Gus G. is the golden child. Having stepped so confidently into the admittedly big shoes of Zakk Wylde as guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne’s band, the Greek six-stringer has almost single-handedly brought the Oz back to his old school glory, displaying more energy and legitimate power than we’ve seen from Osbourne in years. It’s fun to watch Ozzy play again, as evidenced from the triumphant homecoming Ozzfest gigs these past few months.
What some mainstream Ozzy fans may not know, however, is that Gus G. has actually been kicking ‘round the scene for many years with his band Firewind. Over the course of recent efforts—most impressively Allegiance and The Premonition—Gus and Co. have rocked out traditional 80s-styled metal with huge hooks and big blues/rock vocal melodies, courtesy of vocalist Apollo Papathansio, who also does time in Arch Enemy guitarist Michael Amott’s 70s inspired Spiritual Beggars.
Days of Defiance is Firewind’s latest ‘n greatest, however—the album which will hopefully launch the Greek outfit (minus new drummer Michael Ehre) in the stratosphere of today’s greatest modern metal acts…and into the ears of young headbangers across the country.
“I couldn’t be happier, man!” admits the affable guitarist. “It was tough balancing things in the beginning, because I didn’t know what playing with Ozzy was gonna be like, but it’s worked out fine. A lot of people have been taking notice of Firewind because of me playing with Ozzy, especially in America, and obviously I’ve been busy the past year playing with him, but I did find time to write and record Days of Defiance, and now is a good time to release it, because Ozzfest is winding down. There’s some off time in between Ozzy tours, so this is when Firewind will be able to play. It’s gonna be a lot of work for me, but it’s gonna be fun! It’ll be fun to try and take it to the next level.”
“Being in Ozzy’s band has helped a lot,” he continues. “It was definitely natural doing the record, though. I actually wrote a couple of these songs on the road in 2008. This time, we paid a lot of attention to the vocals. We let Apollo do his own thing with his own producer in Sweden. It took months for him to finish, but we wanted the best possible results. For the rest of us, we recorded in our respective home studios. It’s nice to travel out and stay in studios, but it can be stressful when you’re under the gun or pressed for time. We didn’t want that this time, and we were very relaxed in our own home studios. As a result, I think that captured some good performances.”
Apollo is indeed on fire here with Days of Defiance. Coming off as the Greek equivalent of David Coverdale, Papathanasio’s performance is pristine, passionate and powerful…which begs the question: would Gus ever want to go back and re-record Firewind’s older material, giving it an Apollo once-over?
“Well, we kind of did that with the live record we released a couple years ago,” says Gus, “but I wouldn’t wanna touch the old records, to be honest. For example, Arch Enemy re-recorded those old songs with Angela singing, but I don’t think you can capture the magic of old albums like that; each album is special for what it is, and it should remain as such. I mean, you wouldn’t want to hear Bruce Dickinson re-do those old Paul Di’anno albums, or Tony Martin re-doing Sabbath’s Paranoid, would you? I think hearing new singers do the songs live is just enough.”
What’s so refreshing about Gus G.—besides this last statement—is how well his playing here on Days of Defiance balances The Art of Shredding with the art of The Song. Thin Lizzy eventually come up in our conversation with regards to frontman Phil Lynott’s legendary grasp of songwriting, and this writer’s approximation of new jam ‘Cold As Ice’ being highly influenced by late Lizzy axeman John Sykes.
Gus is suitably excited by my comparison. “I love Thin Lizzy, man! I like John Sykes, but my favorite Lizzy guitarist is Gary Moore. I love him, Michael Schenker, Tony Iommi, Yngwie Malmsteen…those kinds of guys. We’ve always focused on songwriting—we like to do the verse/chorus/verse/solo/out sort of structure. It comes natural to us. We like memorable songs with good hooks and vocals. There’s space for shredding and musicianship, but there’s always a balance. We try to combine it if the song calls for it.”
Which brings us back to Ozzy, and Gus’ 80s styled guitar playing—an aesthetic which brings to mind one of Ozzy’s most unsung axe-slinging heroes, the massive Jake E. Lee. Gus had apparently fought hard to bring back some of Lee’s classic back catalog work into the Oz’s setlist, the results of which have been nothing but incendiary on recent Ozzfest tour stops.
We all kinda told Ozzy, ‘hey, now that you have a new band, we can do anything you want!’ The Jake E. Lee era is so underrated, and he’s such a great player. We made up a huge list of songs to learn, and gave them to Ozzy. Songs like ‘Shot In the Dark’ and ‘Killer of Giants’ went over great, and he remembered again how great those songs were, because apparently he doesn’t have a great memory from that era! He’s happy to do those songs again.”
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