George Lynch said he was never paid for the month he spent on the road with Ozzy Osbourne, before being told he wasn’t going to be hired.
The former Dokken guitarist traveled extensively with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 1982, assuming he was about to be given the role vacated by Brad Gillis. But in the end the position went to Jake E. Lee, and Lynch was sent home with nothing.
In a new interview with Ultimate Guitar, he provided more details of his unhappy experience – saying he’d had to quit his job to try out for Ozzy at a time when he couldn’t really afford it.
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“My wife and I, we had two kids and were living in an apartment,” Lynch explained. “I had a union job as a truck driver for a liquor distributor. And I liked that job, and it paid the bills and kept our family secure and everything like that. And I had to quit that job.”
He said it had been “really troubling” that, when the Osbourne informed them they didn’t need him, “they didn’t ask me about my situation; they didn’t pay me anything. I didn’t get a nickel for a month at that time.”
He recalled heading home with his wife in their ten-year-old car “that was falling apart,” adding: “we picked up the kids at her mom’s house and went into our apartment, and we had an eviction notification. We couldn’t pay our rent, so we had to move in with her parents.”
Admitting he experienced “hard times” as a result, he recalled thinking of the Osbournes: “They were throwing money around like it was nothing. Sharon traveled with bags of money. It was crazy. 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.”
George Lynch and Ratt Guitarist Changed Places For a Moment
Lynch would go on to enjoy success with Dokken – but after his Ozzy misadventure he said he’d been briefly ejected from the band. “Ratt and Dokken practiced right next door to each other at Priscilla’s Rehearsal place in Burbank, and we were all friends. We all kind of grew up together.
“And Juan Croucier was our first bass player, then he became the bass player in Ratt. And Bobby [Blotzer] used to play with Don Dokken. And then Mick Brown played with me, and then me and Mick joined Don.”
He continued: “I got back… and Warren [DeMartini] was playing with Dokken. I was like, ‘What the hell?’ So I joined Ratt for a second… We would talk every single day; we’d hang out in the hallway, and watch each other and talk gear and stuff.
“And I go, ‘Hey, why don’t we just go back to our regular bands? This is stupid.’ So that’s what we did!”
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Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff