Last year D.D. Verni, bassist and founding member of fabled thrash metal band Overkill, released a solo album Barricade that featured many guest guitarists. Growing up in NJ, Overkill was a mainstay on my favorite radio station at the time, 89.5 FM WSOU, New Jersey’s hardest rock! Their albums from the ’80s were among my earliest CD purchases. Overkill was up there with The Big 4 in terms of heavy metal prowess, and that was what it was all about for me around the time I first started playing guitar.
Fast forward some decades, after meeting a friend of his after an Almost Queen show in Westbury, NY, D.D. contacted me about recording a Queen-esque guitar solo on the track We Were Young for the solo album he was working on. I jumped at the chance to collaborate with someone influential to my musical upbringing and did my best with my BMG Red Special replica to evoke a solo reminiscent of the good Doctor Brian May. I like how it came out and am glad D.D. asked me to contribute. Overkill’s influence still resonates around the world, as one of my current favorite bands, from Australia, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard cites drawing from Overkill as a source for their new thrash album, Infest The Rats’ Nest.
You can listen to the entire album Barricade on the Tube and at Amazon Music. For right now, I cued up the guitar solo I laid down on We Were Young, check it out…
We Were Young by D.D. Verni from the album Barricade, guitar solo by Steve Leonard (Almost Queen)