Watch: GUS G. Joins STEEL PANTHER On Stage In Thes…

Greek guitar virtuoso Gus G., who served as Ozzy Osbourne‘s lead guitarist from 2009 to 2017, joined STEEL PANTHER on stage last night (Friday, July 12) at the Moni Lazariston festival in Thessaloniki, Greece to perform the Ozzy classic “Crazy Train”. Video of his appearance can be seen below.

In a recent interview with Radioactive MikeZ, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM program “Wired In The Empire”, Gus was asked if there is a “signature song” on Ozzy‘s 2010 album “Scream” where he “really put [his] stamp” on. He responded: “I think the main single, the lead single, ‘Let Me Hear You Scream’, that’s the one. Because I remember recording the album in Ozzy‘s studio and spending four or five weeks there doing guitars. And I remember flying back to Greece, ’cause that’s where I live, and I remember, I was, like, ‘Okay, I’m done with guitars. Everything is done.’ And then I got an e-mail from Sharon [Osbourne, Ozzy‘s wife and manager], and she was, like, ‘We need you to come back to re-record one solo for ‘Let Me Hear You Scream’.’ And I’m, like, ‘Why? I thought it was great.’ And she’s, like, ‘Well, look, this is gonna be the first song that people will hear you on. You’re gonna be the new guy and people will be checking you out on that one. So, I just think you can do better.’ And, man, she was right. I was taken a back for a little bit. I was, like, ‘What?’ But then I sat down — I don’t know. I just dissected each part down. It was a different vibe of going into it. Like, ‘Okay, I have to think that this is gonna be the first thing that somebody is gonna hear me on that has no idea who this guy is. So we have to grab their attention.’ So I think that solo is very representative of my style. There’s a lot of those kind of things that I do a lot on my playing. And it’s just such a cool track. It’s a big song, man. So I’m really proud of that.”

Asked if he is a guy who normally writes out the solos or he just “freeforms” it, Gus responded: “I do write the solos. I do. I come from the Randy Rhoads kind of school — construct the solos part by part. I do think the parts out. I mean, I do improvise a little bit over the backing track to get some initial ideas and stuff, and then I kind of narrow it down to what it would be like and then piece it all together.”

Back in November 2019, Gus was asked during a clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark about the experience of recording the “Scream” album. He said: “You can say it was nerve-racking. They made sure that I was very comfortable. We were recording in Ozzy‘s house. He had this amazing million-dollar studio in his basement. And they were, like, ‘Just take your time. Play your guitars. Take as long as you like.’ So it was cool. I was hanging out there for a few weeks with his producer, Kevin Churko. It was great times. He didn’t stress me. He just let me do my thing down there. We had a lunch break, and he would come down and take a listen to what I’d done for the day and tell a joke.

“It was also an interesting album for me, because I’m so used to writing the stuff,” he continued. “But [the basic music] was already there. It was kind of weird, because the songs were there — the basic song structures — but they had no solo parts, and the riffs were not really there either; just like themes. The producer would come and chop them in Pro Tools. So my job was to come in and replay this and make it sound as natural as possible. I redid all the stuff. I did all the solo sections; there was no solo parts or melodies or anything like that. So it was a very fun experience.

“Of course, when you’re there, you can’t help but think of all the guys that were there in that band,” Gus added, referring to previous Ozzy guitarists like Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Zakk Wylde. “You’re, like, ‘Oh my God. How are we gonna release this? How can that thing compare to any of that?’ So it’s always there; that ghost is there somehow. But at the end of the day, you just do your best. It is what it is for the time being.

“I look at music albums as photo albums, in a way, of your life and where you are at a certain point, how your playing is, how your style [is], how your feelings come out. At the end of the day, you do what you can do for the time being, and then you obviously want to get better for the next album.”

In 2018, Gus told TrueMetal.it that “it was a little bit of a relief” to find out that Ozzy was getting back together with his longtime axeman Zakk Wylde seven years ago. “I was just kind of tired of waiting around for all these years, not hearing anything about potential tours or recording activities,” Gus said at the time. “Of course, [Ozzy] was very busy with BLACK SABBATH — I understand that — but then in between of all that, there would be all these one-off [solo Ozzy] shows popping up and I had to make myself available for that. But there was never any… I felt like there was no… I didn’t see stuff coming up for the future, you know? So, as much as I loved being in that band and working with him, in a way, it was a little bit of a dead end for me, speaking personally. Of course, now he’s gonna go on a big tour again and do his farewell thing, and that’s great for him, but it was not a creative thing for me.”

Gus‘s band FIREWIND released its latest studio album, “Stand United”, in March via AFM Records.