Speaker 1: I Am all In again.
Speaker 2: Oh it's just you.
Speaker 1: I Smell Pop Culture with Eastern Allen and iHeart Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: Come on, feel the pop culture girls rock you. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: sorry about that. That didn't sound as cool as it
Speaker 1: did in my head. My name is Easton Allen, it
Speaker 1: is I Smell pop Culture here on the I Am
Speaker 1: all In Podcast. Thank you Scott Patterson for giving me
Speaker 1: the keys to your car, for letting me do this.
Speaker 1: I'll bring it back with a full tank, I promise.
Speaker 1: Here's what we do here. We explore the pop culture
Speaker 1: references and Gilmore Girls. We talk to the people that
Speaker 1: make them real. We talk to the people that bring
Speaker 1: them to life. And we are rocking out this week. Everybody.
Speaker 1: I hope you got your leather jacket. I hope you
Speaker 1: got your big boots, your vinyl, your shaggy hair. We're
Speaker 1: going into the world of hair metal this week. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing about Gilmore Girls. We all know that
Speaker 1: Sebastian Bach, he played gil He was in the band
Speaker 1: hep Alien. He is a real deal rocker. Sebastian Bach
Speaker 1: is the real deal. Scott's talked to him a bunch
Speaker 1: of times on this podcast. We love Sebastian Bach. But
Speaker 1: there's a scene that he has in season six, episode four,
Speaker 1: the Festival of the Living Art, when he's trying out
Speaker 1: for HEP Alien and he references another band. That's who
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to you today. So here is
Speaker 1: the moment in Gilmore Girls that we are going to
Speaker 1: be exploring today. Gil's trying out for HEP Alien. He
Speaker 1: you know, there's an age difference. It is kind of weird.
Speaker 1: He's a much older guy. He's god, he's so good.
Speaker 1: Look I rewatched this episode today, but he is such
Speaker 1: a good looking dude. But later in the episode, when
Speaker 1: they're at the festival, Lane is talking to Gill she
Speaker 1: sees in there watching the show, and he kind of
Speaker 1: admits like, hey, I know I'm not getting the I'm
Speaker 1: not getting the gig. I didn't pass the audition. I
Speaker 1: know it. And Lane reassures him, you're a great guy, Gill,
Speaker 1: You're great guitar. So someone's gonna scoop you up quick.
Speaker 1: And Gil's like, I hope. So I'm gonna keep going
Speaker 1: no matter what, not like last time, And Lane says
Speaker 1: last time and Gil says yet he tells a story. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had another band a great band. We have the
Speaker 1: hottest band in LA. We sold out all the clubs,
Speaker 1: the House of Blues, the Whiskey A and our guys
Speaker 1: were hanging out. We had an awesome demo tunes. Then
Speaker 1: we got our big break, an opening slot on a
Speaker 1: national tour with Quiet Riot. But we blew it. We
Speaker 1: were fighting all the time over money, over chicks. We
Speaker 1: broke up before the tour even started. What a sad
Speaker 1: tale that Gil spins in that moment. But we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Quiet right, is of course a real band,
Speaker 1: a band that's been around. They're still touring. They have
Speaker 1: been around for decades now. And if you're not a
Speaker 1: hair metal band, if you're not into this rock and
Speaker 1: heavy music, I guarantee you know come on feel the noise.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you know that song. Come on Field no
Speaker 1: huzz don't worry. I want to sing the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But we are going to talk to Rudy Sarzo. He
Speaker 1: was the bass player in Quiet Riot. But oh he
Speaker 1: doesn't stop there. He also played bass for Ozzy Osbourne,
Speaker 1: Blue Oyster, Cult, Whitesnake. This guy is a legend in
Speaker 1: the world of heavy metal music. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to him all about Quiet Riot. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: to him about his friendship with Sebastian Bach. He knows
Speaker 1: our guy gil We're gonna get into it all here
Speaker 1: on I smell pop culture. Let's not waste any more
Speaker 1: time before talking to Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot. Rudy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. We're so excited
Speaker 1: to talk to you.
Speaker 2: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: The reason we are talking to you today is that
Speaker 1: Sebastian Bach was in Gilmore Girls, and you have a
Speaker 1: history with him. But in the show he was he's
Speaker 1: telling the drummer of a band he's auditioning for that
Speaker 1: his last band in La had a big break opening
Speaker 1: for Quiet Riot, but then they blew it. They got
Speaker 1: into a big argument over money, over women. They couldn't
Speaker 1: keep it together. They didn't get to go on the tour.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that that line is about
Speaker 1: skid Row, Sebastian's real life band and a spot opening
Speaker 1: for Kiss. What's your relationship with Sebastian Bach? How far
Speaker 1: back do you, guys go?
Speaker 2: We go far back as Actually I met him right
Speaker 2: when he joined the band. I would say nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: We were in Los Angeles. I was in Whitesnake at
Speaker 2: the time, and I went to visit their skid Rose manager,
Speaker 2: an old friend of everybody's, Doug McGee. He's a oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: Douc McGee. You know, he manages everybody, especially by Jovie
Speaker 2: and skid Row monthly crew at the time and then
Speaker 2: currently Kiss and all of that. So we were hanging
Speaker 2: in his house and he was introducing us the guys
Speaker 2: from Weissnik that were president at this party in Newport, California. Uh,
Speaker 2: the guys in the band and the Lass guy was Sebass.
Speaker 2: You you know, I mean, you don't miss him. You
Speaker 2: can't get away from him. You know, he's like seven
Speaker 2: feet tall and loud and really really good looking guy.
