Kelle Rhoads on the Rhoads Legacy, His Brother Randy Rhoads, The Musonia School Of Music , and How To Be A Proper Musician

Hollywood has a rich and undisclosed history many folks are unaware of, but should be. One of the historical landmarks is a place called the Musonia School of Music, run by the talented Mr. Kelle Rhoads, brother of the late guitarist, Randy Rhoads. After World War II, The Rhoads family set up shop in Hollywood and quickly became the place to go for the best musical instruction in Los Angeles. After all, how many places are there than can boast teaching credential such as George Lynch, Rudy Sarzo and the legendary Randy Rhoads himself?

 Kelle, an equally accomplished musician, has taken the reigns and offers his time instructing a new generation of would be musicians, when he’s not himself performing or composing music. He was kind enough to lend me an hour of his time so we could talk about the Rhoads legacy and his part in it.

THR: Can you give the readers a brief history of Musonia?

Kelle: Sure. In 1947 construction began here in North Hollywood to build a Music School. There were three partners, My Mother, my father and Dr. Coleman. Early on my father dropped out and in 1995 Dr. Colman succumbed to a terminal disease so my mother at 93 years old is the proverbial last man standing. However, she hasn’t physically come to the school in almost 3 years. We definitely do plan to keep it going with the ideas, the ideology and the tenants that we believe are real important that people know about music. We intend for the school to be run the same way with the same philosophy that it has carried on for the past 65 years under my mom’s direction. We’re not going to change that

THR: What are the tenants?

Kelle: We teach counting first. Instead of just teaching…see what you have to…what you have to understand is why music stores teach music. They want sales. The reason they give guitar lessons, or bass lessons, or drum lessons is because ultimately, they would like to have people buy those instruments. So in this case, Musonia School of Music, we are only a school. We’re just not a retail outfit anymore. We were. At one time, we had the Gretsch franchise; if you wanted to buy a Gretsch Guitar or drum set, you’d go to Musonia, but were talking the 1950’s

THR: Yes, a lot has changed since…

Kelle: A Lot of Change. You go to Guitar Center or you go to Sam Ash music and you can buy something like that much cheaper than we can afford to sell it so we just teach music. We teach counting and we work with different students about how to approach and study music if they’re going to pursue it seriously.

THR: You have seen a lot of musicians come and go through Musonia, so what are some of your greatest successes?

Kelle: I can answer that in a number of ways. I could tell you about the people who have had their children in this school, some of their sons and daughters did phenomenally well. On piano especially, in some cases cello, and they were phenomenal music students, But, they never went on to pursue music, they went on to be doctors, lawyers, physicians, and oh, they could play Beethoven sonatas, they were playing Bach, all under my mother’s direction, but you see there’s no legacy in that, because at some point, they stopped. But we have had a couple of people form here go on to become conductors! One guy my mom taught went on to write music books, his name is Barry Worley, and he writes manuals on how to play piano.

THR: Who are some of the students who went on to become successful in their music career?

Kelle: I can reference them, but you may not know who they are. Let’s see... Danny Beal, Stan Seal, who is a phenomenal player and teacher. You have a lot of people from the guitar dept. that really went on to become something. For starters, my brother, who became very successful as a teenager, he studied here and later on came back and taught here. George Lynch taught here, Drew Forsythe, Tony Carvazo, and Steve LaVoie, all of em. None of em picked from a resume`. We asked em, “Do You wanna teach here” and they said “Fuck Yea!”

THR: what about students that have attained great success technically on their instrument?

Kelle: We have this young girl, a guitar player. She will be nothing short of a full blown five alarm mother fucker. She’s going to be the next Eddie [Van Halen]. People come in here and they ask” Is that Zack [Wylde]?” And I say “No, it’s a skinny 14 year old girl named Jennifer Haack. And this girl shreds the paint off the walls. If she continues, and stays on a straight line, she will be a guitar player you will reckon with.

I have one other. I trained a singer named Marcelo Fittipaldi who I think has great potential. He was singing in an Ozzy Tribute band in a show at which I was performing, and I pulled him aside and I said,” dude, what are you fuckin' singing this for? What the fuck are you doing?” And he goes “what do you mean?”  I say, “You have a beautiful mid-tenor voice, let me train you” Fast forward to now. I use him in some of my shows; we use tenor baritone, tenor and piano.

You know Dan, if I were to go back through the years and think about all the people. Janet Robin who played with Lindsay Buckingham, she was Randy’s student. Google her, you’ll be amazed.

THR: What do to impress upon your students to help them become successful musicians?

Kelle: Well, we stress that you have to practice, and that’s what makes it so hard because people don’t want to practice, they think they can skirt that, and believe it or not, that’s a big, big part of what we teach. Which would be under the heading of discipline in the area of music, and this doesn’t have any bearing on if you’re going to make it your profession or not, but if you’re gonna study music, you have to adopt certain disciplines of practice otherwise you’ll never be a decent musician.

