Quotes taken from an interview with John Stix, August 14, 1981.



"To this day I don't have a guitar idol. I have people who are my favorites."



"I always loved it. I started with an old beat-up Gibson."



"I've been playing about 18 years and I started to get a style when I started teaching. People wanted to learn everybody's licks, and at first it was okay. Then I thought 'Wait a minute, you've got to get your own style.' So I started combining what they wanted to learn and just a bit of techhnique. You hear so many different people everyday, you find yourself in it, if you can understand that. You're teachinng everybody's licks all day. I never did that, because I never had a stereo. I never copped licks off records. I started when I was really young, when I was 7. I never got to cop records because I didn't have a record player. So by the time I got to teaching, I didn't want people to carry on doing that too long."



"I started at 7 and I'm now 24. Another thing is,I tried lessons off and on, but I couldn't stick with it. I din't have the patience. When I went back in my teens, I took classical. It did wonders for me."








"I'll tell ya, when I was 12 and 13, I started jamming, and then I said that's it. I want to do this for real. When I first got up and played in front of people, it was a fluke. These guys in Burbank used to jam on a mountain. I thought, 'I want to get up and play.' When I first did, people started clapping. I was blown away."



"The kids that we play for aren't interested in musical expertise. If I sat down and played some classical, besides those that were interested in the musical side of it, with most of the kids, it wouldn't impress them. They're headbangers. Ozzy has an incredible following with his audience, and most of his kids want non-stop..... It calls for flash. It's very heavy and everything is very powerful. The solo features are only to show off Tommy and I. At the same time, they're not supposed to represent anything like,'This is what I can do.' It's just a quick flashpot going off."



"My first real band was Quiet Riot. I was 16 or 17 when we started. Before that it was just friends."



"I used to play constantly. In fact, I couldn't put it down. Now that I'm out there, I practice less than I did because I don't have the time. I can't sit down in a hotel room and practice."



"I can read, but I have to look at it, think about it, and then play it.
About the third time, I can read it."



"There's just so much feeling you can put into it. Leslie West was one of my all time favorite guitar players. I loved his feel. He used a lot of classical. I can feel he's really into it when he does those little classical lines. It's melodic but mean."



"We were in a band called Quiet Riot. Rudy was in it as well. He was the bass player. We used to gig pretty often in L.A. It was all originals. We had two albums in Japan, on CBS/Sony. After teaching, I would also rehearse and do gigs with this band. I was busy playing a lot. I got this offer, and since then, I went."



"Strange enough, one of the bass players (Dana Strum) in a local L.A. band auditioned for Ozzy on bass. They were looking for a guitar player. He was using this guy from L.A. for a while. Apparently Ozzy went through every player in L.A. I never even knew about it. I never looked for auditions or gigs. I was stuck in a rut."



"I guess I thought Quiet Riot would make it, but now that I'm away, I knew it wouldn't. I have to say that. It was kind of like I was growing up at the time and didn't know it. There's a lot more room for guitar in this band than in Quiet Riot. So Ozzy auditioned a lot of guitar players, and this guy called me and said Ozzy's heard everybody and he liked my playing. He said, 'You should go down and audition.' At first, I said, 'I don't know, I couldn't do that.'"







"I wasn't a big Sabbath fan, to be honest. They were great at what they did. Obviously they did it well, and made it huge. I respect that. Let's not go into it, but I wasn't a big fan. So anyway, I was kind of wary about auditioning because I'd never been to an audition. When I did come down, he said all these guys had Marshall stacks and Echoplexes. I brought a tiny practice amp. I started tuning up and he said, 'You've got the gig.' I didn't even get a chance to play."

"I just tuned up and did some riffs, and he said, 'You've got the gig.' I had the weirdest feeling, because I thought 'You didn't even hear me yet.'"



"Possibly he knew a certain sound he was looking for, and all these other players tried to show off too much. I didn't get a chance to show off. I just started making a few harmonics, and maybe perhaps it was my personality, because I was really quiet and everybody was too outgoing. I still don't know."



"Revelation is my favorite, and Mr. Crowley. Both of those have much classical in them. They're my favorites because of that."



"I used to have my students practice hammering up and down the neck, going through all the frets with the four fingers and picking each string once. Going from the first fret, all the way down the strings, then up to the next fret then down the next. If you do that every day, you build up a lot of strength."



"I always practised a lot of double picking. Not so much trying to ba a flash picker. Take a few notes and play them normal, and then try to syncopate it by alternating the strokes."



"I've got a '64 cream Les Paul andd a '57 black Les Paul with three pickups. The Flying V was made by Carl Sandoval. He used to work at Charvel and he went off on his own. He made it for me. It has a DiMarzio Distortion Plus on the treble position and a DiMarzio PAF in the bass pickup. The only one I wasn't playing was the Charvel. That one he made for me after I joined Ozzy. The Charvel has the Seymour Duncan Distortion pickup."



"It's totally strange. It still hasn't hit me yet. I've still got my past in me. I guess I'm trying to mature into it, but I don't have my feet on the ground at all. I don't even know who I am, what I am. People say this will go to your head and make you egotistical. That's a load of shit. What it does is make you totally frightened and humble."



"Both of my parents are music teachers. My mother owns the school that I taught in. My brothers and sisters are musicans. My mom pushed me all the time. She knew that I could do it. She knew more than I did. She thought I would go somewhere. She gave me the job and helped me get equipment, which a lot of parents don't do. Alot of my students had to go out and fight for it."



"Five years ahead? I would love to have people know me as a guitar hero. I'd like to be able to do something more instrumental. Someday maybe put out a solo album where I can dig into a lot of instrumentals."



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