Speaker 2: You know. I mean, if you ever saw the cover
Speaker 2: of Rolling Stone magazine where they had him in there,
Speaker 2: you know, on the cover. You know, I think that
Speaker 2: was the last photo that Rolling Stone published with a
Speaker 2: with an actual you know, hair band rock star skid Row.
Speaker 2: We're not really a hair band because they were a
Speaker 2: little bit grungier, a little bit more punk in the attitude,
Speaker 2: but they just happened to come out at that time,
Speaker 2: and you know how it is you know, the media
Speaker 2: and the record company. You know, they're trying to put
Speaker 2: you in a category so they can sell you, of
Speaker 2: course to a certain demographic, you know. So they fell
Speaker 2: into that demographic of the their band. But you know,
Speaker 2: they came up with some other future recording that actually
Speaker 2: were much heavier than their first record, you know, less valid,
Speaker 2: less pop sounding arrangements of the songs and so on
Speaker 2: back in the nineties, so they would actually tour still
Speaker 2: tour with the heavier, grungier sound from Seattle, you know,
Speaker 2: bands you know from that, from from that, yeah, from
Speaker 2: that style of music, you know, because at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, everything melts into one thing. It's rock
Speaker 2: and roll, you know. So what happens is, you know,
Speaker 2: while MTV and record companies were dictating kind of it's
Speaker 2: like serial some kids are going to be sold on
Speaker 2: the idea of count Count Chocula. So you've got to
Speaker 2: eat this city or some kids, waitis it is for you?
Speaker 2: You know? You know, if you watch you watch morning cartoons,
Speaker 2: it was all about selling cereal and then Captain Crunch
Speaker 2: with a little whistle. Then later somebody figured out that
Speaker 2: if you bleue this whistle into a telephone, you can
Speaker 2: make long distance calls for free. I remember, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you know, and it's but you know, music was pretty
Speaker 2: much the same. It's like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 2: go on MTV and we're gonna tell the MTV audience
Speaker 2: that if you like the Thompson Twins, maybe skid Row
Speaker 2: is not for you. They're more like, if you're like Bonjobie,
Speaker 2: you're gonna love skid Row basically, you know. So you know,
Speaker 2: with time, now that MTV is not playing videos anymore, Uh,
Speaker 2: the new generation gets to discover on their own, you know.
Speaker 2: But it's difficult to find bands because it's kind of
Speaker 2: like going into Costco and you want to find something.
Speaker 2: You know, where is the Dysphibia, But you got to
Speaker 2: go through every aisle looking for it, you know, but
Speaker 2: eventually you will find it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's kind of a double edged sword
Speaker 1: because it's like if you're especially if you're like a
Speaker 1: band starting out, you have so much opportunity to get
Speaker 1: your sound out there, but there's so much to listen to,
Speaker 1: so much to get to sift through, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got to create a viral presence, not
Speaker 2: just one video you've got to create multiple videos, you know,
Speaker 2: and you have to like doing it, which is really interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, the record company used to shroun on artists
Speaker 2: getting involved beyond the creator creating the content once it
Speaker 2: came into marketing, and if you had ideas for videos,
Speaker 2: they didn't want to hear about it, you know. They
Speaker 2: usually in director and I went through this. Let's say,
Speaker 2: I mean a band we're going there's a new record
Speaker 2: coming out, and that the first single has been picked.
Speaker 2: So we get all of these directors coming in pitching ideas,
Speaker 2: you know, and and he used the problem. So this
Speaker 2: is a young director. He comes in and he pitches
Speaker 2: you an idea that you might think like, na, it's
Speaker 2: not really for us. Later on, you're working with this director.
Speaker 2: Now he's huge, and you're working with him in another band,
Speaker 2: and he remember you his great idea that he actually
Speaker 2: used on another band that had a big video with
Speaker 2: that idea that you passed.
Speaker 1: Now, really, you've you've been in so many bands, Like
Speaker 1: we were saying earlier, I'm curious, like what Sebastian was
Speaker 1: saying in that Gilmer Girls episode, Like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of times, especially in rock bands, you hear the stories
Speaker 1: of like egos clashing or or you know, you get
Speaker 1: into a fight of her money or something like that.
Speaker 1: Is what a secret to like a harmony within a band,
Speaker 1: like how how do you? How does everybody get along?
Speaker 1: Has that happened for you?
Speaker 2: Is that not? Yeah? They in the tour of us,
Speaker 2: They in your bunky way to your bunk. Even if
Speaker 2: they think you're up to something nefarious in your bunk,
Speaker 2: it's okay because once you are in the front lounge
Speaker 2: where things happen people, you know, guys in the band,
Speaker 2: they get sick of looking at each other for months.
Speaker 2: It's like pirates in a pirate ship. Yes, it's just
Speaker 2: like that. Because you're going from down you you forget
Speaker 2: where you're att Sometimes they have to write it down
Speaker 2: on the front of the stage. Hello, Minnesota, you're Minnesota.
Speaker 2: You know and and and that to me is the
Speaker 2: best what you do. It's just like, do what you're
Speaker 2: there to do, make your music, and then just stay
Speaker 2: out of the way. Don't have opinions because opinions will
Speaker 2: get you in trouble. You might be because it will
Speaker 2: create a separation between you know, one side and the other.
Speaker 2: You know, So the best way is to like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's almost like a like if you're living at home
Speaker 2: with your family, your mom and dad and your brothers,
Speaker 2: where do we spend most of our time in our room?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: In our room, you know, so it's the bunk. It's
Speaker 2: our room. And then come out to eat and socialize,
Speaker 2: has a little breakfast maybe, and then go back.