 So we insist on discipline, on practicing, we insist that our students count, we insist that you count the correct way, which is if you have a dotted quarter note, you count it like this (lift foot up on each beat, then lifts it a half for the dotted quarter note) up, down and then a half, not just up and down, ok? And no matter what instrument you take, you’re going to learn that stuff, or you're just going to wussie out and quit, we just had a guy who wanted ride his scooter, then he wanted to play cello, then he wanted to play guitar, and he didn’t wanna play piano anymore so I told him he could just go ahead and go home, and we’ll have room for another young person who wants to be a musician. He was very taken aback and was like… (Makes a sad, disillusioned face, we both laugh!)

A Lot of it is the attitude! Nowadays, people arte lulled into a false understanding of what the music business is. I’ll give you an example: Little Junior’s got rich parents so he tells all of his middle school friends, “Hey Dudes, I’m gonna play the Whisky, go see me!” The kids all go “Whoa, fuckin great dude” they never knew he played guitar before but now he’s going to play the whisky! So they’re like” Cool, I’ll go see ya!”

 So what happens is Junior plays on a night where there are six bands. 

All six bands have had to post money up front to play the show. The fees they have to post can be anywhere from 5 to seven hundred dollars. So junior, he gets his nine o clock slot, he gets his buds, they all go down there, they all celebrate him being the next Randy Rhoads, or Eddie Van Halen, and everybody goes home, the parents go home with their wallets a little bit depleted. And that kind of thing, that is not the music business, that’s poser Ville.

THR: So what kind of music are you making these days?

Kelle: It’s pretty much pianoforte. I’m doing a style of piano music from about 1830-1860’s blended with some modern aspects, I’m getting a lot of influence from that period, and it helps me structure musical ideas. That period from the 1830-60’s it what’s known as the romantic period, and just after Bach or Robert Schumman. It narrows my reach somewhat because most people really don’t care for that and I understand that and I’m fine with that (By the way, it’s amazing stuff).

What is the thing you love most about your craft?

Kelle: I don’t like anything about my craft (he should, he really, really should). I’m always, always trying to do better, to write something more profound, and to write something more important. What I do like to say something that I’m proud of, or more so I’m excited about, is being able to write short pieces, adaptable to film. Up until this point, I do have some music put to film. I like that, and am amendable to that. But as far as my music, there’s so far that I have to go. I want to go into the realm of multiple strings; I want to get into a brass choir. I want to really work with different complex and intense rhythms. So I’m not real satisfied about my craft so far.

THR: What is it that you love about performing music, what is it that drives you to perform?

Kelle: That’s a really profound question. In my opinion, it’s almost, in my case, it's everything. Besides, my wife, what is it about everything else that I have to be playing music all the time? I’m so filled up that I have to be playing, all the time. Everything else is just filler. For me, it’s all about composing. I spend more time on that than I do anything else. And I only keep and record, about 3% of what I write.

THR: Personally, what has been your biggest challenge in your career?

Kelle: My biggest challenge has been to reinvent myself. If you stay in this business for quite a while, you’re going to have to reinvent yourself. The Jonas Brothers, that only lasts for so long, then you break up. The Beatles Broke up, the thing is to reinvent yourself if you want to stay in music. I’m not saying you have to play a different instrument, I’m just saying you have to change; you have to do something different in the music business. What worked in the mid-70’s, that kind of a thing is not going to work, because it’s been done. So come up with thins that will give you another shot.

THR: What is the biggest trap you see people fall into?

Kelle: Absolutely the biggest trap I’ve seen people fall into, and this is profound, right here and it took me a long time to figure this out. I hope your readers really take this to heart. The biggest trap is that they get upset because the reality of the whole thing isn’t what they thought it would be. They have this preconception so they flock to Hollywood, they come out here and no matter how good, bad or in-between it is, it just isn’t what they thought it’d be so they think” This is no good, this isn’t what I bargained for, it’s not what I wanted.

 That’s because when they met this certain person, they thought it would be like ‘this’ and when they stared playing gigs  they thought that the concerts would be filled with people, and they’re not, and that’s a big problem with a lot of musicians. They just can’t handle that whet. It is not what it was supposed to be. Especially the ones that come to GIT. They come here, and when they are on their way back home, I hear a lot of disillusionment. They think they are going to go to that school and when they’re done their going to hit the street and start jamming with Jackson Brown. It’s not the case!

THR: Absolutely not that case! (Both laugh)

Kelle: So that’s a big emotional or mental hurdle that they either have to get past, or they have to pack it up and go home.

THR: after all the students you’ve seen come and go, can you give me some idea of where you see music going?

