The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Rudy Sarzo Part 1 | The Magnificent Others

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Billy Corgan sits down with legendary bassist Rudy Sarzo for Part 1 of a sweeping, emotional journey from Havana to Hollywood, escaping Castro’s Cuba, discovering the Beatles, and finding identity through rock. Sarzo recounts his path from Miami and New Jersey club bands to Chicago glam dreams and, finally, Los Angeles, where Quiet Riot, Randy Rhoads, and a fateful call from Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne led to a whirlwind “Crazy Train” audition that changed his life. Along the way, he shares stories of faith, spiritual awakening, and the belief that rock’s true power lies in its brotherhood and integrity. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I said, I want to be in your band, and I say, well, we got too many guitar players. If you want to join, you got to play bass. And I go, what's that? And they say, because nobody wants to play bass. I could adapt. I became very adaptable. That's one of the things that I learned when I was very young. I must adapt.

It's like, we're going to make it and nobody wants us. A lot of heart breaks. Yeah. Oh, painful. Well, that's rock and roll, right? What are you going to do? Kevin Dubrow answers the phone and he says hey Rudy is somebody calling you

and I go Nobody knows me Hello Oh hi Rudy This is Sharon I'm Ozzie's manager Randy tells me about you

And we want you to come out to audition Then Ozzy gets up on stage We play the songs Again And as he turns to me and says Hey man You won the gig Listen

Yes And my life went into Panavision color at that in a moment. It was like, wow, I'm in this world now. Boom. So nice to see you. Great to say you, Billy. Thank you for being on my show.

Oh, my pleasure. All right. All right. Rodolfo, Maxilano, Maximiliano. Thank you. Sarzo. Laviel. Grande.

Grande, Ruiz. Yes. Jermon. Yeah. all my ancestors. What a beautiful name. Well, it's too long for an email. It's like, I'm at.

So actually, that was my birth name, you know, and in Cuba, being a Catholic country. Is that normal to, but all the ancestors? Yeah, you get all your ancestors name, and then Maximiliano is my saint day. You know, there's like, you know, I'm St. Patrick, right? Yeah, so mine was Maximiliano. And so... Well, what was he known for, St. Maximilian? It was a bass player.

The bass player. That's right. Anyway, I cut you off. Okay. I love it. Do you want to know the origin? No, I know. I do.

I do, yeah. So we moved from Cuba to the United States and in Miami, it became Rudolph. Okay. You know, okay. So a couple of years later, from 61 to 63, we were relocated to West New York, New Jersey. Okay. My first day in school, I, you know, I, we are, I, I arrived late in the, in the school year. So they gave me the last seat in the back.

And so I'm putting my books away and I hear, Rudy, Rudy. I'm like, who's Rudy? What is that? What's wrong with the teacher? Who's he yelling? Who is he yelling at? Yeah. So I look up and he goes, yes, you.

And I go, oh, Rudolph. He says, no, you're Rudy from now on. Now, today, that tissue where I got in fire because of, you know, because they- My grog, actually. Yeah. But 60 years ago, that was normal, you know. So this is a partialist, but Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osborne, White Snake, Manick Eden, Dio, Blue Oyster Coat, Jeff

States Queens Reich, Devil City Angels, and the Guess Who? Yeah, Devil City Angels is the band that I, it was a situation because there was an album that was recorded. I had nothing to do with it. It was the basses for Cinderella, played on it, and the other guys in the band, Ricky Rock did it, and Tracy Guns. I was doing something with Tracy. And so he was a member of...

Angel, what is this? Angel City. Yeah, Angel City, sinners, whatever. And he says, listen, the bass player left, how would you like to do this? And I figure, well, it sounds right, because when we take a break, the band that we have with Tracy guns,

then that means that I can just roll into this other band, you know? And I like the guys in the band and everything, but I did the video. So you weren't actually in the band. Okay, so that shouldn't be on the list. Because as I was doing the video, there was an argument between one of the members in the group

and management, and management dropped the band. And what else did you know, if management dropped the ban in the middle of the project, everything, you know, all the business just... Very spinal tap, though. Very spinal tap. Oh, yeah.

My whole life has been... We're going to get to that. Yeah. I'm one of those guys who have lived, wild tap. We're going to get to them. I'm curious, you're born in Havana, 1950. Yeah. And I'm curious for your memories of being in Cuba as a child before you emigrated. Like, was it a happy time for you?

It was happy until, I mean, I experienced the turning over into communism. Was that Batista? Yeah, from Batista. Batista was 52? and Castro was 58. Yeah. I was there. I was living in.

I was two years old, so I don't remember much. Sure. But if you remember the atmosphere of time. I was seven, I was almost nine in the Christmas, I mean, the year's Eve of 59, when the revolution came in.

So, you know, I was aware of a lot of things, a lot of changes in my school. It went from, like, being a normal, private school, to all the sudden it's run by the government. So now all the teachers were under supervision of whatever. Did you notice a change almost like an indoctrination right away? Oh, yeah. Immediately.

Immediately. So, in fact, we missed the first, what would have been my sixth grade. We missed it because my parents took me out of school and waited until we left in 1961. Were your parents political people? No, there was just an average family who did not want their family to live under communism. Right. Did the average citizen, I mean, if you remember, and I'm sure you've talked about it since, did the average citizen feel that if they did not get in line with the political ideology of the Castro,

that they were under threat? Absolutely. Were you conscious of that at the time? Yes, I had to because overnight, I saw the changes in my school. All of a sudden, the children, one by one, were being kept after school, and they were basically being interrogated. Really? The teachers, kind of like soft interrogation.

There must have been a manual, a playbook that says, this is how you do it. Were they trying to get information on the families or the parents? How do your family, do you hear your mom and dad talking about Castro, Papa Castro? That's scary. Yeah. I recall the teacher, you know, saying, okay, chill, prayed for ice cream to God. And of course you pray you don't get nothing.

It's enough to Papa Castro. And there you guys go. There comes the ice cream. Hot-Fut Sunday. Yeah. But you setting aside the political environment, which again, you're still a little kid, you know. I mean, when we're kids, it's like playing in the yard

and whether you're playing soccer or whatever. Like, what's your memory of your life in Cuba? Music. You know, one of the things about certain Latin countries, no matter where the political leanings are, music is a major factor. And there was music everywhere. You know, I was born and I was listening to music before rock and roll existed.

So my influences as in an early age were big band, Latin jazz, you know, Celia Cruz, Benny Moree, and then, of course, we had the influence of this. Zigalespi, when... Oh, that's right, because he did that whole Latin... Yeah. Yeah. Or there was a lot of...

Afro-Cuban. They called Afro-Cuban or... The Afro-Cuban. But there was a lot of entertainment in Havana. We live in Havana. Like, really... Were there a lot of American entertainers coming down to play at the casinos and make money? Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Havana was what Vegas is kind of, you know. Yeah. There was... At the time Vegas was in really Las Vegas in 1961. It wasn't until the flow in 1959. Oh, I see.

People coming on the ferry. You used to take ferries from Key West to Havana, so you get off your car, and you just drive the car, and you were driving. There's only, what is it, 90 miles between Miami? Yeah, 90 miles. Yeah. Yeah.

