All of that is pretty close to the reality.
Dougie had more than 15 seconds of fame with Rainbow (and who wouldn’t give his left leg for 15 seconds of that kinda fame anyway!). He did a couple of years with The Man In Black and put out a very creditable studio album as Rainbow (Stranger In Us All) as well as doing two world tours. He then sang for Yngwie Malstein (sorry if I spelt that wrong) for seven years and is currently doing live and session work in Europe and the USA. In my humble opinion he is singing and writing material better than ever before.
Alec and Colin are both in Crossfire along with Tam Slavin who actually joined La Paz for the last 6 shows because Andy Mason had left. It was all getting a bit messy at that time and the pressure got to him. We had a deal with a UK record company…and then we didn’t. I never found out what actually happened but that was that…the business of show can be like that. Shortly after that Dougie left to go to London to join Midnite Blue with Alex Dickson (amazing guitarist).
The drummer list in La Paz was a bit Spinal Tap to be honest: Dougie Hannah, Paul McManus, Bunty Brown, Spanky Harris (not our finest hour and only survived three gigs) and Colin Morrow.
Bunty is with Glasgow Council I believe and Dougie is a brickie. Spanky has vanished from the planet…if he was ever on it. I have no idea if any of those guys still play. Paul is with No Dice and is playing spectacularly well however.
After Dougie left I got Billy Rankin in and we recorded about 12 songs as La Paz (some at Radio Clyde in a session) and they were good tunes (so much so that Billy used several on his last studio album with Nazareth...where's my credit Billy?!
). But Billy was doing his wee cabaret thing with the tape backing and him playing and singing over it at the time so he didn’t want to gig live. I got bored with that to be honest. The irony was that Billy eventually fired me
Anyway, they carried on for a wee while, called themselves Hope and Glory, but it was going nowhere so they folded. Billy was and is a great songwriter though and he’s now DJ-ing with Rock Radio as well as song writing (Meat Loaf did one of his tunes on the last album).
Paul from Neat Speed is indeed a pilot with KLM – a thought that scares the bejeezus out of me
He was actually the second bass player in Neat Speed - the first was Louie Rankin and I have no idea where he is now or what he is doing.
I dunno what Colin Suttie is doing I'm afraid.
I built several IT related businesses here in the UK and in the USA and I sold the largest off two years ago so I pretty much just potter about now between here and Houston, Texas. Most of my pals say that I am now semi-retired but that doesn't sound right to me...am only 50, am not dead! I stopped playing guitar for about 19 years as I thought it a little sad to be in my thirties/forties and sitting in the bedroom cranking out Thin Lizzy and Rainbow riffs when I wasn’t in a band – life needs a purpose after all! Last year though Dougie called me and asked me to play with him at Rock Radio’s birthday bash. It wasn’t the best gig I’ve ever played as we were pretty much inaudible due to some unspecified “technical problem” with the sound but it was fun and Dougie had everyone in sing-a-long mode by the end. 800 folk packed into The Garage having a good time was fairly intoxicating to play to and woke up some old memories I can tell you.
Right now, believe it or not, we’re rehearsing again (Paul on the drums) and, remarkably after all of this time, it sounds amazing. Who knows…we may be coming to a bar near you. Never say never…
Hope this helps and thanks for the interest.
Chic McSherry
PS – the original poster mentioned the “rivalry” between Zero Zero and La Paz…and I see there is a poll on the Zero Zero thread along the same lines. For the record, we all liked Zero Zero. They were an excellent band. There was some personal history between myself and Joe James (drummer) from our days in Red Ellis but that was small beer: after all, you can’t be expected to get along with everyone you work with all the time and Joe and I just didn’t see eye to eye on some stuff. These things happen. There was some provocative graffiti on a gig dressing room once allegedly coming from Zero Zero against us. It was probably done for a laugh but when you’re young and daft and full of hormones these things take on bigger meanings than they merit. My recollection is that both bands met at a gig in East Kilbride and the matter was sorted out pretty much there and then. There were also rumours of some shenanigans at a Kelvin Grove festival we both did and if what we were told was done to the PA when we were on was actually done, then whoever did that will have to live with it. It was a long time ago. That aside, “rivalries” mainly exist in the minds of the observers. As I said, we liked them as a band and Dougie in particular had nothing but respect for Stevie Docherty. At one point it looked like both bands could have been signed to Atlantic Records as we were both talking to the A&R guys so you never know…Hope that settles that!
