RANDY RHOADS REMEMBERED TOUR HITS RHODE ISLAND AND NEW JERSEY NEXT WEEK
Randy Rhoads Remembered shows will take place on the East Coast next week, where the life and music of Randy Rhoads will be celebrated by performing the songs from Ozzy Osbourne’s “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman” and other selected tracks. (INFORMATION ON UPCOMING SHOWS)
Paul Donahue, Jr. interviewed several participants of the RRR mini tour to get some of their thoughts on Randy Rhoads music and how special it is to each of them.
The event was conceived, created and organized by Brian Tichy, who, in terms of bands, has “played in a lot over a long period of time… some tying directly into Randy… Ozzy Osbourne (with Joe Holmes – a student of Randy Rhoads), Zakk Wylde’s Pride & Glory, Lynch Mob, Foreigner, Slash’s Snakepit, Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Geoff Tate’s Queensryche, Steven Tyler, my band S.U.N., Gilby Clarke, Glenn Hughes, Vinnie Moore, Dead Daisies, and many others”.
Tichy first heard Randy’s playing when he was in the 7th grade during an Ozzy interview on the radio. “They said they were going to play the first track from Blizzard of Ozz. It came on, Randy slid into the intro riff, and I was blown away. I was fixated on every lick he played, Fire was coming out of my radio speakers! When his solo came in it sounded like THE PERFECT SOLO to my ears! I was simply blown away. They did more interviewing, then played ‘Crazy Train’. I went out and got that LP asap. This was also at the time I just started getting real interested in guitar, so “Blizzard’ was THE main record I tried to imitate and learn at the time, even though I barely knew what I was doing!”
The first Randy Rhoads related song he learned to perform was “I Don’t Know — Track one, side one, record one! I love “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll”……. I love the underdog ‘Little Dolls’, but I think the mightiest is Diary of a Madman……. My favorite is “Over The Mountain” — It’s got it all!
This event obviously means a lot to Tichy. “I wouldn’t have moved forward with this idea if I wasn’t a huge Randy fan. And knowing there are so many pro players that are equally as big of fans made it seem like it could be time well spent. It’s first about celebrating all things Randy, then it’s a communal gathering that forms a bond between like minds and therein lies new relationships with people you didn’t know that well, or were a fan of, or had great respect for that now are your good buds …. all via growing up on Randy Rhoads! RRR simply brings people together!”
Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal was “11 years old, playing guitar, writing songs and playing shows” when he first heard Randy Rhoads. “I don’t remember exactly where I was when I first heard Randy, but I remember immediately changing all my gear, getting a Marshall combo.”
“At the time I heard ‘Over the Mountain,’ I didn’t have a guitar with a vibrato bar…. I actually constructed one out of a giant screw, springs and a circular tailpiece. It broke quickly… third bend…”
When he was was playing in bars at age 14, his band did almost every song off both “Blizzard” and “Diary”. There’s a recording of young Bumblefoot’s band from when he was 13 doing “Over the Mountain“, with a great article of him discussing Randy’s music at Music Radar that’s definitely worth checking out.
While he loves all the RR songs, his favorites are “Mr. Crowley“, “Over The Mountain“, “S.A.T.O.”, and “Diary of a Madman“. To Bumblefoot, the RRR shows are “a statement about how Randy had a huge impact on the decades of players that followed….. how the music he made is timeless…”
Stephen LeBlanc (RRR keyboardist – also of the Moby Dicks, Bonzo Bash, Bill House Band, SLEB (solo) and recording session ace) said he was “a kid with a cassette player….. my older brother bought ‘Blizzard’ on cassette the first week it came out” and cites that as his favorite RR-era Ozzy album He first learned “Crazy Train”, felt that “Revelation: Mother Earth” was the most difficult to learn and his favorite is “Believer”
To LeBlanc, these shows are “reminding the world that Randy was not only one of the best, but a true pioneer of rock guitar right up there with Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix.”
“Metal” Mike Chlasciak (guitarist for Halford, “Metal for Life” Guitar World Columnist and leader of his own Metal Heroes Academy) came from school one day and the “Crazy Train” video came on MTV. That was the first RR song he learned on guitar. When asked to pick a favorite between the Blizzard and Diary albums, he said, “I can’t. I look at both albums as a whole” and that “Randy had a great way in structuring songs.” His favorite RR tunes are “I Don’t Know” and “Steal Away The Night”. For the RRR shows, he said, “I think it is a wonderful way to preserve the legacy of Randy and a great way to let Randy’s family know how much he means to guitar players of today.”
Chris Caffery, who has a new album with Trans Siberian Orchestra, just finished his album as a solo artist for summer release and will be reuniting with Savatage at the Wacken Festival in July, had tickets to see Randy in concert when “He passed away the week before I had tickets. I was so devastated.” He first learned “Suicide Solution”, his favorites are “DOAM” and “Revelation: Mother Earth”, stating that “those two were so epic!” Caffery said that in terms of learning RR songs, “each one has it’s moments. I think just capturing Dee is probably the most because it was very personal to his style outside of hard rock.”
He went on to say that “This tour is a way for me to play some of the greatest guitar music ever. It is an honor to play it in front of his family and with some of the most incredible musicians on the planet!”
Heavy Metal Hill 