Jimmy Kay from The Metal Voice Spoke with Ex- Ozzy Osbourne guitarist GUS G along with his guitar (who is in lock down in Greece) on The Metal Voice Facebook live. Subjects- Playing with Ozzy, New self titled Firewind Album, riff for fans and Q & A.
New Firewind self-titled 9th studio album will be released on May 15th on AFM.
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Tell me about the Coronavirus situation in Greece?
“In Greece we are on a total lock down, you need written permission to leave the house. You are only allowed to go grocery shopping or go to the doctor stuff like that. Last week some people drove about an hour away where there were beaches to escape the city and a lot of people got fines for that. This is a new thing, it’s pretty serious, I understand it’s tough to stay home but we have to do it. This is the time to play by the rules, for the sake of humanity. ”
What is the difference between your new album and albums you have done in the past?
“First of all there is another new singer (Herbie Langhans), also another difference is guitarist/keyboardist Bob Katsionis is not in the band anymore so there is less keyboards. It’s kind of like a reboot, a restart of the band. It’s still a Firewind record, people will hear the resemblance on a lot of the tracks cause I am the primary songwriter in the band. It’s also a different record compared to the last album ‘Immortals’. The last album was a concept album that was epic and power metal album. Whereas this new one I feel is a little bit of a collection of elements that sum up Firewind over the years with a new approach. There is also a lot of variation on the record. The first single we put out ‘Rising Fire’ is kind of like more hard rock, stomping, heavy, then there are other tracks that are more epic power metal, then we also have this big ballad with orchestration by Adam Wakeman.”
What did Herbie the new singer bring to the table on the new album?
“He was a great addition and was a great help on this record because we were on a tight deadline and he got to work right away on the lyrics and melodies. We worked every day and was easy to work with and helped a lot in bringing the album to completion.”
What did you think about Ozzy’s new album Ordinary Man?
“I have to say I like the album. I am happy to see Ozzy recovering and being creative in his downtime. I thought the production was very cool stripped down, back to basics production but still very big and clear. I think there are some really good songs on the record. ”
Do you ever wish you got the chance to write an album with Ozzy?
“I think it would have been nice to write something from scratch with Ozzy, I never got that chance to sit down and properly write an album with him. But you have to understand Ozzy Osbourne the solo artist is not what it was in the 80’s where he had a band. Now he writes with different people, tries out different things and I get it. I always take the best out of each situation. I played on one of his studio albums, how cool is that?
