In an interview with Guitar World, former White Lion guitarist Vito Bratta expressed his admiration for Randy Rhoads and the close connection he felt with the late guitarist. Bratta reflected on those times, discussing how Randy Rhoads’ decision to leave Ozzy Osbourne’s band impacted his own artistic career. Bratta stated that he became captivated with the classical guitar early in his musical growth and spent many hours honing his classical guitar skills after being influenced by guitarists such as Andrés Segovia and Julian Bream. However, the guitarist claims that Randy Rhoads’ desire to leave Ozzy’s band had a huge impact on Bratta’s own musical career. According to Vito Bratte: “I identified with Randy because he once stated in an interview that he wanted to stop playing with Ozzy and go study classical guitar.” And, to be honest, that was pretty much me in a nutshell.
Rock is my starting point; everything begins there for me, and I venture off when I feel like it. But I’m a classical guitar nerd who used to be in a rock band. So, when Randy mentioned it, I was like, ‘Yup. ‘I could probably go for that,’ and I did. Let me put it this way, if I were friends with Randy back then, I’d have said, ‘Ok, I’ll do it with you. Let’s get started. I’m interested in studying classical guitar.’ And until lately, I was all about classical guitar. But I’ve recently returned to performing rock music because I’m no longer in as much pain as I once was. But that’s an other story. So, from a mental aspect, I identified with Randy, and it did effect me in that sense later on.” In addition to addressing his relationship with Rhoads, Vito Bratta mentioned additional inspirations in the interview that contributed form his sound.