In a recent interview with 955KLOS, Rudy Sarzo shared his reasoning for choosing Quiet Riot over Ozzy Osbourne.
“Here’s the difference from playing with Ozzy and Tommy Aldridge and playing with Kevin [DuBrow] and Frankie [Banali]. See, by the time that I joined Ozzy, Ozzy had been successful: he was a bona fide rock star. You know, by 1981, with Black Sabbath, 15-16 years of doing this. Tommy Aldridge, the same thing: Black Oak Arkansas, Pat Travers, and so on,” he said.
“Me and Randy, we were just getting started,” Sarzo further said. “We were just like, ‘I’m just getting started with my career here.’ So, I needed to be playing with people that were going through the same phase in my career. I needed to go back and put a band together, take it from the ground up, get that record deal, go on that first tour, build it. Doing all the heavy lifting as a band collectively. So I found that, and of course, people that I already have been playing with and struggling with, with Frankie Banali and Kevin DuBrow.”
Sarzo found himself struggling in Ozzy Osbourne’s band after the death of Randy Rhoads in 1982. After Rhoads’ death, Sarzo’s time with Ozzy changed. When he rejoined Quiet Riot, the band he and Rhoads had been in, he found joy in making music again. The problem was that he was still in Ozzy’s band.
“I thought we were making demos [with Quiet Riot] because a standard studio for making a record, like the Record Plant or Cherokee, whatever,” he said in another interview. “I did the session and I found a lot of joy playing with Kevin and Frankie again, something that I had lost when Randy passed away.”
“So, I went to New York, recorded the two nights at the Ritz live, ‘Speak of the Devil’, with Tommy Aldridge, Brad Gillis, Ozzy, and myself. But the thought of playing with Frankie and Kevin kept lingering. So, I finished that, I go back to LA, and I made the toughest decision I’ve ever made in my career, which was to leave Ozzy Osbourne.”
He added that Ozzy and Sharon treated him great.
In other news, Sarzo recently reacted to Black Sabbath’s return for a final show. Upon seeing the announcement, the rocker said he was grateful to celebrate their era of the band.
