It’s no understatement to say that the death of Randy Rhoads turned the world upside down for Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of the band. And while bassist Rudy Sarzo, then in Ozzy's band, defended the group's decision to continue touring after Rhoads' death, drummer Tommy Aldridge now reveals the chaos involved in finding a replacement for the guitarist on short notice.
“There was so much drama going on, so much tension,” Aldridge tells Get on the Bus of the aftermath of the plane crash that killed Rhoads. “Everybody was nervous about different things..”
Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy's wife and manager, was focused on the shows ahead.
“Sharon wanted to keep the momentum going,” Aldridge says. “She had dates that were booked, Madison Square Garden dates. These were all sold-out shows months and months in advance.”
Despite the bookings, the decision to carry on came down to Ozzy's sanity. As Sarzo has previously reported, Rhoads’ death had devastated him. .
“I felt compassion for Ozzy,” Aldridge says. “He had no rudder. But after Randy's gone, and we're trying to regroup, we get this assignment of trying to find a guitar player to meet this deadline for the dates.”
I was nervous, but poor Bernie had a little bit of a stutter. And the more pressure he got under, the greater it would manifest.”
— Tommy Aldridge
Their choice: Bernie Tormé, an Irish guitarist known for his gig as foil to Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan’s solo project. He would later play with Atomic Rooster and form Desperado with Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider.
“He was a Strat player," Aldridge notes. The guitar was a far cry from the Gibson Les Paul Custom and sleek Jackson metal machines Rhoads was known for. "I felt for whoever came in,” the drummer adds.
After three days of rehearsals, Tormé understood the unrelenting challenges that lay before him.
“Even if I played okay, even if I played a nice solo or whatever, if anyone looked at me onstage they thought, ‘Oh, shit. It isn’t Randy,'" Torme told Ultimate Classic Rock two years before his death.
He was soon thrown into the first on his first date with Ozzy, on April 1 — April Fool’s Day, no less — 1982 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
“The first show was appalling,” Tormé said. “I didn’t have my amps, my pedals and I had one guitar. There were three or four tracks where we re-tuned and I had to use a hire guitar that was a piece of shit. And apart from anything else, I did not know the songs.”
Aldridge says Tormé's state of mind was made perfectly clear whenever he spoke.
“I was nervous, but poor Bernie had a little bit of a stutter,” he says. “And the more pressure he got under, the greater it would manifest.
“I learned this about him in that short amount of time because we were in his time compression zone, trying to do three months of work in six to eight days. It was unholy, man. Rudy and I were twisting him, rehearsing with him. His calluses were falling off his fingers.
“He was so dedicated to doing it right and trying to learn those solos that were not his genre,” he adds. “He could play Gary Moore stuff, but these solos are Randy. These solos are the Holy Grail.
“By the time we're going onstage, I said, 'Bernie, bless you, man, we're gonna get through this.' He couldn't speak. He was so stressed.”
All his hard work didn’t amount to much, sadly. After only a handful of shows, Tormé stepped down from the role, with Brad Gillis taking his place after a hotel room audition saw him hired overnight.
Afterward, Jake E. Lee would become Rhoads’ full-time successor, producing two albums with the band before Zakk Wylde’s longstanding reign. Lee reunited with Ozzy, whom he hadn’t seen since his dismissal nearly 40 years earlier, at Back to the Beginning, and has since revealed the final message he got from the Prince of Darkness while he sat at the airport the next day.
