Greek guitar virtuoso Gus G., well known in rock and metal circles for his work as Ozzy Osbourne‘s guitarist and as leader of his own band FIREWIND, will release a new solo album, “Quantum Leap”, on October 8 via AFM Records. The cover artwork for the disc can be seen below.
“Quantum Leap” track listing:
01. Into The Unknown
02. Exosphere
03. Quantum Leap
04. Chronesthesia
05. Enigma Of Life
06. Judgement Day
07. Fierce
08. Demon Stomp
09. Night Driver
10. Not Forgotten
11. Force Majeure (feat. Vinnie Moore)
Gus discussed the upcoming effort in a new video message posted to his YouTube channel. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s my first all-instrumental solo album. So this means there’s no vocals at all, no guest singers; it’s just me and my guitar. You’ve already heard a couple of the singles. The first one was called ‘Exosphere’; it came out in April. And the second one was called ‘Fierce’, which we made a pretty hilarious video for. I hope you checked it out. There’s gonna be a third single coming out at the end of August for another song, which is totally different; it’s not metal at all.
“I’m really excited about this album,” he continued. “It was about time that I stepped up and did a full-on instrumental guitar album. A lot of people have been asking me and pushing me to do this. And to be honest, I always turned it down. But I think the recent situation with the pandemic and the fact that everybody, we all had to stay locked in in our houses and we went through months of quarantine and lockdown, that kind of sparked ideas and got me to… Music was my only gateway, basically, so that’s what I did; I just made songs. I couldn’t fly to another country and meet with other musicians and do pre-production or anything like that, so I just decided to write stuff on my own and just make a guitar album.
“There’s a lot of cool stuff on there — different stuff. Obviously, my style is all over the place. I tried to push the envelope a little bit and explore some new things.”
Regarding the other musicians who appear on “Quantum Leap”, Gus said: “I have two amazing players with me on the record. One of them you already know. It’s Dennis Ward [PINK CREAM 69, UNISONIC]. Dennis has worked with me in the past. We’ve worked together the past five years, actually. We’ve done two FIREWIND albums together. He’s been co-producing and co-writing with me. And also my previous solo record, ‘Fearless’, he played bass and he sang. He’s a great singer. He’s a multi-talented guy. He mixed and mastered the record and also played bass on most of the songs. I played bass on a couple of the tracks. I also did the keyboards. And I also have a great drummer from England, [Jan-]Vincent Velazco. He’s great. He plays amazingly. You already heard him on the first two singles.”
As for why he chose to name his new solo album “Quantum Leap”, Gus said: “I liked the title. It sounded nice. It was something different. ‘Quantum leap’ means when you’re taking a big step, so for me, making an instrumental album and letting my guitar do the talking was a big step for me, for once. I’ve always worked with singers and collaborated with many people, but this time, I decided to just let the guitar be a voice. So this was my quantum leap.”
In September 2019, Gus issued a digital-only solo EP, “Live In Budapest – Part 1”, consisting of four tracks recorded on the guitarist’s headline European tour in support of his latest album release, “Fearless”. The world tour saw Gus and his band share stages around the world with legendary guitarists like Richie Kotzen, Vinnie Moore followed by his own headline dates and a massive tour as special guest of Los Angeles rockers STEEL PANTHER.
“Fearless” was released in April 2018 via AFM Records. The follow-up to 2015’s “Brand New Revolution” marked Gus‘s first release since exiting Osbourne‘s band in 2017.
On “Fearless”, Gus joined forces with Ward and drummer Will Hunt (EVANESCENCE).
FIREWIND‘s ninth, self-titled studio album was made available in May 2020.
The band recently parted ways with guitarist/keyboardist Bob Katsionis and singer Henning Basse.
FIREWIND‘s new vocalist is Herbie Langhans, who has previously played with AVANTASIA and SINBREED.
