, could this be where the group practices? What no S.I.R. soundstage? Yup more humbleness from the man that we've heard a lot of wrong things about. John Sykes in person is even more likeable than over the telephone (where our previous interview was conducted). You know when you're quite anxious about meeting a person for the first time, but then when the moment arrives you feel so at ease with them? Well, John Sykes is good at making people feel comfortable. From the moment we met, I felt that we might have known each other for years, or maybe were even the best of friends. Could I have known him in my past life???? Or is he this way with everybody? Probably. John took me into his study for a private chat. Speaking honestly is easy for this man who plays (his guitar) so fluently, and articulates just as well.

ROCk Scene: John, you're a really good singer. John Sykes: Thank you very much. It was a year-long project, and four months recording, cause it took 'em a year to talk me into singing, you know? RS: Is this something that you aspired to do, even before you started playing guitar? JS: I never wanted to sing, ever. It's the last thing I ever wanted to do. You know when you record someone's voice on a tape machine and they play it back and you go, 'I sound like that?' Well, it took me a while to get into... I mean I sang on the demos and just blew it out but I just wasn't expecting to hear that sound on the record. It was that constant nagging from people, saying I was indeed good, and stuff. Plus, I didn't want to sing and play, but we auditioned so many people and we'd get like two or three songs out of them, and the rest of them they just wouldn't be able to touch. There's a wide array of stuff on the album. We just couldn't find an ideal voice to sing everything as well as I'd roughed them out on the demos, and we looked and looked and it just got to a point where we were spending too much time looking so I said, 'f**k it, I know I can sing it.' RS: What would've happened if you didn't have a good voice at all? JS: Well, then I wouldn't have laid the vocals down on the demos. The thing was, we couldn't find people to sing the songs as good as the demos, so that was like the problem. Not only that, if I hadn't gone in and started laying vocals down, and I only started doing that cause it was like a time factor; I just wanted to save time and get the songs in some sort of shape for a singer to come in, join the band and just go from there. But we just couldn't find the right person so... It was sort of, over the process of me laying the roughs down and gradually coming to terms, after listening to the demos I was getting used to the sound of it. So, it was just a mental thing of getting used to having to sing a certain way.

RS: What are you gonna do live? JS: F**kin sweat my ass off. I'm gonna do as much as I can live, all singing. Lead vocals and lead guitar. RS: Did you ever think of maybe adding a rhythm player? JS: Yeah, I thought about it. If I have to... if push comes to shove I'm gonna have to do that. RS: Let's talk about your first video for "Valley Of The Kings." Is that set indicative of your live stage show? JS: Somewhat. Our video has quite an outlandish set with the columns and all. Mary Lambert did it. I wanted to do something a little bit different. Everything looks the same these days.RS: How come your first single is not the same as your video? JS: That's what I mean about being a bit different, ha, ha! We released a video for "Valley Of The Kings" first, but the first single was "Jellyroll." The video was done just to get the Blue Murder name out, for people to get familiar with the band. We didn't want to come out with "Jellyroll" first, cause it's sort of a bluesy acoustic thing, and I didn't want people to get the wrong Idea. I didn't want them to think that I'd completely wimped out. RS: Are you scared? JS: Yeah. Everyday it's f**king... Yeah, I've got a lot of nervous energy. When it comes to things like playing live, I do get nervous, I always do, I've never been any other way. RS: But you use it to your advantage. JS: Yeah, it does sort of drive me more-if you keep worrying about something it makes you work harder at it. It's good.

