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Randy Rhodes Influence On Zakk Wylde and More

05/16/2013
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(Gibson) The Gibson Les Paul is one of the most celebrated guitars of all time, and nobody rocks it like Zakk Wylde. His driving hard-charging stage show, furious soloing and lightning-fast picking earned Wylde legions of fans as Ozzy Osbourne's lead guitarist, and now, he rocks the stage fulltime as the frontman for Black Label Society. Today, Gibson.com is celebrating Wylde by looking back at a few choice quotes from the guitar master.

On what made him want to play guitar, as told to Guitar World: "I was a huge Black Sabbath and Ozzy fan, and I loved the stuff Tony Iommi and Randy Rhoads were doing on guitar so I decided to start playing. I took lessons from a guy named Leroy Wright. I was, like, 15 at the time, and he was 25, and when I saw him playing it blew me away. When you hear somebody play, it's exciting, but when I actually saw him play, I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet. I was so intrigued by the whole thing that I just went, 'That's what I want to do with my life!' And to this day I've still got the same hard-on. All I've got to do is listen to great players and I go, 'Man, I can get better.' You can never get tired of that."

On being thankful for his career in music, as told to the AU Review: " � I thank the good Lord every day. I thank him when I wake up and when I go to bed. I thank him in the middle of the day. I'm definitely grateful for everything I have. Hands down. I don't need a tragedy to happen to realize how blessed I am. I don't need that. I don't need to beat up an 80-year-old grandmother and do six years in jail to realize that beating up elderly people and stealing their money is really not a good thing� I'm a soldier of Christ, man. Without a doubt� The bottom line is that He's with me all the time."

On Randy Rhodes' influence on how he approaches the guitar, as told to Legendary Rock Interviews: "Randy always meant the world to me and he still does. I still have pictures of him up on my wall to this day. It's awesome seeing the kind of outpouring that still exists for him. I mean, Randy is like Hendrix in that the work he achieved will live forever. I mean, we've all heard the stories about how he was considering leaving the rock touring business and going off into the sunset to study and teach classical but that didn't happen. Sadly, he could have been teaching and teaching into his golden years. His recordings that he left us are his legacy, his guitar playing speaks for itself. It's SLAMMING. That's why people are gathering thirty years later, his playing had that much impact. He will always be an iconic guitar player, always." more on this story

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Copyright Gibson.com - Excerpted here with permission.

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