“I get fingers pointed at me. I get told, ‘You’re the guy who tried to kill Randy Rhoads.’ I laugh it off. He needed to be with better people. How could our split ever be friendly?” Kelly Garni founded Quiet Riot – but it ended with shots fired

Kelly Garni poses with his blue bass guitar and a picture of the early line-up of Quiet Riot .

Kelly Garni grew up with Randy Rhoads and formed Quiet Riot with him in 1975. The bassist was fired three years later after a drunken brawl with the guitarist – whose promising career ended in a plane crash seven years later.

“I was inconsolable,” Garni tells Bass Player. “I couldn’t even go to the funeral. I just didn’t want to see that reality.”