Zakk Wylde recently recalled auditioning for Ozzy Osbourne and noted how the metal icon would’ve been a great comedian had he not pursued a music career.
Zakk Wylde opens up on audition
Wylde had been one of Ozzy’s most frequent collaborators over the past decades. The pair’s fruitful and well-known relationship formed in 1987, when the young Wylde, strikingly resembling the late and great Randy Rhoads, joined the extended Osbourne family as a successor to Jake E. Lee.
It was a guy called Dave Feld, who was friends with the legendary rock photographer Mark Weiss, who proved to be the connection between him and Ozzy.
Wylde recalled in a recent interview on the Lipps Service podcast, that Feld had seen his former band Zyris perform at a club called Close Encounters, immediately took a liking to the young guitarist, and offered to forward any of Wylde’s demo tapes to Weiss with the hopes they’d reach Sharon, Ozzy’s wife and manager:
“He was like, ‘Hey, man, do you ever think about auditioning for Ozzy?’ I [thought], ‘I was thinking about going for a slice of pizza with Jimmy Page the other day as well’ [laughs]. Now, you’re supposed to get in touch with these people. Once again, they’re like, mythical, magical people… Dave said, ‘If you get the tape, I can give it to Mark, and hopefully he can give it to Mrs. O.’ I had nothing to lose, I was working on a gas station.”
“I ended up making that tape, and then my sister took a couple of Polaroids [of Wylde] on my mom and dad’s porch, at the house.”
The guitarist noted how Ozzy would usually have his associates sift through the demo tapes, Wylde’s ended up circumventing that process as it ended right in Sharon’s hands. He added that Ozzy immediately noticed the resemblance between the young Zakk Wylde and Randy Rhoads:
“He just looked at the picture and said, ‘Oh, look at this kid. He must really love Randy Rhoads.’ And that’s all he thought. I went down and met Ozzy. And Oz was like, ‘Have I met you before?’ And then, looking back, he goes, ‘No, it was from that picture that I had on the kitchen table.'”
Recalling how all the band members had been very nice to him during the audition, Wylde says he was excited rather than nervous. However, it didn’t seem so to Ozzy himself:
“I think [I was] more excited than nervous. I mean, it was just like, ‘This is pretty amazing!’ And then, I remember Ozz came in the next day or whatever, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe it’s Ozzy!’ And he was just like, ‘Zakk, just, just play with your heart, and then change your pants. Something really stinks.’ [laughs]”
Summing up the atmosphere of the Ozzy camp of the time, Zakk said:
“It was insane. Lots of laughs. It was amazing anything ever got done, just because we’d be on the floor crying-laughing. Because Ozzy, if he wasn’t one of the greatest frontmen that ever lived and one of the greatest rock singers ever, he’d be an amazing stand-up comedian.”
