American guitarist and producer Roy Z, who's played with Bruce Dickinson and Halford, in addition to being at the helm for albums by Sebastian Bach and Sepultura, is featured in a nearly hour-long audio interview with Greece's Rock Overdose, that can be heard at this location. An excerpt reads as follows:

Why did you change your last name from Ramirez to Z?

Roy Z: "Uh, it’s a complicated story. Back in the '80s, here in L.A., we had a serial killer, the Night Stalker, and he was breaking into homes, raping women and killing them. His name is Richard Ramirez. That would create a really negative energy for me, when going to auditions and trying to get in the business, you know, as a young man. So, I saw that the negative reaction was creating a bad vibe, and calling my name at a restaurant, everybody would look as if I am related to the serial killer. So, I switched it around to Zerimar, which is Ramirez, backwards, and actually came out in Guitar Player magazine as Roy Zerimar. Then I went to audition for Dio, when Rowan Robertson got the gig. And on the board, my name was just Roy Z. My friend really liked that. My friend, that took me to the audition, said: 'Man, I really like that name, you should go out with that name,' and he started calling me Roy Z, and then everybody started calling me Roy Ζ. And it just stuck. It just stuck with me, you know, and later on, I found out that the guy that said to put me in as Roy Z. was Dio. He said: 'If he’s going to get the gig, he’ll be called Roy Z.' So, in a way, Ronnie James Dio baptized me Roy Z."

When you were younger, a teenager, did you have any thoughts of becoming a guitar player?

Roy Z: "No, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I had a really bad injury. I was good, but, looking back, I don’t think I was good enough. I got hurt, and then… I always loved music, but then it became my passion, because of my love for The Beatles. I found out that if I wasn’t gonna do pro sports, I wanted to do music. It was pretty simple, I mean, my mother tells me that before I could talk, I would sing along to The Beatles. (Laughs) So, there you go."