Speaker 1: That's good advice. I mean, it's good advice for life too.
Speaker 1: Just kind of like my mind, your business, take care
Speaker 1: of yourself absolutely. Yeah, Like I know you get this
Speaker 1: question a lot, but I'm just so curious, like, like,
Speaker 1: is there what's the craziest thing that has happened to
Speaker 1: you on stage that you can remember?
Speaker 2: Well, that would be with Ozzy with Ozzy Osbourne and
Speaker 2: I joined Ozzie in nineteen eighty one on his first
Speaker 2: Aussie you know, solo artist tour. Yeah, for Blizzard of
Speaker 2: Oz and then for Diary of mad Men, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know Ozzie, he's predictably unpredictable. You never know what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen. He doesn't even know what's gonna happen. It
Speaker 2: just happened. Yeah, there's no playing, it's just do it,
Speaker 2: you know, on stage, you know, and it was like
Speaker 2: every night was like, Okay, what is he going to do? Now,
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen? You know. So one of those nights
Speaker 2: the Moine Iowa in nineteen eighty two Diary of the
Speaker 2: mad Men Tour, somebody throws a crumpled thing thing on, Harry, Harry,
Speaker 2: fuzzy thing on. Stay. It's lands in front of me
Speaker 2: and I'm doing my you know, head banging, you know,
Speaker 2: moving the base of the head around, and I point out, Ozzie, Hey,
Speaker 2: check this out. Well, we're playing. So I just kept playing. See,
Speaker 2: I just carry off. That was in the middle of
Speaker 2: the set. So we finished our set. Then I see
Speaker 2: an ambulance waiting for Ozzie on the side of the stage,
Speaker 2: you know, and they rush him in there and they
Speaker 2: draw it drive off, and I go to our manager
Speaker 2: and then say Sharon, and I go what happened? He says, well,
Speaker 2: somebody threw a bat on stage, and Ozzy thought that
Speaker 2: it was a toy bat, so he bit into it
Speaker 2: and bent his head off, and he freaked out and
Speaker 2: spit it out into the audience and they can't they
Speaker 2: can't find it. Now, Oh my god, He says that
Speaker 2: we're not gonna take any chances. We're gonna get him
Speaker 2: to emergency and get him some Raby shot. So we
Speaker 2: take the tour bus and we clean up, and we
Speaker 2: parked the tour bus in front of the hospital emergency entrance,
Speaker 2: and so as he comes out and he's got this
Speaker 2: little box with monkey serum vile for him to take
Speaker 2: shots every day. And they said do not drink monkey
Speaker 2: sum because he wasn't the refrigerator along with like everything else,
Speaker 2: my yogurt, milk, beard, monkey serum, drink coffee.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't believe you were there for that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've all heard the Ozzie bit the head off the
Speaker 1: bat story, but I didn't know the details. I can't
Speaker 1: believe you were there. And the fact that he thought
Speaker 1: I never knew that he thought it was a toy
Speaker 1: or something. I just assumed he would, you know, because
Speaker 1: you hear the stories like oz, he's crazy. He just
Speaker 1: did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the help throw back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that's insane. I mean, that's a good
Speaker 1: answer to that question of what's the most insane thing
Speaker 1: that happened. That's absolutely nuts. We're to hear with Rudy
Speaker 1: Sarzo is the bass player from Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne,
Speaker 1: as you just heard, Whitesnake, so many other amazing bands.
Speaker 1: We have so much more to get into. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick commercial break. Come on, feel the ads,
Speaker 1: everybody one second. It is I smell pop culture. My
Speaker 1: name is Easton Allen. I'm hanging out here with Rudy Sarzo,
Speaker 1: the bass player, the rock bass player. If you ask me,
Speaker 1: Quiet Riot boys are cold. I mean Dio. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: some ma of these incredible bands. I want to go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of your time with Quiet Riot though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read that you stumbled into one of their shows
Speaker 1: after you couldn't get into a sold out Van Halen concert.
Speaker 1: That is that true?
Speaker 2: That is correct. It was nineteen seventy seven and Van
Speaker 2: Halen was playing at the Whiskey and I couldn't get
Speaker 2: in because it was sold out, you know, and so
Speaker 2: I just I just got into town. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, stumbling around and you know, and there was
Speaker 2: a community back then. There was a bunch of us
Speaker 2: who were I wouldn't say aimless, but we were looking
Speaker 2: for something. We didn't know exactly what it was, but
Speaker 2: we're here because we couldn't come out of town. You know,
Speaker 2: most of the musicians from the Sunset Strip at that
Speaker 2: time had migrated from other cities in the United States
Speaker 2: trying to find that combination of either a whole band
Speaker 2: or some musician to put a new band together with,
Speaker 2: you know, things like that. And so I was one
Speaker 2: of them, and we all looked the same. We all
Speaker 2: we had, you know, the same haircut, the same boots,
Speaker 2: has the same leather jacket, and you know, it was
Speaker 2: like a uniform basically, so we were easily identifiable. So,
Speaker 2: you know, so a lot of them helped me out
Speaker 2: the other guys because that was the rule of film.
Speaker 2: Be nice to everybody because someday you might wind up
Speaker 2: in a band with them. Good advice, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so, you know, so a couple of the guys
Speaker 2: outside they couldn't get it there. They say, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: right down the stream, there's a place called the star Wood.
