Paul Gilbert told Kylie Olsonn in a new interview that late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads didn’t give fans a good value at a guitar clinic in 1982.
“Yeah, well, it was really a crazy coincidence because I grew up in a small town called Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and the only guitar clinic that Randy ever did was in Greensburg, Pennsylvania!
“I couldn’t believe it when the local music store arranged it. I knew the guys at the music store, they said, ‘Yeah, Randy’s going to come and do a clinic.’ I’m like, ‘What?!’
“So I went in and watched, and I have to say that the clinic was disappointing… The show that night, I went to the Ozzy show that night and that was amazing! Totally great.
“But at the clinic, he didn’t have any distortion. He had a Marshall amp, and it was an amp that in order to get distortion, he had to turn it up to dangerous volume levels.
“So he just had a clean sound. People would say, ‘Can you show us something…?’ And he wouldn’t.
“The thing I loved about Randy was all the distortion stuff and he didn’t have the equipment to really demonstrate that.
“So he mostly just talked. As a person he was wonderful, he was friendly and nice, and willing to share anything. But he really didn’t play much and so that’s why it was disappointing – he barely played.”