Kelle: Well, I don’t know about that, but I tell ya what I would like to see come back, although it’s probably not going to, is being able to go to the Troubadour or The Roxy and being able to sit down. I’m an old man, my legs are fucked up, my prostate is probably the size of a grapefruit, and I fuckin can’t stand for 4 or 5 hours! Dude I can’t do it; I don’t care if it’s going to be Jimi Hendrix playing with Jesus, I can’t Stand!

THR: That would be an awesome show though!

Kelle: It sure would! “And on Bass guitar in the corner, is Randy Rhoads, come out of there, I know you’re not playing guitar up there dude! Come on out of there, fucker”! Laughter ensues. [Note: Kelle is not implying that Randy is no longer playing the guitar in heaven, just that he’d rather back up Hendrix and Jesus in that situation, relax and take a chill pill.] I go back to these places I’ve played before and it's just so uncomfortable now. They’ve taken all the seats out! Why would they do that, it is greed? Hmmm?

THR: So we can’t leave this without at least one good Randy story!

Kelle: Well I’ve told this story before, but it ties him to this place so I’ll tell it again. When he was a teenager, my mom said, “You know Randy, I’ll get you some lessons, your obviously talented. I’m going to get you lessons with Joe Pass.” And my brother thought about it for a while and he said, “No.” And my mom said “well what do you mean no? why not?” and he said,” I don’t wanna be a jazz guitar player mom”. Now up to this point, he only played rhythm. He said” I wanna try to play lead guitar” My mom said ok, fine. I’m going to get you our guitar teacher:” 

At that time, which would've been in the mid 70’s, we had this really great guitar player names Scott Shelly. He gave my brother lessons, and every week he’d have his Friday guitar lesson. And at the end of nine months, Scott went to my mom and said, “I’m done.” I can’t teach him anymore” and she goes, “What do you mean, man? I want you to teach my son!” Scot says, “You don’t understand, I can’t keep up with him, I can’t do what he does and I can’t teach him. He’s way beyond what I’ll ever be” and that was the last electric guitar lesson Randy ever took.

THR: That’s disgusting…I mean that’s just amazing! How old was he?

Kelle: I want to say he was about 16. Scott said that his talent already was just phenomenal.

THR: For someone to be that good and be so you, you have to believe he was born with it! I mean, I’ve been playing guitar for almost 20 years and I’m still a hack! I’m mean, I don’t suck, but damn.

Kelle: What randy learned after that, he taught himself and then towards the end of his life, the last 13-14 months, he took lessons to become a classical guitar player. Now he did take lessons then, but he would never take any lessons on electric guitar. He had it already. He was born with it, and he never did anything else but play guitar.

THR: And your whole family is a musical family…

Kelle: My mom played 15 instruments, my father was a clarinetist, my mom’s auntie was a piano player, my mom’s father and his father both played in brass bands. Every single generation hasn’t been a musician, but most of them have been, although not necessarily professionally.

THR: So how does it feel to be able to continue this legacy?

Kelle: I’m proud to do it, however, its challenging, you know, it’s really, really challenging without my mom around. We need a new coat of paint; we haven’t really taken in money in a few years. The biggest challenge is to keep this going. I’d like to get another 50-60 years out of it. Hopefully someone will come along and take care of it.

THR: What qualities would you look for in that person?

Kelle: That’s a good question…someone who respects the integrity of the school and our family. Someone who loves the school and the family enough to make a concerted effort to make sure it stays the same as it is now, with the same low price. What would make me really sad, what would make me turn over in my grave, is if I’m long dead, and this place turns into a Randy emporium, with watches and clocks and shirts, just to make money. I’d rather see it leveled that that.

THR: Is there any parting bits of wisdom you’d like to share with the reader?

Kelle: Well, it’s really hard to give advice because nobody wants to hear it or they won’t listen. So I conclusion, I would like to say, that, it’s really a pretty simple thing to determine if your child is really going to get into music with the right attitude and really try. And the way you do that, it’s not rocket science, it’s pretty much as easy test: if there is a piano in the home, or a guitar or whatever the child seems to be interested in, let it be available to the child and even with no lessons, see if he has to be coaxed to play with it, or does he have to be punished for playing too much. 

If he or she has to be punished, there’s a good chance he’ll take to it. There’s a real chances he or she will have the discipline it takes and really try to make a concerted effort. But if every time the parents have to round them up and make do it, and the child goes “no, no, I don’t wanna do it, blah blah”, don’t waste the money! He’s not Mozart, it’s not going to work, go buy him video game, fuck you, ha-ha!

If you want to find out more about the Musonia School of Music
:Call 1-818-761-0521
or pay Kelle a visit in person at:
12111 Tiara St North Hollywood, CA 91607