RS: What made you first start playing guitar? JS: When I was about 14 years old, I had an uncle that used to play blues guitar in a club that my step-father had shared in, and he used to get up and jam. I never heard anything like it. He was one of those Eric Clapton-like players, and I just heard this sound and I wanted to have a f**king guitar sound like that. He would never show me leads. Because he said to me, 'you gotta learn chords before you can learn leads.' But, it was good. I got turned on by listening to him play, more than probably anyone else I've ever listened to, but that was cause it was a new thing for me and I didn't really understand what it was, I just knew I wanted to learn how to do that. It was really exciting for me. RS: Musically, what events led up to your eventually being in Thin Lizzy? JS: I had a friend in England where I lived who used to come and listen to me play-he was just like a mate. I was working construction at the time and was playing guitar on the side and he told me I sounded great, but it really sounded like sh*t, but back then we were just kids so... He said to me, 'I want to put a band together,' Actually, at that time I quit playing for a couple of years cause I was going out with this chick and she didn't want me to play, and I was getting almost cornered into like a monotone way of life; 9 to 5, you live till your 60, have your kids, etc. I was starting to get cornered into that, I couldn't play for like two years, and this friend just phoned me up and begged me on the phone for three hours straight to just come down to one of their rehearsals and play. I hadn't played in like a couple of years, so I went down and played, and it just started from there. I got my whole feeling back, that spark was there and I knew that it was what I really wanted to do. I was just getting completely mislead and sidetracked into just leading a normal boring life. Then I started playing again, and I went down for an audition for a band called The Tygers Of Pan Tang, in London, and got that. They signed a deal with MCA and I did two or three albums with them. I left them and ended up joining Thin Lizzy, which was great.

RS: How long were you in Thin Lizzy? JS: For about three years. RS: Till they broke up? JS: Yeah, I was in there for a bit after they broke up, as well. I was gonna do something with Phil (Lynott), but you know how Phil ended up. He just couldn't straighten up his personal life. I was still gonna stay with Phil, and then he had this break-up with his wife, and what with Thin Lizzy ending, it devastated him. RS: Why do you think the band broke up? JS: Rock & Roll you know, the usual stuff. Phil lived the part till the end. He was like 36 years on earth and he f**king lived it! You know, I see people in this business downing the alcohol like it's no tomorrow and doing coke and they just don't have any idea... I mean, Phil was a genius. He'd almost use it to his advantage. Phil would party, seriously party, but he was always in control, totally. Well, it seemed that way anyway, but as much as he was in control, his body just couldn't handle it and finally it ended up killing him. RS: How did his death affect you? JS: Oh, it really affected me, cause I just never believed he was going to die. He was so strong. They didn't tell me that he was in such bad shape, they didn't want me to get upset about it. I was in L.A., I had no f "king idea. I thought that with some rest he would be alright. But he just sort of blacked out for a few days and that was it. I dedicated this album to Phil, you know. It was the least I could do. I mean, without all the learning, and what he taught me, and the growing up process of going through Thin Lizzy, and then doing it in the Whitesnake thing, it was such an invaluable period in my life. I mean, if I just wanted to do this Blue Murder project when I joined Thin Lizzy, I could've never have done it, cause I wouldn't have had enough in me to be able to get it together. RS: Were those some of the funnesttimes in your life? JS: Yeah, I think so. RS: Anything in particular that sticks out from that period of time? JS: There's a lot of things. We wrote off like two Mercedes' completely, and we all walked away. Thin Lizzy was the first major band I'd been in and I was out there doing everything I could at first. We crashed this Mercedes on a freeway, and we'd only just gotten it back from the last wreck. The first time it happened when we were going from Birmingham to London. And how everybody got out unscathed is like a mystery. Then the day we got it back, it got shipped over to Sweden, and the same accident happened again. We'd all been going at it for a while, and I was young then, and I remember going backstage feeling, 'f**k, I don't know if I can do this anymore.' Cause we'd just been through the accident and there was like all this shit going on. Phil just looked at me, smiled and said, "everything's all right. It's gonna be okay. C'mon." It was great cause he was almost like a father figure to me. We went on and we blazed the f**king set that night. But that was the sort of bloke he was, for me anyway. For some people... Phil liked who he liked, and he didn't like who he didn't like, but we got on great. I really miss him, a lot.

RS: What are some of your favorite songs from that era? JS: Oh, all of them. I used to go and watch Thin Lizzy when I was a kid, and just to get up to play two hours of hits was like, GREAT! I loved to get up there and play all those songs. RS: They never were that big here. Why do you think that was? JS: Well, because I think they had the wrong tours, and the management was a bit.. .they should've been big I think, cause we had some great stuff out. But everytime they set up to come to America... Phil got hepatitisone time, and they took him off the tour. Another time Gary Moore left, right in the beginning of the tour, so they ended up struggling through that tour. Every f**king turn, America just didn't seem to be in the cards for them. Although the records were there, I just don't think they had the big sell, and plus I really think they should have gotten American representation, cause with European management, they're too far out of the game over there. RS: So, how did you hook up with David Coverdale? JS: Well, the final three concerts we did with Thin Lizzy was on a festival thing with like Whitesnake and other bands, in Germany. So, I didn't know it at the time, but their management had offered Thin Lizzy to come and do these shows cause they wanted to check me out to join them. They'd asked me once through the grapevine-an agent asked me in England if I wanted to join them and I said, 'f**k no.' I was in the middle of the Lizzy tour. I didn't really like Whitesnake before cause they were so old bluesy stuff and it wasn't enough like electric, and get up and go about it. When I first was approached about it, it just seemed so far out of what I really wanted to do, but then we ended up on these festivals and Coverdale just kept offering me and offering me, until his management said, 'what do you want to do it?' I gave them a price and they came back and said, 'yeah, we'll give it to you.' I was like stoked, I was earning more money than I'd ever earned in my life. So I did it. And from there on I mean... if you're getting along with David Coverdale, he's really easy to get along with, and he's nice, but you just never know when he's gonna turn.

RS: Do you think that Whitesnake can follow up their previous LP? JS: I don't know. They sold a lot of albums, and it takes a couple of albums to f **k up a good album. If you ain't got the follow up to one album, you're still gonna sell a fair few on the next one, just because people will go out and buy it before they hear it, cause they want to find out what it's like. David's still got some of his old songs left, and I'm not sure, but I think they might be using two songs that I wrote with David for that album, that we didn't end up using. We got into a bit of a.. .you know with his lawyers and my lawyers asking about the materials, and he said he wanted to use them so I said, "f"k, let him have them." I don't mind, as long as I get paid.

For someone who's a self-professed homebody and never turns up in the 'seen backstage at .../seen checking out...' lists, Blue Murder mainman John Sykes has been a very newsworthy name of late. The apparent dissolution of his band has been reported, and the rumours that he is to - or even has already - replace Def Leppard's deceased guitarist Steve Clarke have been keeping speculators buzzing for months. And since he's that real homebody, nobody's had the chance to bump into him and pump him for the truth behind the tales, so here's Rock Power's entry for the Public Service Award -the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...well okay, a bit of speculation too. The guitarist isn't exactly voluble on the subject of Def Leppard - in fact he made a bit of a spluttering noise when we referred to his having spent time with the band doing backing vocals on the new record - guess we weren't supposed to know that, huh? "It's just talk, the whole situation - everybody's asking me about it and there's really nothing to say, I'm finishing my album and they're finishing theirs. There's no job been offered to me, nobody's asked me to say yes or no to anything." In fact Sykes is finishing his album on his own, with drummer Carmine Appice now probably back working on his own band with Derek St Holmes following his brief tenure with C.C. Deville, and bassist Tony Franklin following up an invitation to work on a solo project of his own. Their departures haven't affected the record though, since both of them had completed their contributions to the record before moving on. "It was always a criticism of Coverdale that he seemed to be constantly changing his band, which is why I'm particularly sorry to see the same thing looking like it's happening with Blue Murder. It's difficult to put a band of seasoned players together, and if the first album doesn't go through the roof it's tough job to keep morale up, and inevitably people start looking around for other stuff." "And after being on the road I wanted to take some time out with my kids - I've got two little boys -and I've been a real homebody. Plus I've lived so many years out of a suitcase, so to be able to enjoy a home and a family is really great. And that's why things are taking so long -and you can't expect a band to wait around." Sykes is totally frank in admitting how things have been allowed to go awry, but don't make the mistake of thinking that Blue Murder has been allowed to become a mere sideline to his family life; he has been working on the project, and unremittingly too. At the time of writing he had got as far as lead vocals. Producer Mike Stone quit the project part-way through and Sykes is now producing himself; the album's being recorded in a studio he built at his home -partly to allow more time with his family, and partly to avoid massive cost over-runs as his legendary quest for something just a tiny bit better than he already has got to work. "For me things are never quite the way I want them," he admits, "so production is really difficult for me -I'm my own worst critic so I'm constantly re-thinking stuff... and the studio's right there whenever I think of something I could change!" As a result Geffen are fully supporting Sykes rather than laying down deadlines and making demands. Guess they owe it to him, after botching their job of promoting the first album so completely! It's not as if Sykes has backed off either, for he promises that this album will have all the uncompromising might of its predecessor; he isn't compromising to make anyone's life or job easier. "I think maybe this one's got a little more melody but it's still very similar musically - right across the board from acoustic stuff to seven minute epics, Beatles-type folksy things to Valley Of The Kings'. But I'm so close to it," he adds with the wry smile of the overworked, finicky artist/producer, "I just can't tell you that much about it anymore. I just hope people like it."

