Few bands have ever walked the line between glitter, hooks, riffs and chaos quite like Sweet.
For many, Sweet will always be the sound of the 70s exploding through the speakers with “The Ballroom Blitz,” “Fox on the Run,” “Block Buster!,” “Action,” “Hell Raiser,” “Wig Wam Bam” and “Love Is Like Oxygen.” For others who dug deeper into records like Sweet Fanny Adams, Desolation Boulevard and Give Us a Wink, Sweet were never simply a glam rock singles machine. They were a genuinely heavy rock band wrapped in colour, attitude and enormous vocal harmonies.
At the centre of that story is Andy Scott.
As the guitarist, songwriter, producer, vocalist and last surviving member of Sweet’s classic lineup, Scott has carried the band through more than five decades of change. From the Brian Connolly, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker era through to the modern Sweet lineup, his name remains tied to one of the most recognisable sounds in British rock history.
This October and November, Sweet return to Australia for The Final Blitz Tour, a run that brings the band back to one of the countries that embraced them hardest.
Australia was not just another market for Sweet. It was one of the places where the band became a phenomenon. Sweet had 13 Top 50 Australian singles, including two number ones, and “Fox on the Run” became Australia’s biggest selling single of 1975. When I asked Andy why he felt Sweet connected so strongly here, he gave the kind of answer only a bloke who has lived the full madness of rock and roll could give.
“Well, it’s the same language to start with,” he laughed.
But beneath the humour was a clear affection for Australia. Scott remembered that when he and Mick Tucker reformed Sweet in 1985, the first place they came back to on the road was Australia. That connection has continued across decades, with Sweet returning to Australian stages again and again.
For Scott, The Final Blitz carries obvious weight, but he is not treating it like a funeral procession. He is approaching it in the way he seems to approach most things now, honestly and one day at a time.
“It may not be the final. There might be a final final,” he said, acknowledging recent health issues while leaving the door slightly open.
That honesty is part of what made the conversation so engaging. Scott missed Sweet’s 2024 Australian run after becoming seriously unwell, with Australian guitarist Randall Waller stepping in for those shows. Missing that tour clearly stayed with him. During the run, Sweet’s Tom Cory would film messages from fans after shows and put Andy on the phone so he could speak to them directly.
“They’re all saying, we missed you, come back,” Scott recalled. “I said, if I can get back on my feet, of course I’ll be back.”
Now he is.
The Band Beneath The Glam
Sweet’s history is often reduced to the glitter and the hits, but that only tells part of the story.
The classic lineup of Brian Connolly, Andy Scott, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker came together in 1970, and Scott remembers the chemistry being there almost immediately. Before he officially joined, he had already crossed paths with the band during BBC sessions. A year later came the audition. Brian arrived with a Philips cassette recorder, placed it in the middle of the room and captured the band running through a couple of songs.
That was the moment it clicked.
Scott said the first thing they realised was that they could all play together and that it sounded great. Looking back now, it is one of those simple moments that quietly changed rock history.
The early Sweet singles, driven by the Chinn and Chapman hit machine, gave the band huge commercial success. Songs like “Funny Funny,” “Co-Co” and “Wig Wam Bam” pushed them into the public eye, but Sweet’s evolution soon moved far beyond bubblegum pop.
Scott describes it as a journey. The band went from the early pop years into the glam explosion of “Block Buster!” and “Teenage Rampage,” before the shift became more obvious around “The Ballroom Blitz” and then fully broke through with “Fox on the Run.”
By the time “Fox on the Run” arrived, the old system was moving into the background. Sweet were writing for themselves, producing for themselves and pushing their own identity forward.
That mattered.
“Fox on the Run” was proof that Sweet were not just performers of someone else’s vision. They were a self-contained rock band with the hooks, the riffs and the studio instincts to make something enormous on their own terms.
The Dio Moment That Could Have Changed Everything
One of the most fascinating moments in Sweet’s history is the “what if” involving Ronnie James Dio.
After Brian Connolly’s departure in 1979, Sweet faced an impossible situation. Brian had been the face and voice of the band, but the remaining members were trying to work out how to continue. Scott had been speaking with Ronnie James Dio, and their American manager helped put the call through while Sweet were in the recording studio.
Scott went back into the room and told the others that Ronnie was interested.
“I think that we should certainly consider it,” he remembered saying.
Steve Priest disagreed. According to Scott, Steve felt the three remaining members should carry on together and that bringing in another frontman would change the dynamic too much. Andy, looking back now, is not sure Steve was thinking clearly about the future of the band, especially as his own life was moving toward America.
Sweet with Ronnie James Dio is one of those impossible alternate timelines. It might have pushed Sweet even further toward heavy metal, but it also may have turned them into something that was no longer Sweet.
As Scott put it, the band had always had a frontman. After Brian, it was never going to feel exactly the same again.
Love Is Like Oxygen And The Art Of Arrangement
If “Fox on the Run” proved Sweet could own the hit single on their own terms, “Love Is Like Oxygen” proved they could evolve into something grander, more progressive and more ambitious.