So people took ferries, and there you are. You're in Havana. Were people in your family musical? Yes. I had an aunt who was actually a, they had casinos everywhere in Nevada and she was a casino entertainer lounge and lounge singers she sang on TV and all of that and then I had an uncle who was classically trained pianist and opera singer did you think that you would one day play music was that something you were interested in

yes what's your sort of earliest sort of conscious thought about I want to be a musician since my My uncle played piano, and I wanted to play piano. And at that time, Liberace was very popular in Cuba. And my mom said, you're going to be a big. It's not for you. This is not for you. Amazing. Well, the same thing happened with football.

You know, we arrive in Miami, and my dad gets, you know, a TV on, you know, like, credit, you know. Yeah. We had to have a TV, you know, entertainment. And so I turn on TV and there's football. This is 1961. So it's only very early, before the Super Bowl. Yeah.

You know, I actually watched the first. U.S. football, yeah. Yeah. And so my mom sees all these guys wearing tight pants and one guy has his hands underneath the other guy's butt and my mom says, turn that off. That was not. So what do you remember about the circumstances of your leaving?

I mean, that's a traumatic, for a little child, you know, you're still very young, 10, 11 years old. It's traumatic, I imagine, or am I imagining that? Yeah, what was the most traumatic, I mean, and at the time, we thought this was going to, you know, because we left in between the Bay of Pigs, we were in Cuban Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis, you know, the October Missile. crisis. So we were right in the middle. And they have installed committee, defense committees, the Comite de Defensias, in every block. So there was basically neighborhood watch. Yeah. They were just like looking, making sure, writing notes with doing something that looks a little bit weird, like moving furniture out of your place when you're not moving. And my dad was a technician. He ran

back in the, you know, in the 50s and 60s, he had these huge three-bobbin newspaper printing. He ran that. Okay. He was the technician, you know, for the magazine called La Buemia. And they had those massive printing. Massive, yeah. And this is something that you kind of just, like, push a button.

You had to know how to operate it, you know. And it's dangerous, too. Oh, it is very dangerous, yeah. And so they were keeping technicians. They were not allowing them to leave the country. So, you know, we spent about a year and a half getting all the documentation necessary, not only to leave the country, but to enter the United States, which was we had to get a sponsor. We had to get the visa.

And then, of course, the tickets, the passport, everything, you know, on the cover. Like nobody knew, nobody in the family knew that we were leaving. Because if they knew... They would have kept my dad, and my mom was not willing to leave without my dad. So, just so I understand, so there wasn't a legal process to leave. You've almost got to do it all on the sly.

No, no, we did it legally. Okay, so I'm just confused by that. Oh, no, no, no, because... No, no, we just... It was a matter of, like, nobody else knew that we were doing it in the family. Because the family might rebel or... No, they might, something might slip out.

Ah. Somebody might mention something to somebody else. Okay, now I understand. You know. I get you, yeah. The risk is somebody might make sure you don't leave. Well, not intentionally. Just by, oops.

Oh, I see. You said something, you know. And or we did not give anybody furniture or clothing. We left the apartment in Havana, just like we're going out for the weekend. Okay. When you guys did leave, do you think it was possibly temporary and that the political situation would change and you could come home? Yes. as long as Kennedy was alive.

That was the moment when Kennedy got shot. By then, we had been relocated to New Jersey, West New York. And you knew that was it? The ship got burnt. Have you ever been back? No. Do you ever want to go back? I don't want to go back as a tourist.

I want to go back as a citizen. See, my citizenship was stripped once we left. We became gusanos, worms. That was the nickname for people that left. Yeah. Yeah, there was a situation in the late 90s where there was kind of a loophole where you could go to Cuba as an American citizen, but you had to do it kind of on the sly. You had to go fly somewhere else, and then you could go to Cuba. And there was a group of kind of famous people going, and I was sort of offered to go with them.

And my girlfriend at the time wanted to go because, you know, Havana is such a, you know, beautiful place in terms of culture and, you know, they still have the 1950s cars. You know, of course, it's the romantic idea of something. It's a tourist thing, you know. I understand. I'm saying this. This is what I was being sort of sold. And I was curious, but, and eventually I said, I don't want to go.

And the people that wanted me to go said, why don't you want to go? And I said, I don't want to sneak. I don't want to go there on the sneak. Yeah. I want it to be a peaceful, when it's a peaceful thing. Yeah. You know? You know?

That's a shame. Yeah. Well, I hope you do get to go something. I mean, I know that I, even if I go, it's not going to be even close to the place my family left in 1961. Sure. Of course not. You probably would be almost unrecognizable. Unrecognizable.

Yeah. But still, home is home, right? Do you feel that way? Well, we know you love America, so that's... I am an American that was going to Cuba. Yeah. What would be recognizable is the breeze, the environment, the nature of it. Yeah.

You know, because there's a certain scent to it. Yeah. I get that. It was beautiful. Okay, now you're in America. Yeah. Interesting time, right? Early 60s.

And like you said, you end up going up north to New York or New Jersey. Yeah, where's New York? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you like America right away? I mean, what was your... Oh, yeah, my first impression, the first day in school.

All of a sudden, now there's prayer in school, and there's the pleasure of allegiance. I felt safe. Mm. Okay. Yeah. Safe from... Remember, this is the whole war times.

Yeah. I mean, this is a little bit of proselytizing, but I think sometimes we as Americans, born in America, Americans, we lose sight of how great America can be and is. And sometimes we need someone who comes to America and tries to almost back explain to us, don't you understand what makes your country so amazing

and the fact that your family found security and prosperity, right? Well, to me, it's so based on, and I'm not a political person, but having been affected by communism, and I am a political person. Well, how can you not be? Yeah, I can't help it. Like, you know, in America, we deal with communism and socialism.

In many ways, this is a sort of a conceptual idea. You know what I mean? It's a, like a school thing. Yes, there are practical applications, and we're conscious of where it's applied in other places. But even part of the argument that goes on sometimes in America is like, well, you know, communism has never been applied properly. You know, you hear these kind of collegiate,

explanations. But when you talk to people who actually grew up under communism, and I was in a relationship with somebody who grew up under Soviet communism, they're like, you don't want that. No, yeah, no. Because one thing is to read about it, you know, to romanticize it. And the other thing is to like be in it. Yeah. And sorry to went up to you. What was funny was when you were talking about how the kids were being interrogated at school. Yeah. The person I was in a relationship with told me a story once, and this is Soviet era, you know, early 80s.

The playbook, yeah. The person told me that one day the parents kind of said, come here, you know, and told her when we argue, you have to keep your voice down, and you can't say anything bad about us or the neighbors or the government. Like, you got to really, and she was a kid. So imagine telling a little kid, like, You got to watch what you say because we might all get a hauled out of here.

I think that's the part that where you get a little bit lost in the conceptual applications of these things. Yes. And unless you, you know, unless somebody has lived through that, is very hard to understand. Okay. So, so, because I was trying to follow your biography. So, so did you guys stay in New York or? West New York, well, you know, coming from the Caribbean, surviving the winters was pretty harsh from my family. You know, me as a kid, I could adapt.

