Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently interviewed ex-Quiet Riot‘s co-founder, bassist and best friend of Randy Rhoads, Kelly Garni.
Garni spoke about his book Angles with Dirty Faces, which talks about growing up with Randy Rhoads, playing in bands together prior to Quiet Riot, hiring Kevin Dubrow and getting into trouble with the law. Watch part 1 of a 2 part interview.
Watch the interview, Pt.1, here:
When asked about growing up with Randy Rhoads
“We were twelve years old at the time and Randy made me into a bass player and together we had this dream of becoming rock stars. We did not like hate, adversity, differences, people not getting along or people judging others. Also there were a many times when me and Randy got thrown in jail for some things. We got thrown in jail for being out too late, being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being drunk. Randy even got arrested once for playing his guitar too loud in his house. Me and Randy were jamming in his house, a cop showed up and said the neighbours were pressing charges because we were playing too loud, then the cop put Randy in handcuffs, into the police car and then to jail, he was 15 years old. But didn’t take me to jail? There were also some more circumstances that pissed the neighbours off that aggravated it all that lead to do this as well. But we learnt our lesson and did not annoy the neighbour anymore. ”
When asked if Randy Rhoads older brother Kelle exposed both them to the world of rock music
“I have to say that Randy’s brother influenced us in lots of ways not only in music. He was older than us and he was a lot like us. Kelle was wearing all these cool clothes and we kind of emulated him. Then musically he had played in bands and me and Randy would be roadies for them just to be around the music and to be at the parties. So we watched his brother doing this and we said we can do this too and so we did. Kelle Rhoads also introduced us to a band called Alice Cooper and we really liked the way the band looked. Kelle Rhaods then brought us to see Alice Cooper which was out first real concert and we thought we want to be and strive to be like them. ”
When asked about bringing in Kevin Dubrow as the singer of Quiet Riot
“We auditioned a lot of singers at the time and we were trying to find the right guy and then we met Kevin Dubrow. The second we laid eyes on him we said let’s go. He was not what we wanted. We just thought at the time Kevin he was a complete loser. We both did not like him at all. Kevin was not like anything we were looking for, Randy and me had a dream of having a singer that was like Alice Cooper or David Bowie. Neither of us wanted Kevin Dubrow but Kevin was such a forceful person and such a driven person we just said oh man why the hell not. let’s just go with this guy at least he is into it as much as we are. I will say this about Kevin as much as me and Randy wanted to be rock stars Kevin wanted it even more so he did have that going for him. We then jammed with him at Randy’s house and he sounded terrible. So we finally made Kevin a deal, we said we will be in a band with you but you have to learn how to sing because you can’t. But if you listen to us maybe we can help you. Kevin tried so hard and over time he became passable and then from there we decided to form a real band. Kevin went out and got us a real manager that would put some money into the band and a manager that would give us a real place to rehearse.”
To be continued.
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