Speaker 2: Just going there. You know, they got some cool bands
Speaker 2: playing there too, So I didn't, you know, And I
Speaker 2: walk in and there's quiet Ryot performing. And I at
Speaker 2: that time, before I got to LA in seventy seven,
Speaker 2: I have been touring the bar circuit in the Midwest,
Speaker 2: for maybe a year, year and a half, and I
Speaker 2: had seen a lot of bands that now we're gearing
Speaker 2: up to head out to Los Angeles to showcase and
Speaker 2: get a record deal. And when I saw Quiet Ryan,
Speaker 2: I thought, well, these guys did Yeah, they are an
Speaker 2: arena band, yeah, doing an arena show, you know, performance
Speaker 2: in the club, the showcase club. And I was really
Speaker 2: impressed by everything. And so I after their show, especially
Speaker 2: Randy Road. Randy Rhodes had this his fan base girls
Speaker 2: standing in front of him worrying he used to wear
Speaker 2: a little poke with dot bow ties. Yeah, and and
Speaker 2: so they all wore little poke without bow ties, and
Speaker 2: I go, wow, these these guys are rocal. They already
Speaker 2: have a really strong fan base, because you don't seen
Speaker 2: that when you play bars. When you play bars, people
Speaker 2: are just there to drink and pick up each other,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, that's why I've been married for forty
Speaker 2: one year. He was me, do you go to bars anymore? Now?
Speaker 2: I really know what I was looking for, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So after their show, Kevin was walking around making the
Speaker 2: round Kevin de Brother, the singer, making the rounds, you know,
Speaker 2: saying hello to friends, and I bump into him, and
Speaker 2: I introduced myself. And this is something that I've always done,
Speaker 2: even prior to meeting Kevin. When I see somebody who
Speaker 2: who's promising, I'll let him know because sometimes this is
Speaker 2: one thing that This is the fact local bands are incubated.
Speaker 2: They are in one area. They don't know what's out there,
Speaker 2: especially forty something years ago. This is nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 2: so it's almost fifty years ago. There's no social media,
Speaker 2: you know, you have no reference. Nowadays, you can go, okay,
Speaker 2: let me see what's out there. When you two that,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like what we do. Ah, okay, So
Speaker 2: now you can measure what you're doing, what to improve,
Speaker 2: what to work on, how to be you meek from
Speaker 2: these other bands, you know, things like that. So I
Speaker 2: was out there and I'm just coming to LA, so
Speaker 2: I could tell somebody from LA, Hey, listen, this is
Speaker 2: what's going on out there. These are the bands, you know,
Speaker 2: this is what they got going for that. You guys
Speaker 2: got even more than they do. So keep doing what
Speaker 2: you're doing. You're almost there and you're going to get
Speaker 2: a record deal, which is the goal. This is this
Speaker 2: is why everybody did it, so they could get a
Speaker 2: record deal and then become a professional touring and recording band.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's the dream, yeah, the dream. Yeah yeah. So
Speaker 2: a year later, I get the phone call from Kevin.
Speaker 2: I was in New Jersey with my brother putting, you know,
Speaker 2: getting some money playing the lounge circuit. And then you know,
Speaker 2: because you know, it can be very expensive to live
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, and I kept running out of money
Speaker 2: and keep going back out again to make money playing
Speaker 2: Top forty and then come back. And this is this,
Speaker 2: this was the last time, because this nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: I already got my ticket to come home. I get
Speaker 2: the phone call from Kevin de brother saying, hey, man,
Speaker 2: you know we're looking for a bass play. We tried
Speaker 2: everybody out, and you know, some people say that you're
Speaker 2: the guy. And I said, listen, I'll be there next
Speaker 2: week as soon as I land. I'm going to give
Speaker 2: you a call when I come over in an audition.
Speaker 2: And I did, and I started playing with kwiet right
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy eight. Wow.
Speaker 1: And what fascinated me about that first when you first
Speaker 1: joined the band is that then they break up like
Speaker 1: what it was a year later the band breaks up.
Speaker 2: Well, this is what happened Randy joined Ozzy Alsboy. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a breakout because you know, Randy was irreplaceable,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, and it was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 2: it was kind of like, you know, how can we
Speaker 2: continue on Squiet ride with our Randy? Yeah, exactly, And
Speaker 2: so he joined Ozzy Alsbo you know, I mean it.
Speaker 2: Kevin put his own band together called du Burow and
Speaker 2: I even got to play with Kevin in Dubro eight
Speaker 2: months before I joined Ozzy in April of the nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: One, you know, So what was that transition going from
Speaker 1: Quiet right to Ozzy Osbourne? And again this is like
Speaker 1: when he's first breaking out from Black Sabbath as a
Speaker 1: solo artist. What was that transition?
Speaker 2: Like, well, it was a crash course and being authentic
Speaker 2: heavy metal, all right, because you know, here I am,
Speaker 2: I'm playing with one of the godfathers of heavy metal,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the members of Black Cabin. They
Speaker 2: invented the genre, and there's certain things that must happen
Speaker 2: musically in on states to maintain the authenticity of it, right,
Speaker 2: And my rests at the time was being a musician
Speaker 2: in the sonsas Strip, you know, And and I had
Speaker 2: never been abroad. I mean I meaning in Europe, never
Speaker 2: been across the pond. I was was born in Cuba,
Speaker 2: so I was not you know, born in the United States.
Speaker 2: So yes, I came from abroad and I came you
Speaker 2: know to the United States in sixty one. But as
Speaker 2: far as going to Europe or any other country, no.