I became very adaptable. That's one of the things that I learned when I was very young. I must adapt. You know, I adapted to the American culture. I adapted to the language. I'm still learning the language. I'm like a computer, you know, Microsoft. You're a DOS and then you got the winter.

sometimes I think in Spanish. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. But after all these years, you know, but that's my programming. That's the way I was programmed. You know, it'll begins when you're a time. You get programming from your parents,

you get programming from your school and then from TV. Were your teenage years, though, in the New York area? The reason I'm asking is, because if you remember, radio back then was very regional. Yes. So the music,

like you would have heard in the 1960s in New York, a lot of doo-wop, you know what I mean? I got there in 63. Okay. Right before the storm happened. Yeah. You know.

But it was still kind of doo-wop-y. Oh, it sure was. I mean, it was black and white. Yeah. My life was black and white. Yeah. You know, it went from kind of like Sepia in Havana

to black and white, And then, 1964, February 9, Beatles are, yeah. Living color. Yeah. Everything changed. Yeah. Especially culturally. Because, you know, when my family moved to West New York, they were not enough

Cubans there. They had some Puerto Ricans. Most of the Puerto Ricans were in the Bronx. You know, so it was mainly Irish and Italian. And they, you know, they had the little neighborhoods and blocks. And the same thing in school. They hung out with each other. Oh, sure.

And so I was kind of like... So what group did you hang out with? No group. But my little brother. Yeah. My brother, I mean, that's it. And then overnight, after the Beatles appearance, you know, Will went from having pompad doors like Frankie Valley, like combing it down.

And now it was like, we were identified by... We had an identity, a collective consciousness now. And that's when everything broke down, that wall. Because of rock and wrong. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, it was beautiful. I never heard it put that way.

It was really beautiful. Well, in a way, I mean, that's been your whole life, is this how rock brings together from people from such different backgrounds in common voice. Yes. And sorry, but that's also, I think that people who don't like hard rock music and heavy metal don't really understand is that's one of the great strengths of that, that those musical idioms is the fraternity. Yes. It gets born amongst the fact. I like to think of it as a collective consciousness.

Okay. You know, I mean, we all gather, I mean, if you're, you know, for me, being on stage and you have your own perception of you being on stage with what you do and what I do, people ask me, how did this, how did it feel to play in La Villa, you know, which you and I would play together. And I'm going, well, when I was, you know, when I was a, you know, When I was a little kid, my parents used

take me to the beach. I was two years old. Put me in a blanket, and I would spend hours looking at the ocean. And the first time that I played in a stadium with Ozzy, as soon as I went on stage, I went, it's the beach. This is great.

It's an ocean of souls out there. It became the same thing. Very spiritual here. Yeah, so every time I play in a large venue, It brings that memory back. That's beautiful. It's very, very comforting. So what were you seeing on television or hearing on the radio or hearing on the street?

Beyond the obvious things like the Beatles, what really touched you personally? Frankie Vanley in the Four Seasons. That was as close to rock and roll as we got. What a great artist, Frankie is. I mean, such cool music. Again, that New Yorkie duopi thing, right? Yes. But they had such a unique take on it.

Very unique. As a matter of fact, a couple of days ago, I just watched the Jersey Boys for the first time, you know. And I, because, you know, there's been videos on YouTube about Frankie Valley standing up on stage and lip syncing and looking like he doesn't even know where he's at. And watching his story, I get it. I get it.

This is a man who, as soon as he had his first break, this is all he knew. I said, getting up and this, for him to be on stage is to be alive, basically. Yeah, yeah. But who, who, okay, so Frankie Valley, anybody else from that, from that group? Well, you know, we had the maybe early Beach Boys, but they were, it was like rock radio was born out of the Beatles. Now, because it wasn't, it was the British invasion. So were you a British invasion fan? Yes, they opened the doors and then Ed Sullivan every week,

so I bring in the stones or the kinks or, you know, the animals. But you know, like back in the day, like some people were stones fans versus beetles. Like, where'd you? Oh, I was Beatles all the way because it brought me into it. I see. To you, they were the gateway for everything that followed. Yeah, it did. It just, it finally gave me an identity that I was looking for.

Can you explain that a little bit more? Explain that a little bit more. Like when you say identity, like, how does that give you the identity or an identity? I stopped being invisible. Okay. I, as a Cuban kid in West New York with not a whole lot of Latinos, I was the invisible kid in the classroom. Until one day, Christmas Day, I was very, I was very,

very fat when I was little because I grew up on the, on government cheese. You know, my parents being Cuban refugees. Okay. You know, we were given these. I can't imagine you fat. I was sorry. Nothing would get you fat quicker than government cheese. Government cheese. And, you know, we were given army rations and actually like little like metallic. My dad used to get those sometimes for some reason because I remember what they look like. Yeah, you remember. So you know what we were like. Yeah, I don't know why we got those. Yeah, it was like plane wrapped. Yeah. You know, you know. But I remember the box. Yes, a box.

To me, it's like going to Costco. It's the same thing. They gave me a box, and I'd put a much stuff in there. And so it was the government cheese, powder eggs, powdered milk, peanut butter, and a couple of other things that army rations. So I blew up, oh, spam. They used to call it refugee meat. Gondon of the refuel.

Spam, you know, smell so bad. Oh, my God. Yeah. So my mom would take the powder eggs and the spam and make all these. It's Spanish. Virtue G. Yes. And I got really, really heavy.

I was about 190 pounds when it was like 15, 16. And so they were looking for somebody to wear the Santa Claus suit. And one of the teachers said, well, we got one in my classroom. So they brought it something. Oh, my God. And they took me another room. They took me to another room and said, here, wear this. and go from room to room.

Did you know it was because they thought you were fat? Yes. Did it bother you? I know because as soon as they said, oh, he doesn't need a pillow. Oh, my God. Did that bother you, though? I knew I was fat. It was not in denial about that.

And I tried so hard to lose the weight. My parents took me. This is, you know, again, 60s, New York, something out of like a midnight cowboy, you know, you get that feel, the streets, you know, the look of the people. Yeah, and all that, right? So we're in New York, and my parents take me to this building,

and we go up this elevator, and there's a line of people getting, it's like diet. It was like a diet doctor, like a- Were they getting shots? Dr. Field Good, Dr. Well, it was like shots of amphetamine or something? Oh, yeah. But I didn't know what they were getting me. So there would be like an assembly line.

Yeah. And I went in there and they took my pulse and then they gave me shots and they gave me these pills at the end of the line and went home and take one of these in the morning to one of this in the afternoon and one of these at night and I was in constant at school at the gym class like what is going on you know yeah so that didn't work and it wasn't until my family moved back to Miami like in 1967 that uh in my last year of high school that I lost about 60s about 60s that I lost about 60 pounds. So when's the bass show up in all this?

The bass. Okay, so when we went back to Miami, my parents went in Christmas 63, just after Kennedy got shot, just to, you know, to cheer up my brother and me, they bought us a Spiegel catalog, acoustic guitar. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's like zebra striped, yellowish. And so my brother shared that. See, while we were kids, we shared everything

because they could not afford two. Sure. They could barely afford one, but two. Okay. And so we shared the same guitar. And so I took that guitar. That guitar was with me for a long, long time. And so I went down to, back in Miami,

I go down to each block had a band. You cannot join the band across the street. You have to stick with your block. It's a neighborhood banner. So we go there and it's in a garage and nobody has amplifiers. It's just like a drummer had a phone book. Phone books were fixed like that, you know. And he had some real drumsticks.

