Moore had walked out of Thin Lizzy in the middle of a major US tour in July 1979. What next for the guitarist? Was he left high and dry? Absolutely not. Gary’s business manager did a deal with another client, Jet Records, to release his first proper solo album, Back On The Streets.
Jet Records was established in 1974, and was owned by the one and only Don Arden. The label scored an immediate hit with Lyndsey De Paul’s single No Honestly. But it was ELO – selling millions of albums worldwide and breaking into the US market – who established Jet Records as an international player and enabled Don to open an office in Los Angeles. Don had mixed it with some notoriously shady businessmen and outright gangsters, where violence and intimidation were often just a wrong word away. So he was convinced rock’n’roll was a man’s world. His daughter Sharon would prove him wrong. Just as feisty, ruthless and uncompromising as her dad, Sharon wanted her share of the cake. While Gary was signed to Jet Records for recording, he was signed to Sharon for management, her first foray into the world of rock.
Why Gary? Obviously he was an outstanding guitarist, but not just that – the ‘guitar hero’ was coming back into fashion, and the main catalyst for that was Eddie Van Halen. Van Halen’s first two albums were worldwide hits straight out of the blocks, essentially setting up the heavy rock explosion of the 1980s and introducing Eddie’s groundbreaking guitar technique.
Gary first came across Eddie on the 1978 Thin Lizzy tour. Apparently, having watched him for the first time, the rather worried Irish guitar player went straight back to the hotel to try out this two-handed tapping business. Although in interviews Gary could be a bit indifferent about Eddie’s playing, they certainly appreciated each other’s technical skill. Eddie was sometimes spotted at Gary’s concerts, hopping up and down with delight in the wings as Gary would reel off a lick, look at Eddie and they would both laugh.
The other appeal of Gary for Jet was the success of Parisienne Walkways, which, while it did nothing in the States, showed that Gary had the potential to compose the sort of power ballad that brought significant chart success for bands like Foreigner and Styx, heralding so-called pop metal as another fashionable genre on the US market for the next decade.
For her part, Sharon reckons that Gary leaving Lizzy “was one of the worst mistakes of his career. Lizzy were just breaking, and they were gaining momentum in America. It was the perfect tour for them, and he just fucked it up. And you never get that momentu m back again.” And she was right, they didn’t. But whether all the blame for this can really be laid at Gary’s door, when Phil and Scott were in such a state, is highly debatable.
Gary had a deal – now he needed a band. GaryThe stars were aligned. This was clearly a Gary Moore solo project: the band was originally titled Moore, but for some reason Jet thought this would be confusing, so the name changed to G-Force after Gary tol d Mark that at school he was known as ‘G’ by some of his friends.
