GEORGE LYNCH (Lynch Mob, ex-Dokken): At one point, I was a liquor delivery driver in South Central LA. I did the routes no one would take [because they were in such dangerous parts of town]. My route was Martin Luther King Boulevard. In fact, on the day I signed my record deal I was in my liquor van, and I had to drive to the Elektra building in LA and sign the contract, and then I went right back on my route.
DON DOKKEN: People had strippers taking care of them, but I really was on that Top Ramen and hot dogs lifestyle. We were way broke.
GEOFF TATE: Living on Top Ramen was the way you survived. You only had a day job simply to keep you in rent money and pay for your musical instruments for your gig.
BLACKIE LAWLESS: I tried telemarketing for about a month and I just couldn’t do it. You’d have to cold-call a hundred people a day. I was selling fluorescent lightbulbs over the phone for a hundred times more than you could get them in the store. My phone name was Ted James. The worst thing I ever did was around the summer of ’78. I was on my last leg at this place because I wasn’t making any sales. I had cold-called this one lady who had a pet shop in Burbank. I said, “Ma’am, let me tell you what’s going on. My dad’s really upset about what happened to my lil’ sister and if you buy a lightbulb it would really help my dad out.” She said, “What happened?” I said, “Well, have you heard about the Hillside Strangler? That was my sister.” The boss was standing next to me and I thought he’d be mad, but when I got off the phone he yelled out, “You see this? He’s genius. Everyone in the room must do that.” It’s sick, but indicative of Hollywood.
CARLOS CAVAZO: When I was in Snow we opened up for Quiet Riot about four times when Randy [Rhoads] was still in the band. We all lived together. When we couldn’t make ends meet, we’d temp. We even lived on food stamps for about a year. We also lived off girls. They would feed us and pay our bills.
SLASH: I got nabbed [shoplifting] at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, which was my parents’ favorite record shop. I was hired at the very same store six years later in the video division, and during every shift for the first six months I was convinced someone was going to remember that I’d been caught stealing and have me fired.
JANI LANE: We were living nine guys in a two-bedroom apartment. I spent a month shrink-wrapping porno videos in a basement in Canoga Park. I had a paper route delivering the LA Times in stage clothes at three in the morning. I was stocking 7-Elevens. I did everything I could to survive. But we were literally starving. We couldn’t pay the rent. Steven [Sweet] and I were like, “Maybe we should head back to Florida and regroup. We can play in a cover band for a while there and save some money.” Two days later as we’re packing, there’s a note on the door and it says, “Hi, we’re the guys in Warrant. Our band broke up in San Diego last night and we need a singer and a drummer. Can you write music?” I played them “Down Boys,” “Heaven,” and “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” and they were like, “Wow, he can write.” So we formed the band and took over LA.
For ambitious young rockers, the ultimate goal was to score a label deal. Many who were talented or lucky enough to do so didn’t bother looking at the terms of the contract and found themselves in financially unfavorable situations. Even those who achieved both fame and fortune often became ensnared in interband rivalries, domestic debacles, and a myriad of other problems.
BRET MICHAELS (Poison): For Poison’s record signing I thought there’d be some big party for us with a limo and caviar, and we ended up sitting in a warehouse in El Segundo, California, boxing and packaging and shrink-wrapping our own record, Look What the Cat Dragged In. I was sitting on the floor in leather pants.
DON DOKKEN: We thought we’d get rich once we were signed and selling records, but even the Elektra contracts were garbage. For every dollar they made, we made twenty cents split four ways. In Dokken, it was a four-way split, which came back to haunt me, because I wrote most of the hits. That’s what started the war between [guitarist] George [Lynch] and I. When I signed that contract, we were at the LA airport ready to go to Japan for our first tour. The deal was still intact—that I owned 50 percent, and they divided 50 percent. They show up at the airport with a contract that says it’s a four-way split or we’re not getting on the plane. I called [our manager], Cliff [Bernstein at Q Prime] and said, “I can’t sign this.” He said, “Sign it and we’ll work it out.” But it never did happen. He just wanted us to get on the plane. I was hijacked. We spent the next five years together getting very famous, and I hated them, and they hated me.
