George Lynch recalled the miserable experience of being hired by Ozzy Osbourne and touring for a month without going onstage before finally being replaced by Jake E. Lee.
Lynch’s 1982 experience came three years after he first auditioned for Osbourne, when the Prince of Darkness chose Randy Rhoads. On the second occasion, he was hoping to fill Brad Gillis’ shoes – and he nearly did it.
“I was kind of feeling like, ‘Okay, well, this time’s real. This time it’s going to stick,’” Lynch told Ultimate Guitar in a recent interview. “And I had time to prepare.”
Lynch enlisted Ratt’s Warren DeMartini to help him work out Rhoads’ guitar parts, admitting the style was “not really down my lane.” But by the time of his new audition, he was confident he knew the material, and it seemed to go well.
“And they flew me around,” Lynch said. “I went to Scotland, I went to Ireland, England, back to Texas for rehearsals. Did some touring – but I didn’t walk onstage during the show. I’d do soundchecks with him occasionally and stuff like that. And just hung with the band. I think they wanted to see how I fit chemistry-wise with everyone.”
He continued: “But they had two problems with me. Ozzy had a problem with my short hair – I had short hair at the time. And and then his wife had a problem with my green guitar. She said it looked like a booger. Didn’t care what it sounded like, didn’t care what I was playing.
“I go, ‘Well, I have other guitars. This is just the one I brought.’ She kept bringing it up at dinner and at rehearsals. I was like, ‘I really do have lots of other guitars. It’s no problem. And my hair grows. And guess what? Your husband’s bald!’”
Referring to the fact that Osbourne had recently cut all his hair off didn’t help Lynch’s case. “But he’s Ozzy and he can do whatever he wants,” the guitarist added. “[I said,] ‘And they have these things called wigs, and lots of rockers wear them. I’ll wear one of those. How about that?’ I never got that chance to get past that.”
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The Moment George Lynch Suspected Ozzy Had Fired Him
Despite Lynch’s suggested solutions, the stalemate between him and the Osbourne camp ontinued. “About a month went by, and we were traveling, rehearsing in Dallas for a while,” he remembered. “Then we moved rehearsals to L.A. And then we’re at SIR [music studio] one night, and Wendy Dio, I guess, kept pressuring him to get one of her guys. And Jake E. was one of her guys.
“So, they had an audition that they didn’t tell me about, and I just showed up at SIR thinking, ‘We’re going to rehearse’ – and there’s the other guys onstage. Nobody even told me. And Jake E. was up there, not really playing very well – and self-admittedly, because we talked afterwards.”
Lynch had to allow: “But he looked fantastic. He had this full leather bodysuit with all these accoutrements all over it, and his hair was down to his ass. He looked fantastic. And he moved great.”
The only thing remaining was for Lynch to be told what he already suspected. “Ozzy walked back to the dressing rooms and said, ‘Hey …’ It’s hard to understand what he was saying, his accent, I couldn’t really tell what he says. But I got to the point that I was fired.”
Although Lynch enjoyed success throughout the ’80s with Dokken, he still admitted: “That was pretty rough.”
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Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff
