The Forbidden Guitar Tom Morello Was Finally Able to Hold

Tom Morello had the opportunity to hold one of the instruments held most sacred in the metal world. That would be the iconic Flying V-inspired Jackson Concorde guitar once played by the late great Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads.

While the guitar has previously been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum for fans to see, actually getting to hold the guitar is a privilege reserved for a very select few.

How Tom Morello Came to Hold Randy Rhoads’ Guitar

Speaking with Classic Rock magazine, Morello confirmed that he had held the legendary instrument, but he did so with one condition to be met.

According to Morello, Randy’s mother had requested that the instrument never be played again after Rhoads’ death, leaving the late musician as the last person to have played the guitar. In fact, it was rare that anyone outside of family had access to the instrument.

“His sister, who’s lovely, is very protective of all the stuff. It’s sealed away somewhere in a secret vault and no one knows where it is,” shared the guitarist. “I’d asked her if I could see it, and she said: ‘Nobody sees it.’ You gotta respect that.”

But he later revealed, “But then she texts me one day and says: ‘Randy’s guitar is on its way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and it’s going to be at my house this afternoon if you’d like to come by and see it.’ But I was away on tour, so I couldn’t go.”

Eventually, Morello’s request was granted. “Cut to about a year later and she texts me saying the guitar is at her house that afternoon, on its way back from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and now would I like to go see it?”

“I got to hold it,”  he shared. “That was pretty emotional for me. The crazy thing was that the leather guitar strap still smelled of cigarette smoke. He was performing up until the day he died, so the strap had smoke from 1982 left in it.”

Randy Rhoads in 1981

What Tom Morello Has Said About Randy Rhoads

It’s no secret that Morello has long been a fan of Rhoads as well as the singer that he played with, Ozzy Osbourne. Morello served as the musical director for the Back to the Beginning concert in 2025 and has long championed hard rock and metal within his pull with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was actually the Rage Against the Machine guitarist who spoke during Rhoads’ Rock Hall induction in 2021.

While appearing on That Metal Show in 2011, Morello spoke of his own history revealing that he started a “Headbanger’s Table” at Harvard and it was during this time that he would practice up to eight hours a day on guitar while using a Randy Rhoads poster on the wall for inspiration.

READ MORE: Randy Rhoads Was Once Arrested for Playing Guitar Too Loud

A year later in 2012, Morello, who named his first son Rhoads in honor of the guitarist, told Music Radar that his first encounter with Randy’s playing was hearing “Crazy Train.” “This blistering riff came at me, followed by an incredible solo and by the end of it, I was like, ‘What just happened?,'” he shared.

He later added of Rhoads’ untimely death, “I do remember being absolutely torn apart. It was so tragic. In a way, Randy Rhoads is the Robert Johnson of metal. It’s such a small catalog of stuff that has been so incredibly influential. He wasn’t even at the height of his fame, he was still on the way up. So you’re left with the question: Had he lived, what more would he have done?”

Speaking on Rhoads’ influence, the Rage guitarist also said, “What’s interesting is, when I stopped trying to sound like Randy Rhoads and realized that what I loved about him was that he had a sound that was completely unique and was a representation of him as an artist. That’s what inspired me to find my own unique voice as an artist. So I attribute it all to him.”

In 2015, Morello united with his Axis of Justice cohort Serj Tankian in covering “Crazy Train” with Rudy Sarzo and Vinny Appice for the Immortal Randy Rhoads: The Ultimate Tribute compilation.

In his 2021 Rock Hall Induction speech for Rhoads, Morello shared, “Randy Rhoads is a peerless talent. He revived Ozzy Osbourne’s career as his gunslinger sideman. And it was Randy Rhoads’ poster that I had on my wall. … You could study Randy’s songs in a university-level musicology class and bang your heads to them in a 7-Eleven parking lot.”

Below, see some of the most famous guitars used by some of rock and metal’s biggest names.