Young guitarists dream of playing the same stage as their heroes, but few ever realize the fantasy. Guitar prodigy Thomas McRocklin, however, had the opportunity to open for Ozzy Osbourne when he was just eight years old – and he landed the spot on the day of the gig.
Nowadays McRocklin – real name Thomas McLaughlin – is Polychrome DSP’s headless guitar-toting head honcho, but back in the ’80s, he was a kid with outlandish outfits and technique far beyond his years.
At eight years old, he was shredding up social clubs in his native Newcastle, UK after school – and it’s fair to say audiences were taken by surprise.
“They were expecting some nice little tunes, and then it's a Marshall cranked up and there's full fireworks,” he says in a new interview with Guitar World. “But it really caught people's attention.”
It was that mentality that led to the Ozzy support slot, with a little help from his dad, who McRocklin describes as “a bit of a chancer” – the kinda guy who wasn’t afraid to try outlandish acts to make his son’s dreams come true.
“Ozzy is playing in Newcastle. We're obviously going to go,” recalls the guitarist. “And then next thing, I'm a little kid dressed head to toe in leathers, big cowboy hat and boots five times too big for me. I would look absolutely ridiculous. But it worked, because now we're knocking on the back door of Ozzy’s gig.
“Management, security, whoever, look at me and think, ‘What the hell is this all about?’ Drag [me] in. Plug me into Zakk Wylde’s amp. And then next thing I’m widdling, going crazy. There’s harmonics flying everywhere.”
Be it the harmonics or the hat, McRocklin says something caught the attention of the metal god. “That leads to Ozzy going, ‘Oh, let's get him on tonight.’”
Back then, the young guitar player would simply go up and shred sections of his favorite solos from Van Halen and Steve Vai before being dragged offstage – sometimes literally – when he reached the end of his 15-minute set.
As a result, he didn’t get a whole lot of time with Ozzy – which was probably for the best, given he was terrified of the Prince of Darkness’ persona.
“The only thing that was in my mind was the stories of Ozzy biting the head off a dove or something,” explains McRocklin. “And he was behind me in this picture with his arms right out, wrapped around me. I was petrified, but he was super-cool. Zakk Wylde was super-cool.”
McRocklin and his dad would go on to employ similar tactics to attract the attention of Steve Vai, who ended up producing the young shredder’s debut album with rock band Bad4Good – and later handed him the historic Ibanez Universe featured on the cover of landmark album Passion & Warfare.
But that’s a story for another time. To be precise, later this month, when McRocklin’s Guitar World interview will be published in full.
