me and Sharon had gone to San Francisco with Gary and his bird one time, and we’d had a lot of fun. (I really thought I was in with Sharon on that trip, to be honest with you, but nothing happened: she just went back to her hotel at the end of the night, and left me dribbling into my beer.) The worst idea that Don Arden had was for me and Sabbath to do gigs together, one after the other, like a double bill. I asked Sharon, ‘Is he having a laugh?’
But then Sharon started to take more control, and we decided that I should make a proper solo album.
I wanted to call it Blizzard of Ozz.
And little by little, things started to come together.
I’d never met anyone who could sort things out like Sharon could. Whatever she said she would do, she’d get it done. Or at least she’d come back to you and say, ‘Look, I tried my best, but I couldn’t make it happen.’ As a manager, you always knew exactly where you stood with her. Meanwhile, Sharon’s father would just shout and bully like some mob captain, so I tried to stay out of his way as much as I could. Of course, before I could make an album and go on tour, I needed a band. But I’d never held auditions before, and I didn’t have a clue how or where to start. So Sharon helped me out, taking me to see all these young, up-and-coming LA guitarists. But I wasn’t really in any state for it. I’d just find a sofa in the corner of the room and pass out. Then a friend of mine, Dana Strum—who’d auditioned to be my bass player—said to me, ‘Look, Ozzy, there’s one guy you really have to see. He plays with a band called Quiet Riot, and he’s red hot.’
So one night this tiny American bloke came over to Le Parc to introduce himself. The first thing that came into my mind was: he’s either a chick or gay. He had long, wet-looking hair, and this weirdly deep voice, and he was so thin he was almost not there. He reminded me a little of David Bowie’s guitarist, Mick Ronson.
‘How old are you?’ I asked, as soon as he walked through the door.
‘Twenty-two.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Randy Rhoads.’
‘Do you want a beer?’
‘I’ll take a Coke, if you have one.’
‘I’ll get you a beer. Are you a bloke, by the way?’
Randy just laughed.
‘Seriously,’ I said.
‘Er, yeah. Last time I checked.’
Randy must have thought I was a fucking lunatic.
Afterwards, we drove over to a studio somewhere so I could hear him play. I remember him plugging his Gibson Les Paul into a little practice amp and saying to me, ‘D’you mind if I warm up?’
‘Knock yourself out,’ I said.
Then he started doing these finger exercises. I had to say to him, ‘Stop. Randy, just stop right there.’
‘What’s wrong?’ he said, looking up at me with this worried expression on his face.
‘You’re hired.’
You should have heard him play, man.
I almost cried, he was so good.
Soon we were flying back to England for rehearsals. I quickly found out that although Randy looked like Mr Cool, he was an incredibly sweet, down-to-earth guy. A real gentleman, too—not at all what you’d expect of a flash American rock ’n’ roll guitar hero.
I couldn’t understand why he even wanted to get involved with a bloated alcoholic wreck like me.
At first, we stayed at Bulrush Cottage with Thelma and the kids. The first thing we wrote was ‘Goodbye to Romance’. Working with Randy was like night and day compared with Black Sabbath. I was just walking around the house one day, singing this melody that had been in my head for months, and Randy asked, ‘Is that your song, or a Beatles song?’ I said, ‘Oh no, it’s nothing, just this thing I’ve got stuck in my head.’ But he made me sit down with him until we’d worked it out.
He was incredibly patient—I wasn’t surprised at all when I found out that his mum was a music teacher. It was the first time I’d ever felt like I was an equal partner when it came to songwriting.
Another vivid memory of working with Randy was when we wrote ‘Suicide Solution’. We were at a party for a band called Wild Horses at John Henry’s, a rehearsal studio in London.
Everyone else was fucked up on one thing or another, but Randy was sitting in a corner experimenting with riffs on his Flying V, and all of a sudden he just went Dah, Dah, D’La-Dah, DAH, D’La-Dah. I shouted over, ‘Whoa, Randy! What was that?’ He just shrugged. I told him to play what he’d just played, then I started to sing this lyric I’d had in my head for a while:
‘Wine is fine, but whiskey’s quicker/ Suicide is slow with liquor’. And that was it, most of the song was written, right there. The night ended with everyone on stage, jamming.
Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy was there. That might have been the last time I saw him before he died, actually. He was a tragic case, was Phil. I mean, I thought he missed his mark so badly. Great fucking performer, great voice, great style, but the old heroin got him in the end.
Thank God I never got into that shit.
Randy loved Britain.
Every weekend, he’d get in the van and drive somewhere, just to have a look around. He went to Wales, Scotland, the Lake District, you name it. He also collected toy trains, so wherever he went, he’d buy one. He was a quiet bloke, very dedicated, didn’t like showing off, but he could be a laugh, too. One time we were in this bar and there was a guy in the corner playing classical music on the piano, so Randy goes up to him and says, ‘D’you mind if I join you?’ The guy looks at Randy, looks around the bar, sees me, and goes, ‘Er, sure.’ So then Randy gets out his Gibson, hooks up his little practice amp, and starts playing along to this Beethoven piece or whatever it was. But as he goes along, he starts throwing in all these rock ’n’ roll moves, and by the end of it he’s on his knees, doing this wild solo with his tongue hanging out. It was fucking hilarious. The whole bar was in stitches.
The funny thing is, I don’t think Randy really ever liked Black Sabbath much. He was a proper musician. I mean, a lot of rock ’n’ roll guitarists are good, but they have just one trick, one gimmick, so even if you don’t know the song, you go, ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so.’ But Randy could play anything. His influences ranged from Leslie West to jazz greats like Charlie Christian and classical guys like John Williams. He didn’t understand why people were into ‘Iron Man’, ’cos he thought it was so simple a kid could play it.
We had arguments about that, actually. I’d say, ‘Look, if it works, who cares if it’s simple? I mean, you can’t get much easier than the riff to “You Really Got Me”—but it’s awesome.
When I first bought that single, I played it until the needle on my dad’s radiogram broke.’
Randy would just shrug and say, ‘I guess.’
One thing Sharon’s brother managed to get done when we were in England was find us a bass player—Bob Daisley, an Aussie bloke who’d been signed to Jet with a band called Widowmaker, which was how David knew him. I liked Bob immediately. He was a proper rock ’n’ roller—he wore denim jackets with cut-out sleeves and had his hair all blown out—and we’d go down the pub and do a bit of coke once in a while.
Another good thing about Bob was that he wasn’t just a bass player. He could chip in with songwriting, too.
And we had a laugh together—at first, anyway.
Getting a drummer wasn’t so easy.
We seemed to audition half of Britain before we finally came across Lee Kerslake, who’d played with Uriah Heep. He was all right, Lee—one of those big old pub blokes. Solid drummer, too. But the guy I’d really wanted— Tommy Aldridge, from the Pat Travers Band—wasn’t available.
Another early member of our line-up was a keyboard player from Ipswich called Lindsay Bridgewater. He was a very educated boy, was Lindsay, and he’d never met the likes of us before. I told him, ‘Lindsay, you look like a fucking school teacher. I want you to backcomb your hair, put on a white cape, get yourself some black lipstick and some black eyeliner. And while you’re playing, I want you to growl at the audience.’
The poor bloke didn’t last long.
I’d be talking out of my arse if I said I didn’t feel like I was in competition with Black Sabbath when we made Blizzard of Ozz. I wished them well, I suppose, but part of me was shitting myself that they were going to be more successful without me. And their first album with Dio was pretty good. I didn’t rush out and buy it, but I heard some tracks on the radio. It went to number nine in Britain and number twenty-eight in America. But by the time we’d got
