Guitar hero John Sykes has completed a new solo album that looks set for a summer release through a recently signed worldwide deal with Golden Robot Records, with live concerts planned. Whether the album will bear the previously announced intended title of Sy-Ops is at present uncertain.
Like many on the 80s new wave of heavy metal scene, Sykes’s vinyl debut was on a compilation album, namely New Electric Warriors, where as a part of Streetfighter he was featured on ‘She’s No Angel’, subsequently joining Tygers of Pan Tang where he began earning his reputation, notably on the band’s hard rock reworking of ‘Love Potion No. 9’.
Working his way up the ladder he joined Thin Lizzy for the Phil Lynnot-led band’s last hurrah (and their subsequent live reformation years later). Super-group-in-the-making Badlands (featuring Lone Star/Uriah Heep vocalist John Sloman and Whitesnake’s Neil Murray), stalled when he finally accepted David Coverdale’s offer to join Whitesnake, wherein he co-wrote most of the 20 million+ Whitesnake ’87 hit album and singles.
Sykes followed this with the power trio super-group Blue Murder co-featuring Tony Franklin (The Firm) and Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) before taking up a solo career with 1995’s Out Of My Tree. Several solo albums followed, alongside the aforementioned Thin Lizzy reformation where he took on lead vocal duties from 1994–2009. Since then appearances have been slim, infrequently making guest appearances on other artists’ records, and eventually declining to be part of the band that became xxx.
Rumours surfaced last year of a new solo album, and now it is becoming reality with the guitarist/vocalist giving his first interview in over eight years at the NAMM show in Los Angeles to Jason McNamara from Jason Video Music Tokyo.
Sykes added to this, saying: “It’s about time and with my global signing to Golden Robot Records, I feel I have found the right home for my music.”
“It’s time that rock fans throughout the world heard a musician who plays and sings from the heart. I’m just happy that John with so much incredible and authentic talent has decided he finally wanted to share his music with rock fans throughout the world and can do that with the team at Golden Robot. This is truly an inspirational moment for rock music fans everywhere,” said the Executive Chairman of Worldwide Expansion for the Australian based independent record company, but then, when you’re a music industry mover and shaker like Derek Shulman, that surpasses the hyperbole factor.
Sykes will also be touring in support of the album later in the year. The band will feature long time collaborator and Blue Murder bandmate, bass player Tony Franklin and Fred Boswell Jr. on drums.