"I got along with him [John Sykes] fine. You see, the problem with Blue Murder was we were so sure our record was gonna go big that we never set up the business for us to fail. It didn't go big, so we didn't know what to do financially or with the next album. John flipped out because we put a lot of hard work into that album [...] everybody told us it was gonna be a big seller, Geffen, [producer] Bob Rock, everyone. John got depressed. He didn't want to go in and do anything new for a year, and he was getting Whitesnake royalties making millions of dollars, the rest of us were like 'Let's go, this is our living'.

After we had split up and Tony Franklin left, Mike Stone [involved until JS took over production duties] called me up and said 'Look, we're doing the second Blue Murder album, trying some drummers', and I said 'Cool, I'll do it as a session'. I didn't want to get involved in the politics of Blue Murder, I know how John works, it takes him forever to do songs. I played 80% of the second album.

Tony Martin [lined up to sing in Blue Murder], he didn't show up. He was supposed to get on the plane and come to Vancouver, but he just didn't show up, the day before he said he wasn't gonna come. I wasn't there with Ray Gillen, it was Cozy Powell. I was actually jealous because Cozy was in the band and I loved John and I loved Tony as players, you know. From the very moment we played, we all looked at each other and said 'This is magic', and we knew that was it.

I love John, he's like a brother, but he's a bit...you never know with John."

John Sykes would seem to have it all; good looks, great talent, his own band, and a track record as one of rock's most creative forces with bands like Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake. Yet it's hard to bring a real smile to the face of the blond guitar ace these days. Sure, he's happy with the release of Blue Murder's oft-delayed second album, Nothin' But Trouble, but it seems as if this English-born rocker has more on his mind than "merely" creating a great record. He's got something to prove both to himself and to the rock masses, and he won't be truly happy until he does just that. It's been four years since Blue Murder's self-titled debut album was released amid much fanfare, much record label support, much critical respect, and minimal commercial reaction. Since that time, Sykes has seen the entire roster of his group change with original members Carmine Appice (drums) and Tony Franklin (bass) departing (though they appear on a number of tracks on the new album) in favor of Kelly Keeling (rhythm guitar), Marco Mendoza (bass) and Tommy O'steen (drums). It's been a long, often mysterious wait for Blue Murder's second album-and now Mr. Sykes is here to tell us why. "First off, I built my own recording studio in LA.," he said. "That obviously took a great deal of time and effort - 18 months to be exact. And then quite often during the recordings, which I was producing myself, I'd need to take a break for a month or two just to get some space. If I could pull out a song after that and it still sounded good to me, then I knew I had something. It was a great cleansing process, professionally and personally. I'm not quite so out-of-control as I used to be. I'm more focused. Producing demands that. It's like doing a movie where you're the writer, the director and the star. You put everything together and then you jump in front of the camera to perform."

