“There were some things going on, that just shouldn’t have been going on.”
— Tommy Aldridge

CALIFORNIA — Get On The Bus have dropped their latest video interview and the subject is drum legend Tommy Aldridge.

Aldridge, 74, has had a very storied career from his time in the early 70’s with Black Oak Arkansas, to stints recording and touring with; Pat Travers, Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne and Whitesnake.

Over the better part of 6 decades Aldridge has also contributed his skills to recordings with Yngwie Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore, Motorhead, Ted Nugent and John Sykes among others.

Now in a recent interview Get On The Bus catches up with the iconic drummer in California near his home.

Aldridge talks in detail about various stages of his career, but a lot of the focus here was during his tenure in the Ozzy Osbourne band.

Aldridge was touring with Osbourne along with band-mates Rudy Sarzo (bass) and Randy Rhoads (guitar) during that horrific tragedy that took place in Leesburg Florida back in March of 1982.

Aldridge talks at length about that fateful day and starts off talking a bit about the band’s bus driver saying; “I was on the bus and we had been traveling all night, and there was some issue, some mechanical issue with the bus… I think the air-conditioning wasn’t working. We were coming into Florida and it was very warm, so it was uncomfortable on the bus. The gentleman who was driving the bus, was also a pilot on the side (using his fingers in air-quotes) or had been previously.

“I would hang with him, sitting next to him, in the co-pilot seat (on the bus) at night sometimes, you know before I would get tired and go to sleep. He was an okay guy ya know… I knew… that he wasn’t unassisted (using air-quotes again) driving 6 and 8 hour drives.

“But there were some things going on, that just shouldn’t have been going on,” added Aldridge.

Aldridge goes into great detail about what happened, in what order, and who he saw or talked to leading up to the plane crash.

“I remember Randy sticking his hand in my bunk and tickling me saying; ‘Come on TA, come on let’s go for a joy ride’, and I said, ‘No Randy, he’s been driving all night he’s got no business flying anyway’ and I said, ‘I don’t wanna get on an airplane’, it was like, I don’t know… 7:30 in the morning and it was starting to get hot in the bus because the ac wasn’t working.

“And then I hear the plane (motions with hand above his head) so I get out of my bunk, and I am still half asleep and I am trying to make a cup of tea and I am leaning against the wall and boom like that, and my tea splashes on me and I smell the smell of fiberglass… and there was a big gaping gap on the opposite side from where I was standing.

“And I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t know that the plane had hit the bus at the time, and there was a lady screaming in the doorway of the bus which was open… she’s screaming; ‘They’ve hit the bus, they’ve hit the bus’, and I had hot tea splash on me, and there were still people… Ozzy and Sharon were still in the back of the bus asleep,” adds Aldridge.

Aldridge then describes the moments after the crash when he was still not sure as to what had happened, and upon leaving the tour bus, he states that things started to become more clear.

“I saw the house there, and I smelled something, and all of a sudden I see this black cloud of smoke coming up,” adds Aldridge.

The world-class drummer continues and shares his perspective of what happened that day and refers to Rhoads as the golden goose.

Watch the full interview below from Get On The Bus.

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