George Lynch looks back at his Ozzy Osbourne audition!

Mr. Scary – George Lynch

We found a few quality items in a recent George Lynch interview. Check it out below.

Jeb: You were on That Metal Show on VH1 Classic with Don Dokken and everyone thought a reunion of the original band was going to happen. I have to tell you that I never thought it would happen. Now, it appears I was correct as it does not look like it will happen.

George: You were right. You and Don knew it all along; the rest of us were a bunch of tools.

Jeb: I just didn’t think that Don would share the spotlight with George Lynch.

George: He would not share the spotlight or the money. The real bottom line is the money. He wouldn’t become a quarter partner instead of owning the whole thing. That is really it in a nutshell, the rest is just noise. Anything else that anybody tells you is bullshit because that is what it is all about.

Jeb: Are you okay with that?

George: I would have liked it to happen. I would have liked to play with my old friends, Mick [Brown] and Jeff [Pilson] and I would have liked to play with Don, if he would just kind of tone it down a little bit. I found out the hard way that that is never going to happen.

Not to feel sad for him, because he has created this himself, out of selfishness, but he will never really know the joy of playing with his friends and building something and going through hardships together. He won’t know writing songs out of nothing and making records that you can be proud of and that people appreciate. He won’t know about enjoying time with his friends and sharing all of that, whether it is on the road, in the studio or just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company.

A band is like your second family and it is really a beautiful thing. Don will never know that as he isolates himself and makes himself above other people in his own mind. It is a lonely place to be.

I have been hit with that sort of thing a lot from my managers. They feel very strongly that it is silly of me to divvy up things with the band because it makes it complicated and they have to worry about three other people. They say that I should just be a solo artist because my name is just as strong as the band’s name, if not stronger. I just think that is a lonely place to be as I wouldn’t want to just play with a bunch of hired guns. I want to play with my buddies and work really hard and all share in the reward for the sacrifice. I think that is kind of the whole point of playing in a band. I always wanted to play in a band with my friends.

Skipping ahead a bit we find this about his Ozzy audition.

Jeb: Last one: Did you really try out for Ozzy’s band when Randy Rhoads tried out?

George: I was up for it three times, seriously up for it. I was one of a couple of guys being considered.

The most serious was when they flew me to Scotland and I toured with the band for a little bit. I rehearsed with them in Texas and then we came back to LA. They had one more person that they wanted to look at, as a formality, and that was Jake E. Lee. They ended up going for him and not me.

Jeb: I like the albums Jake was on but I would love to have heard you jam with them.

George: It was a great choice. They didn’t base it on playing because he didn’t play very well; I have talked to him about this many times. It was really based on his looks. He had hair down to his ass and he wore leathers. He looked amazing and he moved amazing and that is what they wanted.

Tommy Aldridge and I have talked about this because he was against having me in the band, which was a very critical component of their decision. Tommy said that I was really my own guy and that I wasn’t the kind of guy who fit in well playing other people’s stuff, which is very true. I am not a good guy to sit around and play around the campfire because I don’t know any other songs. I just kind of write my own stuff and do my own thing.

I didn’t have a pot to piss in and I was living in a little apartment with my two kids and my wife. I was driving a delivery truck and was a Teamster. I delivered booze in a really bad part of town.

I quit my job to go do Ozzy and they weren’t paying me a nickel. They said it was all good and that I was in. What they ended up offering me was $200 a week, which was about two and a half times less than what I was making. It was really sad.

They didn’t sit down with me or anything. Ozzy was in a back room somewhere just kind of moping to himself. He turned around and said, “Oh, by the way, we won’t be needing you anymore. We found somebody else. Goodbye and good luck.” My heart just sank. I walked outside and shed a tear and my wife told me that it would be alright.

We came back home and found an eviction notice on our apartment door. We ended up having to move in with her folks and I found another job with a company doing the same thing. Then along came Dokken and the rest is history.

Interview clip courtesy of Classic Rock Revisted. See rhe entire interview HERE

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