Okay. That was this, he had a box and a phone book, that's snare and kick. Okay. That was the drummer. And then a bunch of guys with acoustic guitars and I go, oh, hi, I introduced myself and I said, I want to be in your band and say, I said, well, we got too many guitar players.

If you want to join, you gotta play bass. And I go, what's that? And they say, well, nobody wants to play bass. What is the bass? He says, it's like playing a solo during the whole song. And we're just so- And you're still solo. I'm still soloing. So my parents, I beg my parents to go to Sears,

and again, they don't credit, a silver-tone amp, with, I picked the one that had the most input, so everybody could plug in their instruments. I know the, I know the amp you're talking about. Job security. You're the guy with the amplifier that everybody needs to plug into, you know. So that one- And sing into.

You know, also there'd have to be some guy I want to sing through the amp too. Well, you know, we have various singers, and most of them bought their own tape recorder. And they use somehow, they use the speaker from the tape recorder. Okay, so what was your first base? It was Zimgar. Zimgar.

Zimgar? Zimgar. And then my second one was a Kingston. Okay. And then my third was a Gibson E.B. Because of Jack Bruze. Slow down. We're getting ahead.

I like you with the Sears guitar. Yeah. So how do you pick up and go to L.A.? I still don't understand that. Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, actually. So.

I know I jump ahead a bit. But it gets to all the good stuff. That's fine because everything else kind of like builds up to that question that you're going to ask me. LA, okay, so we're in Florida, my brother and me, we have, you know, we're playing club bands and then disco comes in. This is early 70s. And it got to the point that you have to start wearing matching outfits. Okay. And there's a playlist.

These are the songs you're going to play if you want to work. And the club, the club would give you the playlist? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They hired some guy who, okay, the circuit was this is South Florida. Okay. Playing Big Daddy's Lounge. Okay.

Okay. So, so if, yeah, which actually would, you know, if this is what you really wanted to do it with your life, it was great because it was like Big Daddy's in every city and then you go and spend a week here and spend a week there. Ah, so it's like a circuit. It's a circuit. It's a circuit. And, you know, playing bands like Led Zeppelin. And all my Cuban musician says, you're out of your mind. It's not going to happen.

Yeah. But I said, well, I don't know. Did they say that because they, because of you being Cuban? Or they just thought it was just an impossible dream? Yeah. It's, yeah. It's because in their mind, they weren't seeing people like you on television or in the music culture. Yeah.

I mean, come on. The only guy in television that was Cuban was Ricky Ricardo. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Cuban peep. Yeah. Okay. So, so.

So we leave. My brother and me, we went up in Utica, New York, and the band that we had, this bandit. So my brother and our keyboard player, who was my brother's girlfriend, Susie, they get married and they settle in Paramus. Actually, they got, yeah, in Paramus. And then I said, well, you're married now, so it's time for me. to move on, you know, because I was a dead weight, but right day. Sure. It was like, you guys, you know, you start your family, and I'm going to keep pursuing this.

And so I grabbed my SVT, one guitar and one suitcase, put it on a train from Newark to Chicago. Okay. And I got off the train. Some people were meeting me there, and we started putting out, we put a band together that actually moved from the Chicago area. Did you play in Chicago? Oh, yeah. I played every one.

What year would have been? 75. Okay, now it's funny because my father was playing Chicago at this time. Well, band. Well, he had a band at one point around that time it was called Crystal. Crystal. Yeah. Really good band, African-American singer.

It was really talented. My dad's best friend. Around that time, Shaka Khan was singing. But my dad used to play with the musicians in Shaka Khan. So he was in that circle. Right. So isn't it funny on some possible timeline, you and my father would have crossed paths.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, we probably did. I mean, we're playing. Because you know, back then there weren't that many bands. No. Do you know Mickey Free? Don't know that name.

Yeah, he had a band called Smokehouse at that time. You know, this at the time with the thumbs, Cheap Trick had just gotten signed. Sure. So it was that, that power pop sound. When that was first, first coming in, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you like that type of music? Was that, I mean, what are you thinking musically at this moment? Glam Rock at the time. You want to be Glam Rock. Glam Rock, yeah. That was my. So who in Glam Rock are you trying to? Bowie.

Bowie, yeah. That was it. Yeah, Bowie and then everything that came along with that. But you know, Bowie had great bassists, you know. Yes, they did. This is, are you saying about Herbie Flowers, Bowie? Herbie Flowers and what's his name about?

Spiders from Mars baseball. Is it, what do you? Trevor Boulder. Trevor Boulder, yeah. I met Trevor. Oh, I love Trevor. What a great bass player. That's how I got the,

the Quiet Riot gig because they were looking for a bass player that could play like Trevor with his fingers. Because everybody else in LA was using picks to play. And all Trevor Boulder has been an incredible influence on me. Oh, that's fantastic. I didn't know that about you. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. But how do we get to L.A.? Oh, got to L.A. So, you know, we're going to get there eventually. Eventually. We had a manager that was getting us gigs, you know, but again, you know, all the money was funneled through him and one day they came and repossessed the

U-hold truck that we were using to move our equipment with... Back to Spinal Tap. Frankie Benelli was in the band at the time. Yeah. With all of his vintage percussion gear. And that was heartbreaking. So we said, we have to get out of here. I mean, we're playing everywhere. We're playing mothers.

We're playing Rush Up, Rush West. So my dad used to play mothers all the time. Yeah. Hueys. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're playing the whole circuit. And as we said, you know what, we have to get out of here. What's so beautiful, sorry, but what's so beautiful is I know exactly the world that you were inhabiting in 1975 because I was there.

You know, I would go on on sound checks during the day in those clubs with my father. So I know exactly what the smell like, felt like, what the people were like, what they dressed like. Did you envision doing what you got to do with smashing pumpkin at that time? No, no. No, my father didn't want me to play music. It was totally against it. I mean, being in the same scene as he was, I can see why. Okay, see, that's nice that you're saying that

because that's what he always would say is like, it's not the life for you. Because he had such a hard time with that scene. Yeah, see, for me, being a starving musician was a step up from being in Cuban refugee. Okay. I get that. at least your destiny is in your own hand right there's a feeling to that yeah exactly yeah so no matter

how bad it got and it got pretty bad right before i had my my epiphany uh you know basically you know people come to me for advice you know how do i do this i'll do that and my advice is be prepared show up prepared and let god take over what's the epiphany tell me the epiphany it's probably in this It isn't a book. It's early on. Which you just gave me a copy of. Thank you so much. Off the rails. Yeah, off the rails. It's not a plug.

I like plugging things. No, I love to read. As beautiful these interviews are, I mean, nothing replaces a book because it's in your own voice, in your own pace, right? Yeah, yeah. My only advice is that when I wrote it, you know, I stood, I sat in front of a computer like, you got the first page. It's blank.

And I'm going like, okay, how am I going to do this? is Hugh Grant show up and narrated the whole book to me. It did. It did. It was amazing. So if you, when you read it in the voice of Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant's voice. But with a Cuban accent.

A little bit. More like, you know, Tony Montana means if Hugh Grant would have done Tony, it was called Faye. Okay. All right. Last time. Let's get to LA. We're almost there. That's a long way.

