Michael Wright from Gibson.com is reporting:

On March 19, 1982, a horrible tragedy struck the rock world. Randy Rhoads, the guitarist for OZZY OSBOURNE died in an airplane crash in Leesburg, Florida. For the music world, it was the loss of a unique and virtuosic talent. For the Rhoads family in North Hollywood, California, the loss was much more personal. Randy was the baby of the family: beloved son to his mother Delores (serenaded as “Dee” on the Blizzard Of Ozz album) and kid brother to elder brother Kelly and sister Kathy.

The Rhoads family were - and are - a tight-knit bunch. For the past 28 years, even as they have thrived with the family music school, Kelly’s own musical pursuits and Kathy’s successful vineyard, they have always dedicated time, attention and love to Randy’s legacy. With Gibson paying tribute to Randy Rhoads this week with the release of the Randy Rhoads Les Paul Custom, Gibson.com sat down with Kelly and Kathy to talk about Randy’s life and that ever-growing legacy.

Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Gibson.com: You were mentioning how, as an older brother, you had an effect on Randy’s musical taste. What are some of the records you shoved in his face? What are some of the concerts you took him to?

Kelly: "Well this story is getting pretty well known by now but I don’t get tired of hearing it. In 1971 I decided that ALICE COOPER was the one with the right idea. That was the man. I made my brother and Kelli, my brother’s friend, go to see the Alice Cooper show in Long beach – the place has been torn down and doesn’t even exist anymore. We went to the Long Beach Auditorium – we say the Love It To Death tour, where he does 'Eighteen'. That made a profound impression on Randy. I know from that point on he decided that this was something that he could do. He thought, “I could do this. I can be this bizarre and play this good.” What can I say? Full circle. When I met him, Alice said he would have loved if Randy would have been in his band. A couple of years later, in 1973, we snuck into where Alice was doing a concert to promote Billion Dollar Babies, and we absolutely insisted – and wouldn’t take no for an answer – that we were going to be the roadies, or help the roadies. We were so persistent and such pest that they let us do it. We sold our tickets and helped set the show up."

Gibson.com: So it’s about this time that Randy's musical taste started drifting more towards hard rock and what would become heavy metal? Or does that go back even earlier?

Kelly: "It started around that time. There were a couple of other groups that we liked, and they all tended to be like super hard rock with a theatrical image."

Gibson.com: Groups like who?

Kelly: "KISS to an extent, a little bit; like the first KISS record. QUEEN. We discovered Queen and the very first Queen record. We liked them a whole lot. Silverhead, a band that had Michael Des Barres in it, who eventually was the singer in Detective. Another band that I liked a whole lot but was a little bit later – and a perfect example of that kind of thing – was WIDOWMAKER, a Jett Records band with Ariel Bender in it. We liked PRETTY THINGS. We liked IGGY AND THE STOOGES, even before Raw Power. We liked that kind of stuff."

Read the entire interview here.