Speaker 2: I once went to Canada, but that's kind of like
Speaker 2: for a couple. So uh so here I am in England.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a whole different culture, the pub culture.
Speaker 2: You know, back in the day forty something years ago. Uh,
Speaker 2: people were set there along watch to pub hours, telling
Speaker 2: that well it's eleven o'clock, it's open park and and
Speaker 2: it's it's the mindset that if you know it's only
Speaker 2: going to be open for two or three hours, you're
Speaker 2: gonna drink your ass off, yeah, because they're gonna take
Speaker 2: that away from you closing time. They're gonna alter it
Speaker 2: up again later, so you're gonna go back back to work,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be you know, smashed. It's okay, So he's
Speaker 2: everybody else exactly. You know, little things like that that
Speaker 2: I had never witnessed before. You know, Indian food, Indian
Speaker 2: food which I love and all of that. But but
Speaker 2: again going back to the to the being authentic heavy metal. Uh,
Speaker 2: I was mentored by Ozzie. I was mentored by Sharon.
Speaker 2: She took me to the side and she gave me
Speaker 2: the the don'ts. Maybe she didn't give you one due Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do stand here, do stand here, but don't do
Speaker 2: this and don't do that, you know, which is okay
Speaker 2: because it had to see Ozzie at the beginning was
Speaker 2: an extension of Black Sabbath. So certain traditional heavy metal
Speaker 2: things had to happen on stage visually and performance wise,
Speaker 2: you know, visually, image wise and performance you know, And
Speaker 2: there were some boundaries on some rules that were laid
Speaker 2: out organically a decade or and a half before Ozzie
Speaker 2: went out as a solo artist. That became the tradition
Speaker 2: of heavy metal. Another thing that helped me out was
Speaker 2: that my ears, my heart might be expanding because uh
Speaker 2: we had Motorhead. Now Motorhead. That was really interesting. See
Speaker 2: because when I joined Ozzie, Assie was the only English
Speaker 2: member in the band, but Motorhead was full blown English
Speaker 2: traditional and let me, let me, let me, let me,
Speaker 2: let me what an I'd never met anybody like Levy before.
Speaker 2: They were like like pirates, you know, like Pirates of
Speaker 2: the Caribbean. It was just like that, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i mean they look too like the mustache and
Speaker 1: that brocker base.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, yeah. Everything about it it was authentic,
Speaker 2: was very It's something that it was not made up to, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna become like the village people. We're not, you know,
Speaker 2: we're gonna become Motorhead and we're gonna be like this
Speaker 2: this real heavy metal band. No, it just happened, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was a natural formation of this of this
Speaker 2: beast whole mora ahead. And you would go into their
Speaker 2: tour bus and it was like Caligula. It was like
Speaker 2: all the women all in the place, you know, naked,
Speaker 2: have naked the alcohol food, you know when I'm talking
Speaker 2: about like five day old pizza boxes. You know, you'll
Speaker 2: go to our bus for Sharon trouble with us. It
Speaker 2: was spotless, clean, everything in its place, nothing out of place.
Speaker 2: It was like, wow, you.
Speaker 1: Know, now which one were you more drawn to? Did
Speaker 1: you like the clean, put together bus or did you
Speaker 1: want to be on the party uh chaotic bus? Uh?
Speaker 2: You know that's a great question. No, I lean more
Speaker 2: towards the clean yeah, but but this is a matter
Speaker 2: of getting an education, yes, to be educated and like
Speaker 2: what is really heavy metal? Okay? And one thing that
Speaker 2: I must I must uh mention here that it was
Speaker 2: Sharon that was trying to keep Auzzi uh from getting
Speaker 2: into trouble with drugs, alcohol, whatever, you know, the things
Speaker 2: that he would do. In Black Sabbath traditionally, you know,
Speaker 2: bands on the road, and these guys started out when
Speaker 2: they were sixteen, eighteen year old year old. There's no
Speaker 2: rules written, there's nothing is like, we'll figure it out,
Speaker 2: you know as we go along. And there's certain things
Speaker 2: that happened that got in the way of the quality
Speaker 2: of their creativity, drugs and alcohol. And this is what
Speaker 2: Sharon was trying to avoid with Ozzie, is for him
Speaker 2: to go down that road, you know, and to be
Speaker 2: honest with you, the other guys in the band, Randy,
Speaker 2: you know, was very clean compared to Motorhead, and so
Speaker 2: as Tommy Andres who have been on the road for
Speaker 2: about maybe sixteen years with Black work Arden Saw and
Speaker 2: Pat Travers and so on. He was compared to to Motohead. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was very clean. You know, so we were not
Speaker 2: really really it's a lifestyle. You were not your typical
Speaker 2: heavy metal band except for Ozzie. So you know, Sharon
Speaker 2: would just like monitoring him, you know, make sure he
Speaker 2: will not go off the deep end. But he needed
Speaker 2: to be Azsi, which is you know, I have to
Speaker 2: let him, let him be Aussie Goes. After all, he
Speaker 2: is a.
Speaker 1: That's a tough line to ride though, you know, because
Speaker 1: you don't want him to destroy himself that you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta let him be who he is. Also, yeah,
Speaker 1: Rudy Sarzo is with us from Quiet Riot. I have
Speaker 1: so many more questions for you. We got to talk about.
Speaker 1: You know, you were playing with Ozzy Osbourne, but then
Speaker 1: you come back to join Quiet Riot. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that after we hear a few words. And
Speaker 1: these words might mean goods and services that you could
Speaker 1: be interested in patronizing. Who knows. Let's try it out.
