By Steve Newton
I did my first interview with Ozzy Osbourne in early June of 1982, ten weeks after his beloved guitarist, Randy Rhoads, perished in a fiery plane crash at the age of 25.
No wonder he sounded bummed out.
Rhoads’ place on the Diary of a Madman Tour had been taken first by Bernie Tormé for a few gigs, and then by Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis, so I asked Ozzy how Gillis was filling the high-class shoes left by Rhoads.
“Well, he’s a different style guitar player on stage,” replied Ozzy, “but he plays all the licks. I mean, to get somebody as good as Randy, I’ve given up trying to look. Because after the death of Randy, I was very bitter for a long while, and to anybody who came along and auditioned I said: ‘Go, I don’t want to know’. I was trying to find the same kind of player, and you can’t. Randy was a one-of. Let’s face it, you can’t get anyone to beat Randy because he was the best.
“But Brad’s near enough. I mean, you’ve got to give people a chance, and it’s a pretty big hole to fill in. I don’t think many people could ever stand where Randy stood, and you’ve got to give anybody who tries to stand in credit for what they’re doing.”
Then I mentioned to Ozzy that on both his solo albums, Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman, it sounded like an amazing cohesiveness had been developed between him and Rhoads.
“Randy and I were just beginning to get things going real good,” he agreed. “I don’t think the music world really fully appreciated the fact of Randy’s talent. He was incredible, he could do anything.”
Sadly, I never got to interview Randy Rhoads, but to hear the full audio of my conversations with some other musicians who’ve played with Ozzy–including Tony Iommi, Jake E. Lee, Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge, and Zakk Wylde–subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with rockers since 1982.