Ex-Ozzy Bassist On: Ozzy, Randy Rhoads And Ronnie James Dio

Bassist Rudy Sarzo used to listen to hordes of fans asking about the late guitarist Randy Rhoads, who convinced Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne to hire Sarzo before Rhodes died famously in a plane crash. So Sarzo wrote a book that fans ate up called “Off The Rails.”

In the book, Sarzo — who performs with supergroup Monster Circus for free tonight at the Hilton — makes his case for why he doesn’t think the plane crash was an accident. He describes the man behind the star that was Rhoads. And he goes into the lives then of the Osbournes, of whom he says, “I owe everything to.”

Sarzo has been married for 25 years, so he’s stayed clear of groupies. He was single in his Ozzy days, though. But Sharon, a tough and nurturing manager, kept the road as calm as possible.

“With Ozzy, we had no groupies, because Sharon was always trying to keep it clean backstage, to keep Ozzy out of trouble,” Sarzo says. “So if Randy and I wanted to get into trouble, we had to get really far away from them, to grab a cab and go to the other side of town.”

As for Ozzy, he lived up to his reputation.

“He is nuts. There’s a point in the book where they put him in a mental institution. As we were getting ready [for] preproduction for ‘Diary of a Madman,’ they stick Ozzy in an institution. It wasn’t until he got out, a couple of weeks later, that he came down for rehearsal for the first time.

“He’s certifiable. That’s Ozzy. He can’t help being that way, but that doesn’t take away from the fact he is a good guy, he treated me great, and he was very generous with me.”

These days, Sarzo has been performing with Blue Oyster Cult and Dio.

“With Dio, we go a lot to South America. And sometimes, the opening bands are actually Dio tribute bands. And they start playing our music, and Ronnie [James Dio] just runs up to the side of the stage and starts yelling at them. But they say they’re doing that as an honor to Ronnie. It’s hilarious.”