George Lynch found Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s extravagant spending ‘insensitive’ while he faced financial hardships.
The guitarist wishes Ozzy and Sharon had treated him better when he lost his job with them. At the time, he and his wife had two kids and were living in a small apartment without money. He had to quit his good job as a truck driver to work with them but didn’t get paid for a month after being let go.
“It created some hard times for us. And I thought, ‘They were throwing money around like it was nothing.’ Sharon traveled with bags of money. It was crazy,” Lynch recalled in a chat with Ultimate Guitar. “We’d go to dinners that were $10,000… and we couldn’t even afford to eat or pay our rent, you know? So I thought that was pretty insensitive. But whatever. They live in a different world, and I get that. I took a chance and it didn’t pay off.”
Lynch tried to join Osbourne’s band three times. He succeeded in his third try. He had a hard time with Randy Rhoads’ difficult guitar parts, but Warren DeMartini helped him learn. Lynch traveled with the band and participated in rehearsals and soundchecks, but he never performed on stage.
“But they had two problems with me. Ozzy had a problem with my short hair,” the musician told Ultimate Guitar last month. “I had short hair at the time. And, and then his wife had a problem with my green guitar. She said it looked like a booger. Didn’t care what it sounded like, didn’t care what I was playing.”
Lynch responded to Sharon, “I go, ‘Well, I have other guitars. This is just the one I brought.’ ‘Why would you bring that?’ She kept bringing it up at dinner and at rehearsals. I was like, ‘I really do have lots of other guitars. It’s no problem. And my hair grows. And guess what? Your husband’s bald.’”
“Ozzy was bald at the time. But he’s Ozzy, and he can do whatever he wants. ‘And they have these things called wigs, and lots of rockers wear them. I’ll wear one of those. How about that?’” Lynch added. “I never, I never got that chance to get past that.”
In 1979, Lynch tried to join the band but lost to Randy Rhoads. In 1982, he was hired for three days to replace Brad Gillis but was soon replaced by Jake E. Lee.