Ozzy Osbourne knew he’d found a gem in the wild when he landed Randy Rhoads as his guitarist in late 1979. Rhoads was a virtuoso whose skillful use of two-handed tapping, intricate scale patterns and whammy-bar dive bombs gave Osbourne’s early solo albums the guitar pyrotechnics metal required in the early 1980s.
But Rhoads’ talent came at a cost to Osbourne, the former Black Sabbath singer who died on July 22. The guitarist practiced nearly all the time, including after hours on tour, which could drive Ozzy mad.
At the dawn of 1982 — the final year of his life — Rhoads received a custom pedalboard, one intended solely for practice, that would solve this problem. The board was built to his specifications by Jon Graves and Domenic Turlace of Zeus Audio Systems in Alhambra, California, which made a line of guitar pedals as well as mini guitar amps designed for practice. Randy’s pedalboard was presented to him on New Year's Eve, 1981, roughly two months into the tour for Ozzy’s second solo album, Diary of a Madman.
Keen-eyed Guitar Player readers got their first — and likely only — look at the board in a photo of Rhoads, taken by photographer Neil Zlozower, that ran in our November 1982 Rhoads tribute issue. Spread across two pages, the photo showed the guitarist practicing on a sofa alongside three of his electric guitars: his 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom, Jackson Concorde and Karl Sandoval Custom Polka Dot Flying V.
Sitting on the floor in front of them was the tiny pedalboard, bearing a few obscured devices.
Two months after the photo ran, Graves and Turlace described the board in Guitar Player’s January 1983 issue in response to a reader’s question.
Although it was small, the pedalboard included a Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine, three MXR pedals — a 6-Band graphic equalizer, a Commande Time Delay and a Micro Chorus — and a Zeus 8401 Mini Amp. Red in color, and roughly the size and dimensions of a brick, the 8401 mini amp had controls for preamp, volume and tone, plus preamp and external speaker outputs. A second amp with a 4 1/2–inch speaker was also provided for the Dr. Rhythm.
And because Ozzy was driven to distraction by Rhoads’ constant practicing, the pedalboard included an accessory designed to keep him happy.
"A unique feature is the 'Ozzy Jacks,' added at Ozzy Osbourne's request,” Turlace explained to GP. “These jacks provide separate signals from the guitar amp and rhythm machine for a headphone mix, while shutting off the main speaker."
According to Graves, Ozzy had also requested a remote switch so that he could turn the pedalboard off from the next hotel room while on the road, because Randy tended to play into the wee hours. He probably wasn’t joking. It was never added.
The entire thing was built into an ABS plastic case salvaged from a Casio keyboard. (Some might say it’s the best use ever made of a Casio keyboard.) In addition, the lid included a battery pack as well as an AC adapter. Graves designed the pedalboard so that the battery would shut off when the lid was closed.
As a final touch, the board boasted a gold-plated plaque that read "Custom made by Zeus Audio Systems for Randy Rhoads,” along with his Rolls-Royce–style logo, bearing two R's.
In their response to our reader's question, the builders made clear they had no desire to repeat their efforts. “Anyone wishing to duplicate the pedalboard,” they said, “will have to build one themselves.”
Sadly, Rhoads would not get to use the device for long. He died tragically on March 19, 1982, when the small plane in which he was a passenger crashed during a tour stop in Leesburg, Florida.