JANI LANE: During Dog Eat Dog, everybody was on vacation. I demoed the entire record myself and they showed up and I handed them cassettes and said, “Here are your parts.” The band left me alone, and I wrote. In return for leaving me alone, I offered to give them 20 percent of the publishing to split up. Then I would show up at a gig and on my wireless microphone rack it would say, “80 percent Hitler.” I’m sure it was done in fun, but it wasn’t funny.
Once groups started becoming successful, bands that were more famous began pilfering rising stars. When Black Sabbath broke up and Ozzy went solo, Randy Rhoads from Quiet Riot became Ozzy’s first—and prototypical—guitar wunderkind, oft imitated, much worshipped, never replaced.
GEORGE LYNCH: I tried out for Ozzy three times. The initial time was before Randy got it. He and I were up for it. He came to a gig I was playing with Exciter, my band before Dokken. He came down to introduce himself. He knew he got the gig before I did, and he came down with his mom. He said, “I got good news and bad news. Bad news is that I got the job with Ozzy. The good news is you got the job teaching at my mom’s guitar teaching school, $5 an hour.”
KEVIN DuBROW: When Randy joined Ozzy, I changed the name of the band to DuBrow, because you can’t continue to call it Quiet Riot without Randy Rhoads. I realized that Drew [Forsythe] was not the right type of drummer for what I was trying to do, and not the right drummer for me trying to get better as a singer.
FRANKIE BANALI: I was in this three-piece band called Monarch, with Michael Monarch, the original guitarist from Steppenwolf. We were playing a show at the Valley Supper Club, and Kevin came out to see me play. Randy had told him that there was this drummer called Frankie Banali who was a combination of Cozy Powell and John Bonham. We chatted after that show—January of 1980—and about a month later at the Starwood there was a show which had all these future Quiet Riot Metal Health lineup members onstage at the same time, but in different bands. The opening band was Monarch with me; the middle act was DuBrow, with Kevin and [bassist] Rudy [Sarzo]. Rudy was just in town on a break from Ozzy—he was already playing with Ozzy and was just sitting in with the band. The headliner was a band called Snow, which [guitarist] Carlos [Cavazo] came out of. About two months into 1980 I started working with Kevin in DuBrow, and it was a huge turnover of musicians. It’s unimaginable how many came through that project, and a lot of them have claimed that they replaced Randy Rhoads in Quiet Riot when Randy went with Ozzy, which is clearly not the case, because it wasn’t Quiet Riot, it was DuBrow, and most of their tenures were very short-lived.
RUDY SARZO (ex-Whitesnake, ex–Quiet Riot, ex–Ozzy Osbourne): The first face-to-face meeting I had with Randy was at my audition for Quiet Riot back in 1978. He got to show me some of the musical things they were doing, and my first impression was this guy really knows how to teach. I got to teach alongside Randy at Musonia. He really cared about teaching even though it was a monumental task for him. He used to teach ten hours a day and then go to rehearsal for Quiet Riot. Students wanted to learn the popular songs of the day, so he would have to learn Van Halen songs and whatever. But I never heard any other guitar players’ influences—especially his contemporaries—on his composition or on his playing.
GEORGE LYNCH: Randy was a good-looking guy and I found out the hard way that all his students were girls and would go there and not care about learning guitar. I went in [to teach in his stead] and they’re like “Where’s the guy with the polka-dot bowtie?” Bu
t you know, I was married and had kids.
RANDY RHOADS (1956–1982) (ex–Ozzy Osbourne, ex–Quiet Riot): Ozzy auditioned a lot of guitar players, and this guy called me and said “Ozzy’s heard everybody and he liked [your] playing.” He said, “You should go down and audition.” At first I said, “I don’t know, I couldn’t do that.” Apparently Ozzy went through every player in LA. I never even knew about it. I never looked for auditions or gigs.
FRANKIE BANALI: When Randy started playing with Ozzy, I get this call, and it’s Randy. He was this tiny little guy, but he had a really low, deep voice. “Frankie?” he goes. “Look, I’m playing with this guy. Ozzy.” “This guy?” I said. “You mean Ozzy, like the Black Sabbath guy?” He goes, “He’s putting a band together. He doesn’t have a drummer. Do you want to come down and play?” I said, “Sure, but you know, I don’t have a car.” He arranged for somebody to come and get me, and I threw the drums in his car and went to Mars Rehearsal Studio. I walked in with my drums, and there’s a bass player and Randy, and Ozzy is sitting on this piano bench. He was very, very quiet, very nice. He had this little ghetto-blaster he was recording everything on. We sat down and started playing, and we ran down a number of tunes, all of which ended up on the first Ozzy record. For all intents and purposes, I had the gig. But as it turns out, Jet Records had spent a good deal of money on Ozzy, flying him from the UK to New York to LA multiple times looking for musicians, and finally the label decided they were going to record in England, and they were only going to pay to take one musician, and of course, the choice was obvious. It was Randy.