Speaker 1: It's I small pop culture. My name is Easton Allen.
Speaker 1: We are talking to Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot. Quiet
Speaker 1: Right gets back together in what nineteen eighty eighty two, Yes,
Speaker 1: and and that's during the time of the Metal Health album.
Speaker 1: I mean the breakthrough record. So I'm so curious, like, like,
Speaker 1: what inspired Quiet Right to cover Slade for Come On
Speaker 1: Feel the Noise? Where'd that come about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a really good question. So you know,
Speaker 2: I got to give you the full picture. So Randy
Speaker 2: Rose guys in the plane crash in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: March nineteen okay. And so but meanwhile, Dubrow had his
Speaker 2: own band called Dubro that, like I mentioned, I was
Speaker 2: a member right up until the day that I joined Ozzie.
Speaker 2: So in September, as I am getting ready to go
Speaker 2: to New York to record Speak of the Devil, which
Speaker 2: is the Ozzie Black Sabbath era re recordings of you know,
Speaker 2: his classic you know material, yeah song you know from
Speaker 2: Black southn Okay live had the Rich in New York. Okay.
Speaker 2: So I get the phone call from Kevin and said, Hey, Rudes,
Speaker 2: we're in the studio. It's a possible record deal. How
Speaker 2: would you like to come down and record on Thunderbird
Speaker 2: as the tribute to Randy. Now I'm still a member
Speaker 2: of Ozzie, the band is still called Dubrow. At that time,
Speaker 2: it wasn't quite a riot yet. And so I go
Speaker 2: in record thunder Bird. Frankie Banali, the drummer, I had
Speaker 2: a history with him dating back to ten years prior
Speaker 2: to nineteen seventy two. I met him on my birthday
Speaker 2: November eighteen, nineteen seventy two. He's his band called Ginger.
Speaker 2: This is in Fulordadale area. Happened to had opened up
Speaker 2: as the last minute replacement for the opening band originally
Speaker 2: for the David Bowie Spiders from Marsh tour of the
Speaker 2: United States, and they played at this place called Pirates
Speaker 2: Work and I walk in and I see this opening band.
Speaker 2: I had no idea who these guys are, but I
Speaker 2: was blown away by the drummer. Yeah, everything about him,
Speaker 2: his drum kid, the way he played, and his attitude.
Speaker 2: I'm just completely blown away. So the next day I
Speaker 2: met this It's my birthday at this club in full
Speaker 2: Oaddale and I'm hanging with my friends and somebody says, hey,
Speaker 2: that's one of the guys from the band that opened
Speaker 2: up for Bowie yesterday. And I make a beeline for
Speaker 2: the guy and introduced myself and I said, man, I
Speaker 2: saw you guys playing last night. You guys were amazing,
Speaker 2: especially your drummer and he's smiling. Look, and I'm going
Speaker 2: on and on about how great the drummer is. Then
Speaker 2: and then he stretches out his hand and he says, Hi,
Speaker 2: I'm frank I'm the drummer. I had no idea it
Speaker 2: was it because I was in the cheap seats back there,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, which at the time, the difference was
Speaker 2: like seventy five cents. Yeah, you know, about seventy five
Speaker 2: by like half half a tank of gas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a big deal, you know.
Speaker 2: Good. So anyway, so we started playing immediately right after that,
Speaker 2: we put a band together, and then we moved out
Speaker 2: of the Followda Delle Miami area because Bisco came in
Speaker 2: and we wanted to play rock and roll, so we
Speaker 2: moved to Chicago. That's when we were in Chicago, and
Speaker 2: then we moved to LA in seventy seven, trying to
Speaker 2: put a band together. We ran out of money, we
Speaker 2: went on separate ways, and I came back to LA
Speaker 2: to join in nineteen seventy eight. So fast forward to
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, finally in the studio with Frankie. So
Speaker 2: we had a huge history. We lived together, we toured together,
Speaker 2: we grew playing music together, and so you know, I
Speaker 2: once Randy passed away, it was never the same in
Speaker 2: the in the you know, going on stage with with Ozzy,
Speaker 2: you know, And I can pretty much say that for everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, especially especially Ozzy. I I I don't even
Speaker 2: know where he found the strength to actually do a show,
Speaker 2: because many many times I would start crying. Like when
Speaker 2: we when we did My Mister Square Garden, I stepped
Speaker 2: on stage. You know, I see a signs and banners
Speaker 2: saying God Bless Randy. It was like a wake man,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I just put my head down and
Speaker 2: and cried the whole night. Every time I lift my head,
Speaker 2: that's all I would see, you know, people you know
Speaker 2: with Randy signs and banners, and it was like, so
Speaker 2: you know we went through that, and I know Ozzie
Speaker 2: went through it. Tell me, Ah, dres down Airy, you know,
Speaker 2: all the members of the band. So it's I lost
Speaker 2: the joy of making music. You know. It was just
Speaker 2: like pulled out of me. You know, because Randy was
Speaker 2: not just my former bandmate from choir Ryert. He was
Speaker 2: the guy who introduced me to Ozzie and Sharon. He's
Speaker 2: the one who put his credibility on the line with them.
Speaker 2: As far as me joining the band, you know, I
Speaker 2: owe him everything. If it wasn't for him, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I would be doing, you know.
Speaker 2: But but but as far as what I've done is
Speaker 2: because of him, and then Ozzie and Sharon believing in
Speaker 2: believing in Randy, trusting him, and then believing in me
Speaker 2: once they got to know me, because I had a resume.