So anyway. We were in, so three of us, you know, we burnt out the whole scene in Chicago and said, you know, we got to get out of here. And it was. Good decision, by the way. It was, yes, yes, it was. It was, but it was the only decision we had. Sure. It was like no choice.

We got to go, we got a record deal. We got to put a band together and so on. And, you know, the people who have like mind, you know, mind about direction that we wanted to do. So it was Frankie Benelli and, you know, Bob Marlis. Of course. That was our keyboard player. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. Yeah. We drove from Lincoln, Nebraska, which is where Bob's family is from, in his dad station wagon with a small U-hole, because you have to carry his V-3, of course. Back in the day, there was. Lifting those things up and downstairs couldn't have been fun. Oh, rush up? Oh, yeah.

With a Leslie, of course, you know. Yeah. So we venture over to. in 1977 to LA. We got there and- So we're in LA now. We're in LA. And there was a circuit of ladies

that would welcome musicians from out of town. And they kind of like you spend a week here, then you spend a week over there. Is this groupies or friends of the band? Or a bit of both. You know, groupies, it has such a sour connotation. You know, if it wasn't for these. ladies, most of them would have never made it, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, they were kind souls, you know. Yeah, I, you know. Kind souls. Yeah, thank God for that. An association of kind souls. Yeah, thank God. Okay, I get it.

I get it. They weren't. Yeah. Yeah. So here I am and we ran out of money in 77. Of course. So Bob, as you do. Yeah, Bob went in his own way and Frankie went his own way.

And I went back to New Jersey. got some money together with my brother playing in a lounge club, clubs in the whole New Jersey circuit, Howard Johnson's. Okay. A lot of Howard Johnson. But the idea is you're going to come back once you get some money. I was going to get money together, and I did.

And I got my ticket, and two days before I was going to fly back to L.A., I got a phone call from Kevin DeBrow. And he says, hey, man, we're looking for a bass player, and everybody tells me that you're the guy, because, you know, they were looking for a guy who played with the fingers, like Trevor. And so I said, hey, I'm going to be there in a couple of days, I'll give you a call.

And you'd seen them play before. Yes, I did. But that's a different question. Well, I'm saying you had some connection to the group. Very small connection. Sure, but it's funny how those things work. Well, for example, do you like Al Green? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So Willie Mitchell, who produced Al Green, and was the drummer, was playing a gig in Memphis. I hope I get this story right. And, you know, back in the day, you know how those things were. Like somebody get up and sing a couple songs or something. It was kind of a loose vibe.

So Al Green gets up and sings with Willie Mitchell's band, and he's just met this guy. And Al Green goes, hey, I got to get back to Green Bay or something. Can you lend me like $400 or some? It was a pretty, for the 70s or 60s, whatever, it was a pretty significant. And for some reason, he just trusted him. And he lent him the money.

And a year later, Al Green Camp comes back to Memphis. And that's what started Al Green, the Al Green that we all know. Wow. With that guy. Yeah. That same musician. So what I'm saying is life has a way of. Yes, it does.

And my whole life is literally, if you hadn't gone to a Starwood or whatever that night and met Kevin Dubrow. or seen Quiet Riot. Well, the same thing happened with Frankie Benelli. But then again, that's another story. But that's what I'm saying. There's something beautiful about that, how those things were. I went to see David Bowie at the only tour he did in the United States as Ziggy Star does.

It was only one. Yeah. Yeah, only one. And they played at Pirates World in Miami. Sorry, it just sounds so funny. Did it look like Pirates World? Pirates World was an amusement park that had a... Even better.

Stage, you know. And... Did, how was the attendance? Oh, it was sold out. Because, you know, because the famous thing about that tour, because it's only Ziggy's tour that he did. Certain dates, it was, like, sold out and then other places, like, nobody would come because they didn't know who he was.

South Florida, I had a huge gay community. You know, so he was very, very supported there. So you got to see that lineup. I got to see that. Oh, wow. But most important was that I got to see the opening. Which was? Which was a band called Ginger.

Okay. I had no idea who these guys are. I'm from Miami. They're from Port Vodendales. It was like two different worlds apart. I mean, the Latin, you know, Cubans trying to sound like, you know, like three-look night.

As you do. And he was, Frankie was playing, you know, with American musician. Yeah. You know. Was Frankie, Frankie even then? As a drummer.

Oh, yeah. You know, very. Oh, even more. Even more. I mean, because he was younger. How do you turn that down? You mean, no. No, you know what I'm saying?

He's always been one of those. Yeah. God bless him. I know. I know. Yeah. But, no, because he was younger and sometimes he's, you know, sometimes when you start working with certain people, things started tipping away from

you, you know, that you kind of like conform to. Okay. But I think that's funny that he was an outsized personality the first time you ever saw. Oh, he was ruthless. I mean, he was seeing ruthless, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, as he got older, but there was a certain innocence about his ruthlessness when he played, you know. And so anyways, so I walk in and I,

the opening band is playing and I'm going, oh my god, this guy's the drummer, he's, this guy's amazing, you know. So Bowie comes on and he does this thing. And so the next day is my birthday, November 18. And we're at a place called the Flying Machine, which was a club in full other day. everybody got together.

And that was the rock club. And so I'm talking to some people and they go, hey, that's one of the guys that opened up for Bowie last night. And I go, I run over and I go, I thought he was the bass player. And I go, hey, man, you know, I saw you guys last night with Bowie. I love the band, especially your drummer. I thought he was amazing. And he's just letting me talk. And he's like smiling.

And then he goes, hi, I'm Frankie. I'm the drummer. We started playing the next day. Wow. Yeah, because the band would have broken up anyway. So that was kind of like a last minute replacement for somebody else. See, that's, again, this fate, right? So that was 1972.

So fast forward to 1977. And I wasn't looking for a gig. I was playing with Frankie and Bob Mollett and, you know, a couple of the other guys. And we had a singer, 20 Childs. I don't know if you remember her. I do, like, yeah. 15, 16 years old. Wow.

So, yeah. We met at the Rainbow Parking. lot. Crazy. And we put a band together. It was called Scarab. Scarab. That's a good name.

The Beatles, Scarab, you know. But still it has a kind of a mystical. Mystical name to it. Yeah. So, so quiet riot. So, you know, I'm in LA, 1997 and, you know, every night you went out because if you did not go out,

you might miss that great opportunity to meet. Ah, so it's networking. Networking. So everybody would say, hey, man, you know, you got to go see this band Van Halen. They're playing the whiskey. I can say what he said. And I go, okay. So I tried to get in and it's like, well, sold out.

Okay. And so some guys are saying, well, you know, there's a club down the street called the Starwood. And, you know, wearing my six-inch heels and walking down for about a mile to get in the thankfully now you're skinny. You're skinny now because you're poor, but you're skinny. Starving musician. was B.F. I'm kidding.

Which really, you know, like this whole 80s fashion of us looking very feminine. Yeah. We didn't have any money to buy clothes. So, you know, let's say you went home with some girl to her place. A friend.

A kind. A kind girl. They were very kind. And you get up in the morning, you go through the closet and you pick something to wear that weekend with your band. That was clean.

You know, yeah, it was clean. So, That was the fashion sense of the strip bands, right? Okay, so I make it to the start wood, and I'm kind of like, you know, it was a different crowd than the rainbow. It was more like younger crowd. So I'm like, okay, local crowd too.

