Dare

At the age of 17, Manchester born keyboard player Darren Wharton joined the legendary Irish rock band Thin Lizzy and recorded the famous “Chinatown” album with Philip Lynott, Scott Gorham, Snowy White and Brian Downey. After being featured on Chinatown, Phil Lynott had taken Darren under his wing and the young musician from Manchester soon found himself touring extensively throughout Europe, America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

After a year of selling out concert halls around the globe Thin Lizzy once again returned to the studio. Now as an established member of the band Darren was about to embark on his second Thin Lizzy album “Renegade”. After co-writing “Angel of Death” with Philip Lynott, Wharton’s talent for song writing began to emerge. Several world tours later, Darren went on to co-write “The Sun goes Down”, “This is the One”, “Heart Attack” and “Someday She’s Gonna Hit Back” on the legendary album “Thunder and Lightning”. After four great years of playing along side Phil Lynott, Scott Gorham, Brian Downey and White Snake’s John Sykes, the sad news was announced that mega rock band Thin Lizzy had decided to disband.

Darren returned to his home town Manchester where he began to write, sing and produce his own songs. After recruiting young guitarist, Vinny Burns, it wasn’t long before Darren’s new band DARE were getting noticed by the major labels in London and in 1987 Darren and DARE were signed by A&M records. In 1988 Dare recorded their début album ‘Out Of The Silence’ in Los Angeles at singer, Joni Mitchel’s private studio in Beverly Hills.

After this highly acclaimed first release, Dare’s live performances soon earned them a cult following throughout Europe, opening for Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page , Gary Moore and Scandinavian rockers Europe. Playing extensively in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Belgium, Italy, France, England and Ireland. Dare were now an established band in their own right.