In a new interview with on Waste Some Time With Jason Green, legendary Dokken guitarist George Lynch looked back on auditioning for Ozzy Osbourne.
Here’s what he said about the audition:
“[Bassist] Dana Strum was really the interface, the intermediary, he was like the ‘jobber,’ I guess you would say. He was out there, he was Ozzy’s point guy from what I could tell, bringing people in.”
“Ozzy and Sharon were very conscious of not just your playing, but I think more of your image.
“I know in my case that had something to do with the fact that I didn’t work out because, at that point in my life, I wasn’t really making much of any money playing guitar, so I still had a job.
“I drove a truck, I drove a liquor truck – and I loved my job because it was probably the best job I ever had up to that point.
“I had two kids, so I ended up cutting my hair to keep my job, and then I got the Ozzy call, and I showed up with a short hair, and that really bothered them.”
On whether he toured with Ozzy, George said:
“I didn’t ‘tour’ tour, I did travel with them, and they wanted me to kind of, Brad [Gillis, guitar] to mentor me or kind of watch what was going on, and then I would go for soundchecks, I’d plug into Brad’s rig and I’d play along.
“And then we’d go into rehearsals in London and Dallas, and back here in L.A., so yeah, I was involved, but I didn’t step on stage in front of an audience.
“Yeah, I went to England, Scotland, Ireland…”
When asked whether Ozzy paid him money for his service, he said:
“Never paid me a nickel. I got to say, out of principle, that was very strange.
“They didn’t seem interested in what was going to happen to me afterward or anything about me, it was just what served them, and I get that.”
On being fired by Ozzy, he said:
“I had two kids, I didn’t really have any money, and a sh*tty apartment in Anaheim, and I was just trying to stay above water, and I had to quit my job.
“I lost my job, and when we got the word, actually Ozzy came up to me and says, didn’t quite understand what he said because it’s hard to understand what he’s saying.
“He was mumbling something, just me and him in the backroom, and he goes, ‘We’re not going to need you…’ I’m paraphrasing, ‘We can just let you go…’ And that was it.”