{"id":78,"date":"2026-01-03T11:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/?page_id=78"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:49:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:49:28","slug":"grand-slam","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/?page_id=78","title":{"rendered":"Grand Slam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>1984&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200bGrand Slam was co-formed in 1984 by Thin Lizzy&#8217;s legendary frontman bassist\/vocalist Phil Lynott and Magnum keyboard player Mark Stanway, who were joined by Laurence Archer (ex-Stampede and one-time Magnum touring guitarist), Doish Nagle (guitar) and Robbie Brennan (drums, replacing Thin Lizzy&#8217;s Brian Downey during the early stages of Grand Slam&#8217;s formation).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200bArmed with an array of strong new\u00a0song material,\u00a0the band soon established itself as a live act, with a busy schedule of touring throughout 1984. New songs written by Phil Lynott and Mark Stanway such as &#8220;Sisters of Mercy&#8221;, &#8220;Military Man&#8221;, &#8220;Breakdown&#8221; and &#8220;Crime Rate&#8221; sat comfortably alongside Lynott solo material and a handful of lesser played Thin Lizzy songs in the band&#8217;s live show and the band also recorded\u00a0demos of its original material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200bSadly, despite the band&#8217;s popularity as live act, the anticipated record deal never materialised and by 1985, Phil Lynott\u00a0began focussing on solo projects, while Mark Stanway had returned to Magnum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200bGrand Slam songs would later resurface as Phil Lynott solo recordings and collaborations with Gary Moore, while several albums of\u00a0Grand Slam live and studio material from Mark Stanway&#8217;s personal archives were released many years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/ef66d2_a62c7a3cb69d4dcba7bde59851694a35~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_335,h_183,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto\/ef66d2_a62c7a3cb69d4dcba7bde59851694a35~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/ef66d2_f90da9f183604f929e09b137f355e88a~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_335,h_262,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_avif,quality_auto\/ef66d2_f90da9f183604f929e09b137f355e88a~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/ef66d2_10fa2101f76f4fe4852b8c3520e7d020~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_409,h_402,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto\/ef66d2_10fa2101f76f4fe4852b8c3520e7d020~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/ef66d2_0ea1c91bd0454e66bba14aaf9417e5b4~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_454,h_273,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto\/ef66d2_0ea1c91bd0454e66bba14aaf9417e5b4~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2016&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200b2016 Mark Stanway\u00a0relaunched the band with a new line-up, joined\u00a0by Laurence Archer from the 1984 incarnation of the band plus\u00a0bassist Neil Murray (Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Snakecharmer, etc), drummer Micky Barker (Magnum) and vocalist Stefan Berggren &#8211;\u00a0 a pedigree line-up of world class musicians.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new line-up appeared&nbsp;at the Robin 2 in Bilston ahead of an appearance at the prestigious Sweden Rock Festival in June 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/ef66d2_576fb9b85fd645ea86c7b3aa283cc6b9~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_472,h_297,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto\/ef66d2_576fb9b85fd645ea86c7b3aa283cc6b9~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1984&#8230;. \u200bGrand Slam was co-formed in 1984 by Thin Lizzy&#8217;s legendary frontman bassist\/vocalist Phil Lynott and Magnum keyboard player Mark Stanway, who were joined by Laurence Archer (ex-Stampede and one-time Magnum touring guitarist), Doish Nagle (guitar) and Robbie Brennan (drums, replacing Thin Lizzy&#8217;s Brian Downey during the early stages of Grand Slam&#8217;s formation).\u00a0 \u200bArmed with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-78","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markstanway.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}