There was less of the expatriates that moved from England to now they're living in L.A., so there was more of that sense. at the rainbow. And now at the Star Wars like local kids, you know. And so the band comes on and they have a production going on, Quiet Riot, you know,

and they got sirens and flashing lights. And then I see Randy and go, wow. You know, by then I've been touring in a band called. You see plenty of bands. Yeah, all over the United States going like, you know, playing close. seeing what else is going on. I see these guys, and I go, wow,

they're better prepared for the next step than everybody has done seen, you know, so far. So, you know, Randy is the one that caught my attention, and they had an image, they had a person. Did you understand Randy's talent right away? Absolutely. It was a glimpse because they had so much more than just what he was doing on stage,

but at least It was a glimpse into everything. It's funny because if you go back and listen to the music that he was making then, certainly he can play, but the Randy that comes later hasn't quite gotten there yet. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you about the day that he came over my place and played me the Blizzler-Woss record. And remember, we had just been playing for about a year before that together. Sure, and you knew him very well, and he was your friend.

And I was teaching at his mom's school, so we spent a lot of time to it. And I listened to it, and I go, what happened? And he says, well, I asked Ozzy what he wanted me to write. And he said, be yourself. He could not be himself in L.A. Can you explain that a little bit more, what that mean? The music industry. They wanted something specific.

Everyone wants to get signed and they're trying to figure out what they need to do, get signed. So it's more about. Yes. Okay. At that time, punk and new wave had come in. That's right. You know, and if you were not Devo, if you were not the NAC, the motels,

they were not interested in you. Yeah. Glam rock had already passed. Yeah. You know. And so what we were doing as Quiet Riot was dinosaur music, quote unquote, from the record companies, you know. That's why Randy left to join Ozzy, you know.

But anyways, to that night, going back to that night, So Quiet Ride, finish the set, and then I see Kevin Dubour walking around the club, and I go up to him, just like I did with Frankie. It's my nature. I always do that. Not because I'm looking for a gig, but just because I like to tell people,

hey, you're on their right track. I really appreciate what you're doing. You know, keep doing it. What was it about what was it about what he was doing that caught your ear? You know what I'm saying? It's easy sometimes. to look at, you know, obviously Quiet Riot made this seminal record,

and you were part of that, but what is it in that night that you think? And, you know, because, like, clubs, bad sound, like, what made you go? I got to say something to this guy. In a club environment, it was a showcase club. National Acts would play there, too. They checked all the boxes. Okay. So what are the boxes for you?

they had a vision, they had a production, a presentation, what they really needed was better songs. And when we were young, we had this romantic, you know, idea that some big-time producer was going to come in and magically change everything and fix it. You know. So we thought, okay, we're going to take this as far as we can. Sure. But every time that we try that,

it's a, every time we would do a demo and come back with the demo, whatever they were asking us to sound like, was passe. I see. So that period when, before Randy leaves, and you're in Quiet Riot in that period, how long is that?

77, 78. So is a year-ish? Oh, I'm sorry, 78, 79. Okay. So how long is that a year to you? Well, 78 and 79. So I would say about a year and a half. So it's like we're going to make it and nobody wants us.

A lot of heart breaks. Yeah. Oh, painful. We tried everything. We're having a meeting at Randy's house and what are we going to do? The record companies are not paying attention. And I say just like, you know, something stupid. Say, yeah, why don't we get our fans and take him and have him pick it in front of the record companies?

Oh, I know this story. Yeah. And Kevin goes, that's a great idea. And I said, I'm kidding. He says, no, no, let's do this. So we get two flat bed trucks, flatbed. This is an insurance nightmare. You could have gotten sued for it.

You're not thinking about getting sued. No, no. Exactly. No, he just said, we get two of our roads to drive at these flat trucks. And they did that. So the first stop was Warner Brothers. And you went to every label. Yes, but what happened was in Burbank,

you had to have a permit to demonstrate. So they got kicked to get out of here, kids. And so everything got off because we had a publicist that was trying to get, you know, journalists down to cover the whole event. So on the last one, CBS, because, you know, it was routed, you know, CBS and being Santa Monica, that was the last stop.

That's the, the cameras showed up, you know, with reporters. Okay. We got that. And then we got one person that called up the band and says, hey, I'm interested in what you guys did. Let's have a meeting. So we show up there and he through his office. And the guy goes, okay, it brings out Billboard magazines.

You see this Rod Stewart song? Do you think I'm sexy? If you guys come up with a song like this, we might have a demo deal. So we rushed over and we wrote a, Do You Think I'm Sexy Soundal Life? It was called One in a Million. You can hear it on YouTube.

Okay. And we go back, do you think I'm sexy? It's off the charts. Not there anymore. So the guy goes, I'm sorry. We're not really interested in way and that's me. That was it. Yeah.

So Randy gets the call. I know he'd had some brief encounter with Sharon in L.A., but then he gets the call to go to England because they hadn't been able to find somebody in England for Ozzy. Or in Los Angeles, neither. Okay, right, because, yeah. So did you know Randy had gotten that call and were you in the loop at that time?

We had just finished rehearsal that evening, and I go, Randy, I see Randy packing more than usual. And I go, what are you doing after rehearsal? He says, well, this guy, Dana Strom, you know, the baseball player from Slaughter. Okay. He keeps calling me because there's this guy, Ozzy outborn from singer from Black Sabbath, and he's putting a band together and he's been bugging me, Dana, not Ozzy, to come down on an audition for him. And I just want him to stop calling me,

so I'm just going to go and, you know, and play. And I say, I saw a ton of, I can't believe it. Because at that time, we hit the wall. We were just like, you know. Out of options, yeah. Yeah, it was like, so I tell him, oh, man, are you kidding? Yeah, go because I've been trying to get in touch with Aussies people so I could audition for it, you know, because at that time we were just.

You were trying to get in touch with. I was trying to get in touch. Everybody in town was right. Yeah, except for rain. He didn't care about it. So Randy, he wasn't even particularly a fan, right? I mean. No, he wasn't.

Yeah. He wasn't. But, you know, situations like that make it even better. Because then you're, the last thing Ozzy needed was a fan boy in the band. Or a fake Tony Iommi. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So he had no Tony Iommi influence in his playing, but he had a lot of classical music.

Yeah. Which I found out when I started teaching him. at his school and in between lessons, Musonia, his family has, I still have it, and it's in North Hollywood. And between lessons that we hear Randy playing acoustic, classical music, and I go, I don't know you play like that. He says, well, this is not for quiet riot,

so I cannot really, you know, bring songs like these, you know. And that's what, but he was able to bring that out, playing with Ozzy. Were you in touch with them when he did get the gig in England and was making the first couple records? It's not like today that you can text somebody. Yeah. Back then it was like. But like you, like you were still teaching at the family?

Yes, I was. So you knew kind of. I asked his mom. Yeah. How's Randy doing? Yeah. And she would give me an update, which would be like, he would write postcards.