Speaker 2: My resume was Rudy. He used to play with Randy
Speaker 2: in Choir Ryot and now sleeps and Kevin Dubrow's spare
Speaker 2: bedroom on the floor. That's my resume right there, you know.
Speaker 2: So here we are in the studio. So I gave
Speaker 2: you that. That the background of me entering a studio
Speaker 2: to record one song with Dubro for a possible record deal.
Speaker 2: The guitarist Calvis Cavaso, I had never met him. We'll
Speaker 2: play with him before obviously I never met him, but
Speaker 2: he had just joined the band. The band was so cool, Dubre.
Speaker 2: I was just making a guest appearance. I said, as
Speaker 2: a member of Bonzie we used to play in Choir
Speaker 2: Riot with and I knew the songs because thunder Bird.
Speaker 2: It was a song that Kevin wrote wrote for Randy
Speaker 2: when Randy left the Choir Riot to join Ozzie, So
Speaker 2: I was very familiar with it. So we tracked it quickly.
Speaker 2: Two takes, and then the producer goes, hey, do you
Speaker 2: remember any of the all songs like sleep Batelle, Yes,
Speaker 2: let's do it. Another two takes, and then two more
Speaker 2: songs from the dubro Erah loves a Bitch and let's
Speaker 2: get crazy. So by the time I finished my session
Speaker 2: for a song, I'm packing up, and I hear Frankie
Speaker 2: and Kevin in the hallway outside me at the studio,
Speaker 2: you know where. We're in the recording room, and Frankie
Speaker 2: is telling Kevin, listen, don't worry, I'll take care of this.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna play as bad as possible. So so Spenser,
Speaker 2: you know, the producer gives up on the idea of
Speaker 2: us for recording, come and feel then noid And for
Speaker 2: me knowing Frankie what an incredible drummer. I mean, like
Speaker 2: I told you the first time, my toy just blew
Speaker 2: my mind. I said, you know what, I've never heard
Speaker 2: Frankie play bad. I got to stick around for this.
Speaker 2: You know, He's going, yeah, sound like Frankie playing bad. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I'm in the control room watching the whole thing
Speaker 2: and just one take, and Frankie's idea of playing bad
Speaker 2: was basically just playing as simple and boring to him
Speaker 2: as possible. He used to call that the wind up monkey,
Speaker 2: you know, back the they weed to have like little
Speaker 2: monkey that yeah, do that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that was in his head.
Speaker 2: He was doing that during the whole song. So they
Speaker 2: do one take. I wasn't playing bass. It was actually
Speaker 2: twenty Cabasso, I called Cabas's brother came down to lay
Speaker 2: down the bass track for that. He was not in
Speaker 2: the band, but somehow he wound up doing that. Okay,
Speaker 2: so one take and the producer goes, okay, we got it,
Speaker 2: and Kevin was furious. Frank is like apologizing, like, oh man,
Speaker 2: I try my best, you know, to play that. Kevin
Speaker 2: was just played besides himself. And and so yeah, the band.
Speaker 2: When I say the band, I said Frankie and Kevin.
Speaker 2: Because I was not a member yet, they wanted to
Speaker 2: salve withas song. They just wanted to have an album
Speaker 2: full of original material and uh but but the them
Speaker 2: having a record deal depended on recording com Feel the
Speaker 2: Noise because the producer so that that was a hit,
Speaker 2: that song if it was perform the way that he
Speaker 2: envisioned it, which is pretty much what's on on the
Speaker 2: on the record, that that was going to be a
Speaker 2: big hit.
Speaker 1: And wow, that's a wild story of how it came
Speaker 1: to be. I mean, and it's uh and it was
Speaker 1: a big hit. I mean it is a big hit
Speaker 1: and people are still you know, uh when I hear
Speaker 1: I didn't find out come on Feel the Noise was
Speaker 1: a cover until recently, Like like honestly, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's quiet right song. Uh, you guys really made it
Speaker 1: your own. So then Metal Health, I mean, that album
Speaker 1: just blows up, you guys just become it goes into
Speaker 1: the stratosphere, Like like, how did the dynamics of the
Speaker 1: band change after releasing that record?
Speaker 2: You know that your original question about Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time in my bunk. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: everything changes. It's like success, which changed everything. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, here I am. I left Ozzie, one of
Speaker 2: the biggest bands in the world to join and they
Speaker 2: treated me great. Sharon Azzie were the greatest with me
Speaker 2: from day one. You know that the day that I
Speaker 2: got the audition to joining Aussie. I went from sleeping
Speaker 2: on the floor getting waking up on the floor that
Speaker 2: morning to all of a sudden, I moved in with
Speaker 2: Sharon's family up in the Hollywood Hills and we're talking
Speaker 2: and mentioned built by by Howard Hughes for Jane Russell. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was like if megap movies start mentioned I moved
Speaker 2: in with him. You know, this is how kind and
Speaker 2: general that day Ausie, because you know, I here, I am,
Speaker 2: I joined the band, and you know, we're kind of
Speaker 2: like hanging out and blame pool with Ozzie and he's
Speaker 2: telling me stories and and he looks at my clothes,
Speaker 2: which were actually my rock star clothe and he says, man,
Speaker 2: you look like ship. You need some rock star clothes.
Speaker 2: And he says, right right here. He went to his room,
Speaker 2: came back with his suitcake reported on the pool table
Speaker 2: and says, take what you want. Wow, nobody has before
Speaker 2: or after that ever done that for me or anybody off.