The song began with Sweet’s sound engineer Trevor Griffin playing piano ideas during downtime in studios, hotels and soundchecks. Griffin had been working on what he described as a miniature rock opera, with musical sections but no finished lyrical direction. Scott heard something in it and recorded the ideas.
Later, during the Level Headed period, the song began taking shape. When the record company listened to the album and felt there was not an obvious single, Scott played them his demo of “Love Is Like Oxygen.”
Their response was immediate.
“That’s it.”
What followed became one of Sweet’s defining works. Contrary to what some listeners assume, the backing track was not pieced together from separate sections. Scott says it was recorded in one pass, guided by a metronome feel and Mick Tucker tapping the hi-hat because there were no click tracks.
Scott later took the finished backing track home and recorded the vocal parts in his own studio before bringing them back. Brian Connolly then came in early one morning and delivered the verse vocal.
Scott still speaks about the song with pride, and rightly so.
“It’s a work of art when you think about it,” he said.
He is right. “Love Is Like Oxygen” remains one of Sweet’s most enduring statements because it refuses to sit in one box. It is pop, rock, progressive, dramatic and unmistakably Sweet.
Set Me Free And The Heavy Legacy
For Crannk readers, one of the most important parts of Sweet’s story is the band’s heavier legacy.
Before glam metal had a name, before the 80s took the formula of big choruses, flashy image and heavy guitars into arenas, Sweet were already building that language. The stacked vocals, the riff driven attack, the theatre, the hooks and the attitude all fed into generations of rock and metal that followed.
Scott can pinpoint the moment he realised heavier bands had truly absorbed Sweet’s influence.
“When Nikki Sixx got my home number and started to call me at about four o’clock in the morning,” he laughed.
That says plenty.
Mötley Crüe were not the only band to draw from Sweet’s blueprint. Def Leppard famously covered “Action,” while “Set Me Free” became one of those deeper cuts that heavy rock and metal musicians latched onto.
Scott wrote “Set Me Free” in a home garage studio in 1972, surrounded by carpets hung on the walls to deaden the sound. The setup was primitive, but the song had teeth. The band loved it immediately, and Andy even suggested it could be a single. The response from the producer was blunt: the BBC would never play it.
A few years later, Saxon recorded it.
That alone says everything about how forward thinking Sweet could be when they leaned into their heavier instincts.
Full Circle And New Sweet Music
In 2024, Sweet released Full Circle, a new studio album that felt far more meaningful than a late career nostalgia exercise.
The road to that album began during the COVID period with Isolation Boulevard, a project that allowed the newer lineup to record versions of the live greatest hits set. Because the band could not work in the same room in the usual way, Scott had to build parts from available live recordings, drum takes and outtakes. Rather than smoothing everything into something overly polished, they kept some endings intact, allowing the songs to break down in a more natural live band fashion.
Once the world opened back up, Sweet began working on Full Circle properly around 2022.
The album arrived with weight behind it. It was new Sweet music more than five decades after Scott first joined the band. It also gave the current lineup, Paul Manzi, Lee Small, Tom Cory and Adam Booth, a chance to add to the Sweet story rather than only perform the classics.
For a band with this much history, that matters. Legacy is important, but a band only stays alive when it continues to breathe.
One More Blitz Across Australia
The Final Blitz Tour will bring Sweet back to Australia for a greatest hits run across Perth, Adelaide, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
Fans can expect the songs that built the legend: “The Ballroom Blitz,” “Fox on the Run,” “Love Is Like Oxygen,” “Wig Wam Bam,” “Block Buster!,” “Teenage Rampage,” “Hell Raiser,” “Action” and more.
But this tour is about more than a setlist.
It is about Andy Scott returning after missing the previous Australian tour. It is about one of rock’s great survivors coming back to a country that has loved Sweet from the beginning. It is about hearing songs that helped shape glam rock, hard rock, melodic rock and glam metal from the man who helped create them.
Sweet were never just the costumes. They were never just the singles. They were never just the glitter.
They were a heavy, harmony driven, hook loaded rock band who changed the shape of what came after them.
And this October and November, Australian fans get one more chance to feel that blitz.
Sweet The Final Blitz Australian Tour Dates
Friday, October 30
Perth, The Astor Theatre
Thursday, November 5
Adelaide, Thebarton Theatre
Saturday, November 7
Launceston, Albert Hall
Sunday, November 8
Hobart, Theatre Royal
Thursday, November 12
Narre Warren, Bunjil Place
Friday, November 13
Geelong, Costa Hall
Saturday, November 14
Melbourne, Palais Theatre
Thursday, November 19
Sydney, The Enmore Theatre
Friday, November 20
Penrith, Evan Theatre Penrith Panthers
Saturday, November 21
Newcastle, Civic Theatre
Tuesday, November 24
Thirroul, Anita’s Theatre
Thursday, November 26
Tweed Heads, Twin Towns
Friday, November 27
Caloundra, The Events Centre
Saturday, November 28
Brisbane, The Princess Theatre
Tickets and full tour information are available through Metropolis Touring.
Tickets and tour info:
https://metropolistouring.com/sweet-uk-2026/