That was his update. Yeah. Yeah. So you had some sense it was going well. He's got the gig. He's recording. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, we all know. If you're recording, that means somebody's paying. That means something's happening. I didn't even know. he was in town when I got the phone call that they were auditioning, and they wanted me to come into audition. Okay. From Sharon. I didn't even know he was in town. Okay. This is later, though. Later, 1981, yeah. Okay. So, um, you kind of bounce around for a while. You're not really sure what you're doing. Quiet Riot kind of dissipates for a while. Yeah, as soon as Randy left,

the Quiet Riot ceased to exist. Yeah. And you thought that's it. It's done. Yeah. So, I cut my hair. Uh-oh. You went new wave. I went new wave. Skinny tie? Well, you know, a lot of the new wave music that we were doing, we put it, we put a band together, it was Frankie Benelli, Pete Comita, who was the guitar playing the thumbs.

Yeah. Chicago. Yeah. Who later became the second bass player in Cheap Trick. That's how I know his name. Yeah. And when they, and I know, I've never met Pete. Yeah.

but it was weird because they, you know, Chief Trick basically hired someone who looked like Tom to try to trick everyone that he was Tom, which is I always felt bad for Pete. Like, it's a weird gig. Like, you kind of look like Tom, but you're not Tom. It was Pete. Well, no, that's what I'm saying.

That's why I know the name. Yeah, I love Pete. And then we have Bob James, who was the second singer in Montrose. Okay. Yeah. And so Pete, was

his girlfriend was Barbara Baker Roy Thomas Baker's wife or ex-wife at the time but they were all living in the same house well that's where I liked an open life let's put it that way God bless him okay so

so all of a sudden that Barbara is taking care of the band we were called a private army and we started going in the studio like Cherokee and so on to and the ideas to get a record deal as kind of a new waveish band. New waveish band. But, you know, it's like, we looked,

just because we had shorter hair didn't mean that we sounded. Like we had shorter hair. Right. So we wrote, you know, the main writers in the song reached out and take it, which actually wound up as a cheap trick song on heavy metal, the animated movie. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that one. Yeah. So we did the original. one. Okay, I have to look that one up. And here's the irony. So we did the song with one of

Roy Thomas Baker's engineers at Cherokee, and Pete gives it to Roy and says, nah, I don't like the song. There's nothing original, right? Then he turns around and produces that song.

It sounding exactly the same as what we did in the demo for the sound. For the sound soundtrack of the movie. Well, that's rock and roll, right? What are you going to do? You know? So that band, the band never got signed, right?

No, no. It was kind of a... They never got signed. One of those L.A. almost. Pete left to join Cheap Trick, you know. And then shortly after that, I joined Ozzy. Yeah. Which leads me to the next question, because in there is the epiphany.

Okay. The epiphany. So, you know, I'm playing in Dubrow, Kevin's band. And this is after Private Army, This is like, you know, so Kevin says, how would you like to, you know, move in with me and join, you know, play with me. You know, and Dubrow says, well, you know, I don't have a better choice right now. And I love playing with Kevin and, you know, we got along great. It was a whole different Kevin at the time.

You know, it wasn't the rock star Kevin. It was just Kevin, you know. And so, you know, I have been in a spiritual journey. for a while. You know, I mean, as a matter of fact, you know, once you get in the book, if I tell you that it's really a spiritual journey, that's what the whole book, but it's not in your face. Okay.

I just mentioned it once, and I figure if somebody's going to get it, it's going to get it as soon as I say it one time. Okay. And so there were two phases to it. The first phase of my epiphany is I'm laying in bed and I'm meditating and I hear this, I have my eyes close and I'm here this buzzing, really high pitch, and open my eyes and there's this circles

of energy. Okay. Floating over my head. Like a visual representation too? It was really a circle. No, and I believe you, I'm saying I'm just trying to picture it. Yeah. Yeah.

It was, okay, it looked like a fan where you put a fan and start spinning, and then the center has more of a solid mass because it's holding the blades. And then you got the blades who are more transparent. And it's like hovering over me. And I'm going, okay, I don't want this to disappear if I move. Sure. So I'm just stood still in bed. I'm laying down.

And then it hovers over me and it goes to my feet. And then it projects itself on the white wall. The room was all white. And I started seeing visions of things in 3D because they were spinning. And then it goes back into that solid circle. And I've been aware of it ever since. Okay. It's with me all the time.

Do you think it was an awakening to? a sentience or a greater sense of, you know, because there's a lot of belief now with quantum physics that, you know, time space as we perceive it as not what we think it is. I'm a true believer of that. I went down the rabbit hole with quantum physics during COVID. Sure. I'm a different person for it. Did you see the, do you see what you've experienced or saw as a spiritual thing or more

of a quantum thing? to me they're the same okay they're indistinguishable yeah yeah yeah you ascribe it to a particular religion or it doesn't it doesn't matter i'm christian okay i'm christian so you know after that uh at that time you remember this is l.a. night early 70s it was the new age yeah spirituality yeah you had a bunch of personality cults out here in l.a and all of that so everybody was into something you know and somebody turned me onto T. Lopson Rampa, which was a Tibetan monk, and he had a series of books. And that's how I got into meditation.

It was kind of like not the right path, but it was the path leading me to that. And then after that, I read the whole, the New Testament, the Old Testament and the New Testament, one book, Bible, that I still have with, It's in my possession. And at the end of it, I came to the, that's when I had my epiphany.

I said, you know, I made peace with God. I'm sleeping on the floor, shot carpeting on a flash Gordon sheet that somebody gave me. And I made peace with God that as long as my fingers kept moving, I was not a key point. But my relationship with God was more important. done anything else. That was it.

I just let it go. When you say let it go, the stress of life, the worry about what's going to happen to me. Yeah. All I knew was to be prepared and just let God take over. That's it. Okay. Just show up to everything that I'm doing. If I have an audition, I'm going to be prepared.

I see. But the final decision is up to God. So Randy's with Ozzy. Bob Daisley bangs off in one of their famous rouse, which went on forever in, in out, in out. And you end up getting the gig. Did Randy have influence on that? Well, Randy is the one who told Ozzy and Sharon about me,

that I existed. I had no risk. Hence you getting an audition. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It happened twice. So, you know, a couple of days after my epiphon, And I was playing in the band called Angel, too.

Yeah, the famous Southern California Angel. Yeah, the Monkey Meadows, you know, Angel. But they had just lost their record deal to Casablanca. Okay. And so it was kind of like, but I was happy. I love the guys. They were really nice. It was cool hang, and I was playing an angel, you know.

I had an identity. Okay. I'm in the band, Angel, you know. They were big band. Yeah, they were a big band, yeah. And so I really liked them enough that when I got the first call from Sharon and says, I, Kevin DeBron says,

hey, Rudy, there's somebody calling you and I go, everybody knows me. Hello? Oh, hi, Rudy. This is Sharon and Ozzie's manager. Doreenie tells me about you and we want you to come out to audition. And something that I learned later on in life,

even though I quit drinking 28 years ago. But recently, within the last maybe five years, when I joined AA, I learned that I'm an alcoholic. Okay. So one of my alcoholic decisions was to turn down because I was shooting from the hip. I see. I didn't think about it, didn't meditate on it,

then say, wow, that sounds great. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? I didn't take... So your first reaction was just, no, thank you. No, thanks.

I'm playing an angel or blah. I'm good. She hangs up on me. I said, well, okay, so... How dare you? How dare you? Exactly. So Kevin goes, who was that?

I go, oh, that's... Randy's an Aussie's manager, Sharon. They wanted me to audition, but, you know, I'm playing an angel. And he goes, then it starts yelling at me. And I go, oops, I guess you're right. And so, you know, little that I know that the next day I was going to get a call from Ozzy. At that time, I just said, okay, this is...

