In a recent chat with Ultimate Guitar, George Lynch shared the story of calling Ozzy Osbourne ‘bald’ before getting fired.
Lynch tried three times to join Osbourne’s band and thought his third attempt would work out. He struggled with Randy Rhoads’ complex guitar parts, but Warren DeMartini helped him learn. Lynch traveled with the band, did rehearsals, and soundchecks, but never performed on stage.
“But they had two problems with me. Ozzy had a problem with my short hair,” the guitarist explained. “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 shared his reply to Sharon Osbourne, “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?’” the rocker added. “I never, I never got that chance to get past that.”
In his first try, in 1979, Lynch lost to Randy Rhoads. Then, in 1982, he was hired for three days to replace Brad Gillis but was later replaced by Jake E. Lee. “We were both for Ozzy a number of times, and I was up for it on three different occasions, and one of them was the time that Randy got it over me,” the guitarist told Metal Voice in 2021.
He continued, “And then the understanding was that between whichever one of us got it, the other one would teach at Musonia [School Of Music, which was founded more than 70 years ago by Randy’s mother, Delores Rhoads]. Well, I got the consolation prize. He told his mom that if anything ever happened with him that he would want me to maybe fill in if possible, if I’d be willing to, so I did.”
Later, in the late 1970s, Lynch played in a band called The Boyz and performed at Sunset Strip clubs in Hollywood with Van Halen and Quiet Riot.