Following in the footsteps of Randy Rhoads is no easy feat. While now-veteran guitarist Robert Sarzo was hired and immediately fired by Ozzy Osbourne’s team in favor of Irish rocker Bernie Tormé, he holds no grudges.
“For me, it wasn’t a gig to get,” Sarzo tells Guitar World in a new interview.
“They just had a tragedy,” he says. “And Randy [Rhoads] was a very close friend of my brother [Ozzy Osbourne bassist Rudy Sarzo]. They were all having a difficult time, having lost a bandmate and a good friend. It was a dark moment, and I was in the middle of it.”
Sarzo had initially landed the spot after visiting the Ozzy circus a couple of times whenever they were in the New Jersey area. This, coupled with the fact that he was already touring with an artist signed to the prestigious Arista Records, made him an attractive proposition, especially in the face of immense tragedy.
“I got a call from my brother, and he said, ‘Ozzy wants to talk to you.’ And then Ozzy tells me that Randy died and asks if I’m available and interested in coming to Los Angeles to rehearse with the band. I told him I was and would go to L.A.”
And while Sarzo felt “a deep sense of validation” from the moment he got the call to his initial rehearsals, it turned out that, “Either Sharon’s dad [Don Arden] or brother David – I don’t remember which – had sent a guitar player from England with all his equipment. He’d already been paid for the tour, so they had to use him.”
True to his word, Sarzo showed up at a post-show gathering in New York celebrating Rhoads, even after he was fired.
“The atmosphere that evening felt less like a celebration and more like a memorial for Randy Rhoads,” he recalls. “At one point, keyboardist Don Airey sat down at the grand piano in the living room and began playing Goodbye to Romance.
“We all gathered around to sing along in Randy's memory. Even with our voices filling the room, there was a profound, heavy silence hanging in the air – a collective mourning for his absence.”
During the gathering, Ozzy took the time to apologize for his team’s snafu. “He explained that he had genuinely wanted me to join the band,” Sarzo says.
“However, the record company had already finalized arrangements and flown in another guitarist without his knowledge. Regrettably, that evening marked the last time I ever spoke with Ozzy and Sharon.”
Guitar World’s full interview with Robert Sarzo will be published in the coming weeks.