Performing with Blue Murder has emerged as the culmination of a long and often glorious career for Sykes. He's been an integral part of the hard rock scene since the late '70s, when his first band, the Tygers Of Pan Tang took a stab at stardom during the heady days of the so-called New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. While the Tygers never attained more than a cult following, Sykes' six-string skills and star magnetism attracted the attention on Thin Lizzy's legendary bassist/vocalist Phil Lynott, who asked Sykes to join that band in 1983. For the next year Sykes happily learned the rock and roll ropes at Lynott's side. But when the bassist's health began to fail (eventually leading to his untimely death) Sykes began looking for new horizons to conquer, and when Whitesnake's David Coverdale called him up one day, his path to the top became clearer. For the next three years Coverdale and Sykes would endure what might best be termed a tempestuous relationship, but the music they made (highlighted by the rock classic Still Of The Night) made the personal difficulties worthwhile. "It was always interesting working with David," a somewhat diplomatic Sykes said. "He was the singer and I was the guitar player. He would do his end of the job and I would do mine. There was a healthy competition there that got the best out of each of us and that shows in the music. I still don't know exactly what went wrong in Whitesnake. We had finished working on the Whitesnake album, and we were all quite excited about the results, and the next thing I knew David was saying that he wanted to make some changes."

The success of that album (though most music fans still associate the guitar team of Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell - both hired by Coverdale to replace Sykes with the video version of Still Of The Night), made Sykes a hot property in the music community. Record labels lined up waving contracts under his nose, promising him that the sky was the limit if he'd only sign on the dotted line. After much soul searching, he finally signed with Geffen Records and put together the original version of Blue Murder, which at one time included not only Appice and Franklin but a pre-Badlands Ray Gillen on vocals. But when Gillen departed, Sykes decided to take on the vocal responsibilities himself-a task that many music insiders felt was too big a job to take on for even a talent as big as Sykes'.

"I didn't start playing music because I wanted to be a rock star," he explained. "And I never started Blue Murder to become a rock star. To me, this isn't a game-it's who I am. This is what I'd do whether I had a record deal or was on the street. I can't turn into someone else. I've got to please myself first. I know people thought of me as a guitarist and not as a vocalist, but when I started singing on the first album, I liked it, and other people liked it. I knew I could do it. After all, I was writing the songs, so who better to sing them?" Blue Murder's debut album was one of the most heralded album releases of 1989, featuring big production songs like the epic Valley Of Kings, as well as a series of tight, guitar-oriented rockers. Still, the record only sold moderately well, moving about 250,000 copies.

Considering the big bucks that Geffen provided for recording, touring and videos, it's a safe bet that nobody lined their pockets from profits derived from the band's first release. Perhaps that's why when it came time to record Nothin' But Trouble, Sykes wanted to do everything his way. Thus, studio costs were cut down by using his own facility and new musicians were brought in when the need arose. "When you have your own studio, you're not constantly watching the clock," Sykes said. "The studio is a very expensive place to work. And since I'm a bit of a perfectionist, those costs do mount up. This time I didn't have to worry about that. I wanted all the focus to be on the music. That's why when the months started to drag by, and Tony and Carmine decided to move on, I had to find just the right people to replace them. That wasn't easy."

Still, with the addition on his three new bandmates, Blue Murder barely missed a beat. On such new tracks as We All Fall Down, Cry For Love and their remake of the old Small Faces classic Itchycoo Park, the power, passion and precision that became the band's calling card on album one, is back with a vengeance this time around. Yes, John Sykes knows that big things are expected of him-especially after four years of work. But he's one guy who feels he's up to any and all expectations. "There were times when it did get to be a little too much," he said. "There was pressure trying to do just about everything. But when you come out the other end of the tunnel the reward is there-the reward of having the music sound as good as what you hear in your head."

More soon...