OZZY OSBOURNE: I fell in love with Randy as a player and a person the instant I saw him. He had the best smile in the world. Randy was the best guy in the world to work with. I was attracted to Randy’s angelic attitude towards the whole business. I didn’t have to teach him anything. All he was lacking was guidance. He listened to every word I spoke to him, and we had a great rapport.
KELLE RHOADS: Randy loved playing with Ozzy. He felt a bit rushed for Diary of a Madman. He wished he had a little bit more time. He was a perfectionist. Of course, what’s on there is pretty good. Randy’s music with Ozzy was absolutely timeless. It’s going to be as exciting and vibrant in fifty years from now as it is now.
On March 19, 1982, twenty-five-year-old Randy Rhoads was killed in a plane crash in Leesburg, Florida, along with the pilot, Andrew Aycock, and the Ozzy Osbourne band’s hairdresser/seamstress, Rachel Youngblood. The flight was meant to be a short joyride. But as the pilot banked, the left wing clipped the back side of the tour bus and sent the plane spiraling into the garage of a nearby mansion, where it burst into flames. All three bodies were burned beyond recognition. Aycock’s autopsy revealed traces of cocaine in his system.
RUDY SARZO: I was on the bus when the plane clipped it. That’s how I woke up. It was a thunderous boom. I ran out of the bus and thought that we were involved in a traffic accident.
OZZY OSBOURNE: When the wing hit the bus, Randy and Rachel were thrown through the windscreen, or so I was told. Then the plane—minus its wing—smashed into the trees behind, fell into the garage, and exploded. The fire was so intense the cops had to use dental records to identify the bodies. Even now, I don’t like talking or thinking about it. If I’d been awake, I would have been on that fucking plane, no question. But it makes no sense that Randy went up. He hated flying. By the time the fire engines arrived, the flames had already burned themselves out. Randy was gone. Rachel was gone.
RUDY SARZO: Information started unraveling slowly from everybody that had witnessed the crash—our tour manager and Don Airey, our keyboard player. It was one of those chaotic moments. You’re wondering what was going on and it was very traumatic.
KELLE RHOADS: I was driving a flower truck, which was a really good job for people in bands. I stopped by my mom’s house for a very brief moment to borrow some money, and everybody was crying and my sister was beside herself. My mom was white-faced, but she’s an extremely strong woman and she just laid it right out. She said, “Your little brother passed on in a plane accident this morning in Florida.” I didn’t believe her at first because I thought, “Oh, right. Ozzy bites the bird. Ozzy bites the bat. Ozzy pisses on the Alamo. And now his lead guitar player’s dead. I get it. That’s pretty sick and fucked up.” So I didn’t pay attention to it. I got back to the place I worked and my boss put his arm around me and said, “Go home and be with your family. Come back when you’re ready.” When I got home I turned on the TV and all the channels had pictures of my brother playing guitar. It took me about five hours to accept it. Randy had this charmed Cinderella life and people flocked to do things for him. At twenty-five he’s gone in a plane accident? Uh-uh. Can’t be. He hated flying. Every single day of my life I miss him so much.
OZZY OSBOURNE: I honestly don’t know how we did any of those gigs after Randy died. We were all in a state of shock.
RUDY SARZO: When Randy died he was still living at home. He had not made a major purchase from his royalties. He was still basically the same guy that he was in Quiet Riot. At the core he was a very simple guy and all he wanted to do was be the best he could be and to play. Even though Randy was born with all the goods that you need to be a prototypical rock star—looks, performance chops—deep down inside he was just a great friend, someone who really cared. He helped me so much in the Ozzy days, not only to get the gig but also to understand all the sociopolitics in the band.
DELORES RHOADS (Randy’s mother): Ozzy and the rest of the band went to the funeral, as well as all of the people from Jet Records. Members of Ozzy’s band and Quiet Riot were pallbearers. My teacher Arlene Thomas, who was a close friend of Randy’s, sang and played acoustic guitar. Randy is buried in San Bernardino, which is where I grew up and want to be buried. I had a small bronze guitar put in on one side of his name on the gravestone, and on the other side the “RR” signature that he used. I know he would have wanted that.
After a short grieving period, Osbourne returned to the road, first with a fill-in—British guitarist Bernie Tormé (ex-Gillan) for a few weeks, then with Rubicon guitarist Brad Gillis (Night Ranger), who played on the 1982 live album Speak of the Devil. The band found some stability for a few years when Ozzy discovered ex-Mickey Ratt guitarist Jake E. Lee, who played on 1983’s Bark at the Moon and 1986’s The Ultimate Sin.
BRAD GILLIS (ex-Ozzy, Night Ranger): I got my stage presence together on the road with Ozzy. I’d been thrown to the wolves. I went from playing to five thousand people a night to twenty thousand a night with Ozzy. The main thing I learned was professionalism and showmanship, and of course I grew from playing Randy’s parts as well. It was quite a learning experience and definitely the heaviest time of my life.
GEORGE LYNCH: I got closest [to joining Ozzy after] Brad [Gillis] left. I did the audition tape; they were interested in me. I was still working at my liquor delivery job when I got the call from Ozzy. I flew out to Ireland with their publicist and toured a little bit with them. Then I came back and rehearsed with them in Dallas. I remember that Sharon and Ozzy came walking in with their big giant bags of money and fur coats looking like royalty. They started whispering to each other and I was told by their handlers that they didn’t like my guitar because I built my own guitar, a green tiger. Sharon thought it looked like a booger.
JAKE E. LEE: At first I said no [to the audition] because I didn’t want to step into Randy Rhoads’s shoes. It’s hard enough to replace a good guitar player—and I don’t want this to sound callous—but when they die they turn into a legend. I’d make it on my own and I didn’t want to be compared to somebody else for the rest of my life. But I went down there anyway. I think there were twenty-five guitar players, and we all spent fifteen minutes in the studio. We had our pictures taken and they were given to Ozzy, and he picked three of us: George (Lynch) was one of them, and he was flown to England and given first crack at it. And there was me and Mitch Perry (ex-Heaven, ex-Keel) left in LA. Ozzy came down and we auditioned at SI
R and I got it. And I was forty-five minutes late! [Bassist Dana Strum] said that Ozzy almost walked out the door; he said, “Fuck it, if this guy doesn’t care enough to show up on time and he’s going to be this kind of problem, forget it. I don’t care how good he is.” But [Dana] kept him there.
GEORGE LYNCH: We went to Hollywood to do more rehearsals and someone was pushing them to try Jake E. Lee, because they hadn’t 100 percent committed to me. I walked into the practice room and there was Jake E. Lee jamming on stage with the band. He looked the part, all decked out in leather from head to toe. He looked great, but the problem was he sucked. He admitted that to interviewers. He went up to me later and said he played horribly. I went backstage and saw Ozzy. It was kind of like The Blair Witch Project at the end, where that lady is staring at a wall and not moving. Ozzy turned to me and said, “Oh yeah. We got someone else.” That was it. There was no “Sorry.” Or “Sorry you quit your job and are behind two months of rent and filing for bankruptcy.” But what they were going to give me for the gig, if I got it, was $250 a week. So much for those rock-and-roll fantasies.
Some thought Quiet Riot was through when Rhoads left to join Ozzy’s band. Actually, it was just getting started. A quick audition later and Carlos Cavazo was the band’s new guitarist. (The two albums Quiet Riot recorded with Rhoads were only released in Japan but are widely available on the Internet.) DuBrow hit the Strip hard with his new group, gaining the attention of Pasha/CBS Records. Much to everyone’s surprise, the band’s first album for the label, 1983’s Metal Health, shot to number one on the Billboard album chart, knocking the Police’s Synchronicity out of the top spot. By 1995 it had sold more than six million copies in the United States. What seemed like overnight success to the rest of the world were the rewards of years of dues-paying for the LA veterans. As bassist Rudy Sarzo noted, “From October 1978 until October 1979, Quiet Riot performed approximately three dozen shows at various Los Angeles nightspots. We watched a number of New Wave bands get signed to major record labels as apathetic record executives passed on Quiet Riot, dismissing us as local rock dinosaurs.”
Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal Page 15