Speaker 2: You know, I looking at you know, jackets and you know,
Speaker 2: and and all these shirts that were actually on iconic
Speaker 2: Black Sabbath album Government. I'm going to the jacket from
Speaker 2: that oh yeah, unreal, and they were always like that
Speaker 2: even after that. It wasn't just like one case scenario,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, so it was it was really tough
Speaker 2: to to to, you know, move on from USSI playing,
Speaker 2: you know, but I just lost imagine how which I
Speaker 2: lost lost the joy of making music that I needed
Speaker 2: to get away that I went from the one of
Speaker 2: the biggest bands of the Complete Unknown with no guarantee
Speaker 2: that we were going to sell ten copies of that right.
Speaker 1: Now, and it's it's an incredible career and quiet riot.
Speaker 1: You guys are touring or it's so touring recently right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we still are. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And are you enjoying Uh are you enjoying getting on
Speaker 1: stage and playing all these years later?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, of course I do. Uh, it's it's many.
Speaker 2: It's very different in so many aspects, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: like like like the travel you know, back you know,
Speaker 2: I've been married for forty one years now. I met
Speaker 2: my wife nineteen eighty one during the Aussie era and uh,
Speaker 2: back in the day, I mean I spent the eighties
Speaker 2: mostly on a tour of US, you know, for months,
Speaker 2: and now, you know, for forty years later, there's a
Speaker 2: need to be with my family of course, spend quality time.
Speaker 2: So we we we fly out on weekends and uh,
Speaker 2: we come home during the week. That's why I'm here
Speaker 2: having this conversation with you, you know, because you know
Speaker 2: I'm home and and I love it. It's it's just
Speaker 2: a balance my life now, you know that I did
Speaker 2: not have back then.
Speaker 1: Balance that that's an important word to remember, and I
Speaker 1: think that's that's something we all need to strive for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Rudy Starzo, just the coolest guy in the world. Before
Speaker 1: I let you go, I have a question that is
Speaker 1: this might be weird, but I have a question, what
Speaker 1: does pop culture smell like to you? If pop culture
Speaker 1: had an odor, what would it smell like?
Speaker 2: Pop culture? You know, you know what, I listened to
Speaker 2: a lot with the.
Speaker 1: Bee Gees all right, staying Alive.
Speaker 2: Damn that whole period. Uh, I mean, we can talk
Speaker 2: about that whole each spirit because before that they had
Speaker 2: the beatleish period, you know, the sixties, you know, to
Speaker 2: love somebody all that, you know, And but then they
Speaker 2: came on their own with their own sound, which which
Speaker 2: I like, Disco borrowed a lot from their sound. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and this and this is what happened. I read
Speaker 2: this on a magazine, mixed magazine, which is you know,
Speaker 2: very legit. You know how disco, you know, the drum
Speaker 2: beat is doomed fa dude fa right for people to
Speaker 2: dance to. Right. So they're in the studio, uh, recording
Speaker 2: those songs that wound up on on the on the
Speaker 2: soundtrack for Saturn Knight, and they did one or two tracks,
Speaker 2: and their drummer has a tragedy in his family, so
Speaker 2: he's gotta leave. And here they are in some studio
Speaker 2: in the middle friends the chateau, recording and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we've got to get this done. So an
Speaker 2: engineer or a producer comes up with the idea, you
Speaker 2: know what, we can make loops of the drum track,
Speaker 2: just the same beat, dude bye right. So yeah, so
Speaker 2: they start recording the song on top of it, and
Speaker 2: then then once right right before they're getting ready to
Speaker 2: do mixing, they add the remaining percussion like Kimbali's drum
Speaker 2: fills and crashes and things like that. But the layer
Speaker 2: of the beat is constant during the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: that's how disco really but popularize.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that is incredible. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: And you think about the the effect that it's had
Speaker 1: not just on disco, but like so much meat, I
Speaker 1: mean like dance meet electronic dance music today like hip hop,
Speaker 1: such a lasting effect. That's incredible.
Speaker 2: Because I know, if you listen to the previous attempt
Speaker 2: at a funky track funk soul, you know, R and
Speaker 2: B version, you go to uh Nights on Broadway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's fun. There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: going on there, beats and you know, different rhythms the
Speaker 2: other material, it was a steady beat during the whole thing,
Speaker 2: and that was the key. Plus the front stah, you
Speaker 2: know was just like I mean, nobody else saying you know,
Speaker 2: but that's so that reminds me of Miami. And I
Speaker 2: was listening to someone dress like emotion and how deep
Speaker 2: is your love? Yes, and it takes me back to Miami.
Speaker 2: And there's a smell to it, the smell of the ocean,
Speaker 2: the smell of the pump tree and the flowers that
Speaker 2: grow in Miami and Miami Beach. That to me, it
Speaker 2: is pop culture, pop culture.
Speaker 1: I love that answer. I love it. I love that visual.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Rudy, you're again the coolest guy
Speaker 1: who has ever walked to the earth. Everybody, go listen
Speaker 1: to any of his bands and listen to his bass playing.
Speaker 1: He's truly a legend. Rudy Sarzo from Quiet Riot, White
Speaker 1: Snake Blister. There's so much more we'd even get into.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how do you cover this in an hour?
Speaker 1: But thank you so much for doing this once again.
Speaker 1: You're the coolest guy in the world.
Speaker 2: Thank you, man, my pleasure. God bless you everybody, and
Speaker 2: don't forget. Follow us on Instagram at I Am all
Speaker 2: In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.