Dizzy Reed was born as Darren Reed on June 18, 1963 in Cleveland, Ohio. He started playing in rock bands at the age of ten, and he is largely self-taught. His biggest influences were Elton John, Billy Powell (Lynyrd Skynyrd) and Jon Lord (Deep Purple).
Before he joined GN’R in the spring of 1990 he played in a LA band called The Wild. He plays keyboards. You can say it was by accident that he became a member of Guns; He had been evicted from his apartment and called Axl for advice. Axl: "I found out he was going to be put on the streets... So I called Alan on Monday and I say 'secure this guy, hire him, write up the contracts. Put him on a salary and give him an advance so he can get an apartment'."
Dizzy and the new drummer Matt Sorum made their debut for Guns at the two Rock In Rio festival-gigs held in January, 1991. Altogether 260.000 people came to the shows. Dizzy had never before played for an audience larger then 400...
"My first live show with Guns N’ Roses was Rock In Rio. It was like a blur. It was like: "Man, I can't believe this!" I would be completely lying and ridiculous if I said I wasn't nervous for that."
Dizzy has contributed to solo albums by Duff, Gilby Clarke and Slash