Randall William Rhoads (December 6, 1956 – March 19, 1982) was an American guitarist. He was the co-founder and original guitarist of the heavy metal band Quiet Riot, and the guitarist and co-songwriter for Ozzy Osbourne's first two solo albums Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). Rhoads was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
Pursuing an interest in classical guitar, Rhoads combined these influences with heavy metal, helping form a sub-genre later known as neoclassical metal. With Quiet Riot, he adopted a black-and-white polka-dot theme which became an emblem for the group. He reached his peak as the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne's solo career, performing on tracks including "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" on the Blizzard of Ozz album. "Crazy Train" features one of the most well-known heavy metal guitar riffs.
He died in a plane crash while on tour with Osbourne in Florida in 1982. Despite his short career, Rhoads is regarded as a pivotal figure in metal music, credited with pioneering a fast and technical style of guitar soloing that largely defined the metal scene of the 1980s. He helped popularize various guitar techniques now common in heavy metal music, including two-handed tapping, vibrato bar dive bombs, and intricate scale patterns, drawing comparisons to his contemporary Eddie Van Halen. The Jackson Rhoads guitar was originally commissioned by him. He has been included in several published "Greatest Guitarist" lists, and has been cited by other prominent guitarists as a major influence.
Rhoads was born on December 6, 1956, in Santa Monica, California, to Bill and Delores Rhoads. He was the youngest of three children. His parents were both music teachers. His brother Douglas was also a musician, who performed under the name "Kelle". In 1958, when Rhoads was 17 months old, his father left the family and remarried. Bill would work for the Ovation Guitar Company, before moving to Connecticut and working as a band director for Regional School District 15. All three children were subsequently raised by their mother, Delores. She had received a bachelor's degree in music from UCLA and had played piano professionally. She opened a music school in North Hollywood called Musonia to support the family and taught Randy to read sheet music. According to Kelle, she was responsible for changing a policy at UCLA according to which a woman could not be first chair in the brass section. The short instrumental "Dee", which Randy wrote and performed on Ozzy Osbourne's debut solo album Blizzard of Ozz, is a tribute to her.
The Rhoads family did not own a stereo, and the children created their own music at home to entertain themselves. Rhoads listened to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as a child and would imitate their performances with his brother Kelle in the family garage. Rhoads began folk and classical guitar lessons at approximately age seven at his mother's music school. He became interested in rock guitar and began lessons at Musonia from Scott Shelly. Shelly soon approached Rhoads' mother to inform her that he could no longer teach her son, as Rhoads' knowledge of the electric guitar had exceeded his own. Rhoads also received piano lessons from his mother to help build his understanding of music theory. Rhoads' father Bill bought him his first electric guitar, an Ovation Tornado, as a gift.
Rhoads met future bandmate Kelly Garni while attending John Muir Middle School in Burbank, California, and the two became best friends. According to Garni, the pair were unpopular due to "the way we looked. Every time we showed up for school it was usually problematic, so we pretty much avoided it. We weren't nerds, we weren't jocks, we weren't dopers, we were just on our own." Rhoads' sister Kathy recalled, "People really gave him a hard time. They used to want to beat him up." Rhoads taught Garni how to play bass guitar, and together they formed a band called The Whore, rehearsing during the day at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, a 1970s Hollywood nightspot. It was during this period that Rhoads learned to play lead guitar. "When I met him he didn't know how to play lead guitar yet at all. He was just starting to take lessons for it and really just riffing around," said Garni. Rhoads spent several months playing at backyard parties around the Los Angeles area in the mid-1970s.
The pair performed for a short time in a backing band for a vocalist remembered only as Smokey before forming a cover band, Violet Fox, with Rhoads' older brother Kelle on drums. Violet Fox, which was together for approximately five months, staged several performances in the Grand Salon at Musonia. Among their setlist was "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain and songs from the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper and David Bowie. After Violet Fox dissolved, Rhoads formed various other short-lived bands such as The Katzenjammer Kids and Mildred Pierce. The Katzenjammer Kids' lead vocalist would often wear dresses on stage, which sometimes led to violent reactions from the audience.
According to Garni, he and Rhoads frequently listened to Long Beach, California radio station KNAC because it was "the only radio station that would play anything of interest to us," and it was through KNAC that Rhoads discovered much of the music that influenced his playing. The home of a neighborhood friend with a high-quality stereo and large record collection became a regular hangout for the pair, and there they smoked pot and listened to more obscure hard rock music such as early Scorpions records.
Live bootleg recordings were very popular at that time, and Rhoads began to take note of the differences between studio recordings and the live versions, particularly the different licks guitarists incorporated when playing live. He began to memorize these licks and taught himself to play them. Rhoads' brother states that a July 11, 1971, Alice Cooper concert at the Long Beach Auditorium that the pair attended was a defining point in the guitarist's life. After the concert was over he noted:
Randy was mesmerized. He was catatonic, just staring at the stage. Later that night Randy said 'I can do this. I can look like this. I can be this.' Something clicked that night and I think that kind of showed him what he could do with his talent.
Garni concurs, calling Rhoads' discovery of Alice Cooper "a game changer." Guitarists Glen Buxton, Mick Ronson, and Leslie West were early influences on his playing. Rhoads was also an admirer of the Uriah Heep album, Demons and Wizards.
At age 16, Rhoads and Kelly Garni formed the band Little Women. At approximately the same time, Rhoads began teaching guitar in his mother's school during the day and playing live gigs at night. He graduated from Burbank High School, participating in a special program that allowed him to condense his studies and graduate early so he could teach guitar and pursue music full-time. Recruiting lead vocalist Kevin DuBrow and drummer Drew Forsyth, the band soon changed its name to Quiet Riot.
Forsyth had periodically played with Rhoads and Garni in the past, most notably in Mildred Pierce. DuBrow was an L.A. photographer who was not at all what Rhoads had in mind for his new band, and he was not well liked by his Quiet Riot bandmates, a situation that caused a great deal of tension within the band. Rhoads had envisioned a frontman in the vein of Alice Cooper or David Bowie, but DuBrow was persistent and would not take no for an answer. In the end, Rhoads and Garni decided that if nothing else, DuBrow shared their enthusiasm and he was hired.
Quiet Riot quickly became one of the most popular acts on the Los Angeles club circuit, and by late 1976 had secured a record deal with CBS/Sony Records. Fans began showing up at Quiet Riot shows wearing polka-dots, emulating the polka-dot vests and bow-ties that Rhoads wore onstage. He also had a polka-dot Flying V-style guitar custom made by a local luthier.
While the band had a strong following in Los Angeles, Quiet Riot and Quiet Riot II were released only in Japan. The relationship between DuBrow and Garni had also deteriorated completely during the recording of the band's second album, with potentially catastrophic results. After drunkenly firing a handgun through the ceiling and engaging in a fistfight with Rhoads, Garni hatched a plan to shoot and kill DuBrow at The Record Plant studio while recording the album. Rhoads was left with no choice but to fire his longtime friend and band co-founder.