“When Ozzy approached me, there was an inner warning light that said, ‘Don’t do that’”: Why Michael Schenker turned down Ozzy Osbourne

Michael Schenker has opened up on why he turned down Ozzy Osbourne, after the Prince of Darkness earmarked him as a potential Randy Rhoads replacement.

After Rhoads’ tragic death in 1982, Ozzy began reaching out to electric guitar players to find a suitable successor. The likes of Richie Ranno and Vito Bratta were asked to audition, and Brad Gillis and Bernie Tormé both briefly held down the role before Jake E. Lee was eventually appointed.

But before Lee was brought aboard The Good Ship Ozzy, Michael Schenker was mooted for the position. However, as the Scorpions legend explains in the new issue of Guitar World, the opportunity wasn’t the right one for him.

At the time, Schenker was coming off the back of stints in UFO and Scorpions, and was a few years into his solo career with the Michael Schenker Group. Joining another high-profile band just wasn’t on the cards for him.

“With Scorpions, I helped them out as a gesture to my brother [Rudolf],” Schenker says. “They were lost; they couldn’t do an album, so I worked with them as a jump-starter.

“And when Ozzy approached me, there was an inner warning light that said, ‘Don’t do that because you have just left UFO and Scorpions.’

“I had time to digest my situation and the message was clear to me. I wanted to carry on doing my thing and purely self-express, and not run after a trend, which Scorpions and UFO had been trying to do since I left.”

“I’ve always believed in doing exactly what I feel like,” Schenker adds. “That’s freedom of expression. If I did something just because it was what people expected, or if I stopped what I was doing because I was blinded by fame and money, that would be selling my soul.”

Schenker isn’t the only high-profile guitar star to have been linked with the coveted Ozzy spot. Over the years, the likes of Marty Friedman and Nuno Bettencourt were also close to joining the band.

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features interviews with Randy Bachman, Jerry Cantrell, Jimmy James and more.