John Sykes, a veteran hard rock guitarist who was a member of Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy and Tygers of Pan Tang, has died, according to a post on his official Facebook page. He had been battling cancer for several years; he was 65.
A fiery guitarist and strong singer with a mane of wavy blond hair, Sykes is best known for his work on Whitesnake’s 1987 seventh album, for which he wrote almost every track – including the hit singles “Still of the Night” and “Is This”. Love” — and played all the guitars. However, he had been fired from the band before the album’s release, due to disagreements with frontman David Coverdale, and saw two other guitarists mime his roles in the songs’ videos and tour extensively with the band during its peak years.
The post on his page reads: “It is with great sadness that we share that John Sykes has passed away after a hard-fought battle against cancer. He will be remembered by many as a man of exceptional musical talent but to those who did not know him personally he was a caring, kind and charismatic man whose presence lit up the room.
“He truly marched to the beat of his own drum and always pulled for the underdog. In his final days, he spoke of his sincere love and gratitude for his fans who stuck by him all these years. Although the impact of his loss is profound and the mood is somber, we hope that the light of his memory will extinguish the shadow of his absence.”
Born in Reading, England in 1959 and raised partly in Spain, Sykes started playing guitar as a teenager and started his professional career with a group called Streetfighter in the late 1970s after moving to Blackpool in northern England. He left that group to join Tygers of Pan Tang, who were popular during the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” era of the early 1980s which also spawned Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and many other bands. He played on three of the group’s albums, quitting in early 1982, but was contractually obligated to record two more songs for the band’s label, MCA.
After Sykes unsuccessfully auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne’s band, Tygers producer Chris Tsangarides connected him with Phil Lynott, singer-songwriter of Thin Lizzy, who were hugely popular at the time and had an ever-changing second guitarist position. The members of Thin Lizzy played on a Sykes solo single that fulfilled his contract, and he was asked to join the band.
Sykes brought a distinct heavy metal touch to the band’s last album, “Thunder and Lightning”, which did not sit well with many fans, but Lizzy was in a downward spiral, mainly due to Lynott’s heroin addiction (which ultimately led to his death in early 1986 ) and the band split in 1983.
While intending to continue working with Lynott, Sykes instead chose to join Whitesnake in early 1984. He added guitar parts to the band’s “Slide It In” album and played with them for a world tour, but Coverdale fired the entire band after the self-titled album, recorded and regrouped with Dio alumni Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot and Vandenberg. Driven by the Sykes-co-written songs and their videos, that album became a global smash and Whitesnake was a major draw for the next two years, although their follow-up album flopped.
Sykes formed the band Blue Murder with veteran drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tony Franklin, although the outfit only lasted two albums. In the following years, he was considered Def Leppard’s replacement for late guitarist Steve Clark (although the role went to Vivian Campbell, who had ironically replaced him in Whitesnake) before pursuing a solo career and fronting a Lynott-free incarnation of Thin Lizzy for several years.
Sykes also unsuccessfully auditioned for Guns N’ Roses in 2009, and continued to work on solo material in the years before his death.
