When Ozzy Osbourne split from Black Sabbath and hired Randy Rhoads to help launch his solo career, the young virtuoso was destined to become a legend. Marty Friedman saw the pair in action, and he knew Rhoads was special from the off.
As Ozzy assembled a solo band, Rhoads came in and blew all the hopefuls away. So much so, in fact, that bass player Bob Daisley had a premonition about his impending greatness after his audition.
Speaking in a soon-to-be-published Guitar World roundtable alongside Scott Ian, David Ellefson, and Randy’s sister, Kathy, Friedman recalled the first time he set his eyes and ears on the guitarist’s talents.
“I love Ozzy,” he says. “I'm the biggest Black Sabbath fan on earth, but that was the Randy Rhoads show. Every single eye was on him at that show. Mine included. There's this legend [Ozzy] standing next to him, but I'm not watching the legend. I'm watching this new guy on guitar.”
The roundtable celebrates Jackson’s new Legends Series, which pays tribute to the firm's defining metal guitar players with reissues of their most fabled instruments. Rhoads, who tragically died aged just 25, was honored in the drop.
His sister, Kathy, remembers her brother as someone whose passions were on the music, and far away from the rockstar trimmings that came with being Ozzy’s virtuosic foil.
“Randy didn't care about being a rock star,” she says. “He wanted to be a musician. Away from the spotlight, he was quiet and unassuming but put a guitar in his hands and everything changed.
“He was such a kind, gentle, humble soul. But when he got on that stage, he was a beast.”
Rhoads' famous Concorde V was reissued in the Legend Series, after his signature MXR Distortion was given a Concorde-inspired colorway in 2024.
Since his death, the original Concorde V has remained locked away. Tom Morello has been one of very few people to have been granted an audience with it since. It’s an honor he doesn’t understate.
Friedman, meanwhile, has been looking at the future of shred guitar, and has named one young player, who reminds him of playing with Jason Becker, as his favorite jam partner.