You let it go. Let it go. Okay, because I was in that, let it go, you know. It's okay. I get the second call the next day. And now at that time, it's like, oh, yes. So Ozzy himself called. Ozzie himself says, yeah, man, you know, Randy tells me that you're the guy.

and we just audition a bunch of hacks and it says, yes, I'll be there. So Randy picks me up and because they were in a crush. They had to meet and do this whole thing really quickly. Because within 10 days. That tour dates coming here. Yeah, 10 days were going on tour. And so they picked me up right after I said yes.

And Randy takes me over to Beverly Hilton. And there was a Trader Vicks underneath. And we go and there's Ozzy and Shire. and Tommy Aldrich. And I'm sitting with Ozzy, and he's telling me, you know, he's like telling me all about Randy and how much he appreciated him and loved him. And when I'm thinking, wow, this is a good place to be in.

There's a lot of gratitude and appreciation going on, you know. And he just told me at the end of it, he says, man, I get a good vibe from you, just be able to play. And that was it? You didn't even play. I haven't played yet for him. Yeah.

Just we think you're the guy. Let's go. Yeah. And so the next day for the audition, Randy shows up at Kevin's place. Because, you know, nowadays, a 10-year-old or a fetus can actually play Crazy Train.

Back then, it's like, I never heard the song. I got to learn this, you know. So it was like, okay, so Randy goes, okay, it goes like this, you know, because he needed to like, You know, within an hour, we had to be at a rehearsal place playing these songs live for Ozzy and Sharon. And so he teaches me crazy train and I don't know.

Those were the audition songs. So we go over and I had to retain it. And then we drive over to rehearsal. We do one pass with Tommy. And then Ozzy and Sharon show up. And they listen to us, play the two. songs with Ozzy looking at the band. Then Ozzy gets up on stage, we play the songs again.

And Asi turns to me and says, hey man, do you want the gig? I said, yes. And my life went into Panavision color at that moment. It was like, wow, I'm in this world now. Boom. Yeah. Hot band, hot album, albums, right? Back to back.

Yeah, I had a gig with the most amazing musicians I ever play with. Yeah. As a band. Yeah. So thank you because, you know, our interview today is two parts.

And I don't want to go over the tragic plane crash with Randy because it's been so talked about. But so I thought, rather than sort of go over that one more time because it's a painful thing. And even as a fan thinking of how painful is, you know, having met some of the family through the years just in my own life and even being able to express my gratitude for what a great musician Randy was, I thought it was because you guys were friends.

I thought rather than end on tragedy, it's there. It's part of his story and Ozzy story and your story. I thought, if you could, just talk a little bit about Randy as a musician because the shocking thing to me in researching and getting ready to talk to was he was only 25 years old. And you think of the music that he produced by the time he was 25 that we're still listening to and we still celebrate him. And even when we did the last Ozzy show together,

there was that beautiful moment where Randy's mom kind of talked a little bit and they were able to pay tribute to Ozzy, Randy in the show, and was so emotional, you know. It was, it was. Well, you know, after Randy died, I just lost the joy of making music. I mean, I'm still trying to get that feeling

of being in a band like that. not only because of the caliber of the musicianship and the music, but also the caliber of the integrity, which is something very rare to find musicians with the musical integrity of the level of Randy Rhodes. of course you had Ozzy, Ozzy who went on to after Randy passed away. I mean, Randy was his first discovery.

And I look at his career as a career of mentorship and discovering some of the greatest talent in music. It's crazy. Yeah, it is. It is. And diversity. Yeah. He said, you know, I'm, I joined the band.

I passed the audition. And there's so many stories that I can tell you about it. But getting to the point, the next day, he's doing an interview. And there's actually a photo session that goes along with the interview. And they ask him, so who's in the band? And he goes, well, we got Randy Rose. And, you know, he talks about Randy and Tommy Aldrich. And then he says, and we got Rudy from Cuba.

That's for Circus magazine. Finally, you know, he did that interview. like in April and I opened the magazine like in July because I used to take that long and I'm like oh wow Ozzie interview maybe maybe there's something about us you know the guys in the band I opened it a Rudy from Cuba and I went wow he doesn't mind that I am from Cuba you know and I I that was like the what confirmed it because he has he has he I'd always been so gracious. You know, again, I've been in the band at that time for like three or four months. Sharon opened her house to me, her family home.

I moved in with them. The day that I got the audition, I moved in. Yeah. Because I was sleeping on the floor. Yeah. And he says, well, we have these bungalows here. You can stay one of them. Yeah.

Nobody did that for me before. Ozzie, we were playing pool. He takes a look at me. And he goes, man, it looked like, You need some luck and roll clothes. I did. I'm telling you, I was wearing all these girls' little outfits, you know. So he goes to his room, brings a suitcase, and pours it on the pool table.

And he says, grab whatever you want. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's the jacket from that album cover and this magazine. And I'm like, I can grab this. Here. So I drive me stuff. It's here. Wear this. And that's what I wore on.

the first photo session, you know. As far as diversity, me, Cuban, then he's had all these different nationalities in his band, Jackie Lee, you know, we got Randy Castillo, we got Mike Innes, Robert Trujillo, and we're missing anybody. No, but that's what I was saying. Rock and heavy metal is uniquely voiced for bringing people together

in a way that other genres just don't seem to do that. Yeah. As he worked on vibe. It's a very intuitive person. Yeah, that was it. He didn't care what you look like where you came from. Yeah. It's a lot to process.

But thank you for sharing that about Randy because I think that's, you know, when somebody passes, it forces us to look back. Like with Ozzy passing, it forced us to look back. But speaking of Randy, you know, by the time as a fan, and I even knew what he had he was gone, you know, because I love those records, and I learned guitar to those records, you know. And I knew that he was special, but I didn't know how special, because what do you know when you're 14, 15 years old?

You know what I mean? But I love what you said about integrity because, in a way, his talent is so shockingly ahead of its time. You know, he set the template for so much guitar music to follow. That in a way, he was always he almost kind of snuck up on everybody. It was so explosive. And the other thing, which you would know is,

they did that first album, and then why they were waiting, they went ahead and recorded the second album. So when he made both of those albums, he didn't even know if people were going to like what he did. When I joined the band, that album was not mixed yet. So maybe a month later, after I joined the band, the cassette appears and Ozzy puts it in the tour bus, and listened to it for the very first time,

and it was so different from the first one that he hated it. It was kind of shocking. Even the first time I heard it, it was a little bit like... Because it was the future. Well, that's what I'm saying. Even as a fan in 1982 or whatever was the year, I remember listening to it right? The week it came out thinking, right?

Yeah. It sounded so different because the blizzard is more 70s sounding. Sure. The way it's engineer and mix. Oh, no, Randy's taken off there. And by the second one, it was like, and Ozzy was not ready for it. Yeah.

Even though he recorded it, but I think it was more than having to do with the mix, being kind of like wet, a lot of atmosphere to it, you know. Yeah. And he wanted a little bit of a drier record. It was actually when we did, speak of the devil, that's a very dry life recording. Sure.

Sure. Okay, let's stop there. We have so much more to talk about. Oh, yeah. End of part one.