What do you say to the manager of the world’s most iconic metal frontman – the voice that breathed life into heavy metal – when they call you up and ask you to audition?
Picture the scene. It’s 1981, Blizzard of Ozz has just brought Ozzy Osbourne back from his post-Black Sabbath purgatory, introducing the world to a maverick new metal guitar talent, Randy Rhoads. And this band, the hottest band in town, need someone on bass guitar to replace the outgoing Bob Daisley. Oh, and there are tour dates coming up, so they need that bassist quick.
Rudy Sarzo, famously, got that call, and we know how the story ends, right? He joins the Ozzy Osbourne band, even receives credit for 1981’s Diary of a Madman even though Daisley played bass on it, and the rest is history. But that’s not the whole story.
“I was playing in the band called Angel, too – the Punk Meadows’ Angel – but they had just lost their record deal to Casablanca. But I was happy. I loved the guys,” he says. “There were really nice. It was cool hang, and I was playing in Angel. I had an identity. They were a big band.”
Sarzo enjoyed playing in Angel so much that when the phone rang, and the late Quiet Riot frontman, Kevin DuBrow, answered, passing the phone to Sarzo and telling him Ozzy’s manager, Sharon, is on the line, he was not of a mood to say yes.
“She said, ‘Oh, hi, Rudy, this is Sharon, Ozzy’s manager, Randy tells me about you, and we want you to come out to audition,’” says Sarzo. “I was shooting from the hip. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t say, ‘Wow, that sounds great.’ My first reaction was, ‘No thanks’. No thank you. ‘No, thanks. I’m playing in Angel blah blah blah.’ She hangs up on me. I’m like, ‘Well, okay… Sorry.’”
Was Sarzo really that happy in Angel? They had lost their record deal. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Sarzo tells Corgan that this was symptomatic of his decision making at the time. It was a dumb thing to do, especially seeing as he didn’t even think it over. DuBrow chewed him out. He knew he’d screwed up.
There’s Sharon, Tommy Aldridge, and I’m sitting with Ozzy, and he’s telling me all about Randy and how much he appreciates him and loves him
“Little did I know that the next day, I was going to get a call from Ozzy,” says Sarzo.
The following day, Ozzy took HR matters into his own hands. Sarzo wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
“I get the second call the next day, it was like, ‘Oh, yes!’” he recalls. “Ozzy himself called, ‘Yo, man, Randy tells me that you’re the guy, and we just auditioned a bunch of hacks…’ And I said, ‘Yes! I’ll be there.’ So Randy picks me up, because they were in a rush – they had to meet and do this whole thing really quickly. Because within 10 days, they were going on tour.”
There was no time to waste. Sarzo was whisked over to The Beverly Hilton, where he met up with Team Osbourne.
“There’s Sharon, Tommy Aldridge, and I’m sitting with Ozzy, and he’s telling me all about Randy and how much he appreciates him and loves him,” says Sarzo. “And I’m thinking, ‘This is this is a good place to be in. There’s a lot of gratitude, a lot appreciation going on.’ He just told me at the end of it, he says, ‘Man, I get a good vibe from you – just be able to play.’”
Sarzo could play all right. Rhoads could vouch for that. He and Sarzo were bandmates in Quiet Riot. Rhoads recommended him to the Osbourne camp. But what Sarzo couldn’t play was Ozzy Osbourne material.
“Nowadays, a 10-year-old or a fetus can actually play Crazy Train,” he says. “Back then, it’s like, ‘I never heard the song! [Laughs] I gotta learn this.”
He had help. Rhoads came by before the audition to work through Crazy Train and I Don’t Know. They worked fast. They had to. In an hour’s time they would be driving off to play it with Ozzy and the band.
I’ll never have enough time in my life to thank Randy Rhoads, Sharon and Ozzy for changing my life
“Those where the audition songs. So we go over, and I had to retain it, and then we drive over to rehearsal,” says Sarzo. “We do one pass with Tommy, and then Ozzy and Sharon show up, and they listen to us play the two songs with Ozzy looking at the band.
“Then Ozzy gets up on stage, we play the songs again, and Ozzy turns to me and says, ‘Hey, man, do you want the gig?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ [Laughs] And my life went into Panavision color at that. It was like, ‘Wow!’ I’m in this world now. I had a gig with the most amazing musicians that I ever played with.”
It was the gig of a lifetime. But after Rhoads’ death in a plane crash in 1982, Sarzo had seen enough. Ozzy was going off the rails. He wanted out, rejoining Quiet Riot after the Diary of a Madman Tour. Not that he was ever wholly divorced from the Ozzy camp.
Sarzo would be one among a cast of metal’s biggest names to perform at Villa Park, England, for Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s final show, Back to the Beginning.
Speaking to Guitar World in August, Sarzo said he remained ever grateful to Rhoads, Ozzy and Sharon and wanted to salute his old boss.
“I’ll never have enough time in my life to thank Randy Rhoads, Sharon and Ozzy for changing my life. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if not for them,” he said. “Ozzy, Randy and Sharon are the three main people who changed my life. I went from sleeping on the floor of Kevin DuBrow’s apartment to passing the audition with Ozzy and moving in with Sharon’s family.”
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