Guitarist Gus G. (Firewind, Ozzy Osbourne), recently spoke to Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice about trying to make it in music business in Greece, his audition and contributions in his time with Ozzy Osbourne, and his new album Fearless, which was released April 20th via AFM Records

On his audition with Ozzy after the departure of Zakk Wylde: “I ended up being a touring guitarist for Arch Enemy, so there I was at OzzFest with Maiden and Sabbath my first big American tour. What happened that summer there was an announcement that Ozzy was parting ways with Zakk Wylde and he was looking for a guitar player. So I popped in the production office on one of those days on the tour and I just left a Firewind CD on the desk and I said 'hey I’m on the second stage with Arch Enemy and I heard you were looking for a guitar player'. But nothing came out of it and I didn’t hear anything because Zakk continued with Ozzy, they made another record Black Rain. Fast forward into 2009 I was having a little bit of success with Firewind. I got an email from Sharon’s management and they asked me to audition for Ozzy. It was crazy, I couldn’t sleep for three days, I couldn’t believe it . At that point I was thinking I didn’t really expect anything would come out of it. I didn’t think of myself being that good for the band and for the part of guitarist for Ozzy. I thought if anything else it will be a thing to remember for life, that will be a story to tell. I got nothing to lose.”

On what songs he played during the audition for Ozzy: “We played ‘Bark At The Moon’, ‘I Don’t Know’, ‘Suicide Solution’, ‘Paranoid’, ‘I Don't Want To Change The World’. Five or six songs. Ozzy looked impressed right from the get go, I guess somebody showed him some video of me before and it was like this is the guy! Ozzy even told me before the audition, 'don’t have any stress I saw some videos of you and I have a really good feeling about this so if you make mistakes don’t worry about it'. The audition went well.”

Fearless is the successor to 2015’s Brand New Revolution and marks the Firewind mastermind’s first release since exiting Ozzy Osbourne’s band in 2017. On Fearless, Gus joins forces with vocalist/bassist Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69, Unisonic) and drummer Will Hunt (Evanescence, Black Label Society). Order the album at this location.

Tracklisting:

"Letting Go"
"Mr Manson"
"Don't Tread On Me"
"Fearless"
"Nothing To Say"
"Money For Nothing"
"Chances"
"Thrill Of The Chase"
"Big City"
"Last Of My Kind"

Bonus tracks on digipak/vinyl:

"Little Ain't Enough"
"Aftermath"

Fearless documentary:

"Mr. Manson" lyric video:

"Fearless" video:

"Letting Go" video:

Track-by-track video: