So I shut the curtains and go back to sleep and I wake up to boom I don't go I'm startled you know the bus was shaking and I opened my curtain and Now at that moment I was not ready to accept the possibility of the reality. Sure, you just lost your buddy.

Something loved him was close to.

How did you process that?

Because that's not.

I began the rule of state.

To come from where you've come from,

to actually reach the world stage and play

with such great musicians and being

involved with such great music, it's such a miracle. Metal Health took about 10 years to write. You know, this is the first album. You've got all these songs that you've been working on for the last 10 years. And the next record took like what? You got six weeks to make this record. And MTV just ate it up. So it was them against us. See, there's the competition. Do you guys lose? Yeah. But that's music, you see. That's the view. Part two. Not everyone gets a part two. Wow. I think you and Paul Stanley. You Paul Stanley and Darryl Hall. You know, I got so many wonderful people to talk about because it's not about me. I've just, it's about you. I'm like for as gump. I just happened to be there. And I got a lot of great people history. I mean, stories to tell a broody from Cuba. We have a lot to talk about. Okay. Hate to start on a sad note, but after Randy passes, Ozzy obviously has stopped for a time. How long was that stopped? No more than 10 days. Wow. Oh yeah. Was there internal discussion like, like, because I was in a similar situation once, also tragic, not making light of it, but what's the internal deliberation? Do we keep going? Do you know, how do we... It was a combination of a few factors. Right before Randy passed away, there was a conflict between Randy and Ozzy because Ozzy, there was a commitment that was made for to do the speak of the devil record, which is the Ozzy Black Sabbath re-recording. And that was the record to get out of the Don Arden situation. I mean, yeah, I I feel like Sharon talked about that. Yeah, if that's what you said, but I never asked why are we doing this? It's not my place to do that. Only news that we were told, okay, the next thing we're gonna do and it's gonna be here at this time and Randy spoke up and says, listen, I've already recorded two Aussie records and I feel that for me this is going to be step backwards. He wanted to do that and this was where his integrity came in and it did not sit very well with Randy. I mean with Aussie because now Ozzy doesn't have his guitar player bandmate to Make the record with so that was kind of in the air that was in the air Before of course before Randy passed away before the crash they have come to an agreement Okay, Randy was gonna do the record a couple more tours and maybe another record. This is all up in the air. And but initially what he wanted to do was go back to school and get his degree. I have never played since with another musician who was a rock star that decided to go back to school because he did you guys talk about that personally. I would just listen. Right. Because this was his wish to do this. And it was like, I understood it. You know, he was in a place so different than mine. I did not, I was, I was, I did not take part of Blizzard of Oz and Diary of Immigrant. To me playing bod-day-sleeve baselines, we're playing Gees or Butler baselines, you know, playing somebody else's baseline. It had nothing to do with any musical integrity, personally. Yeah, it's a great, it's a job, but it's a great, and it's a great job, but it's a job. It's a job. But for Randy, it was a whole different thing, you know, and so within a few days of them coming to an agreement and you know Sharon, we both know Sharon. At some point if Randy would have not passed, would have not died on the crash, she would have come up with it with a solution. Okay. To keep Randy in the band, Randy got to school. Why wouldn't you? Because it's something what it would have happened. But at that moment, that's what was going on. There was a certain finality to Randy's contribution to Aussie at that point. Sure. And I remember the last night, right up to Ripley Knoxville, it was the long drive from Knoxville to the Orlando area, the place called Cassimbi. Yeah, that would have been about a 12-14 hour drive, right? Yeah. And in those days, it was the wild west as far as tour bus travel. Drivers will drive for 12 hours and be able to drive 12 hours. They have to get some little help. And so anyways, I'm sitting in the lounge, front lounge of the tour bus in there's Tommy and Randy and Ozzy and we're watching a believable Torah Torah. One of those Japanese war movies where there's a lot of points. Yeah, so I think it's about the suicide. Yeah, the suicide, yeah. Drive. Fighters. That was on the screen. I don't know, okay, I just finished the show. I had to do in the show and I don't want to watch this. So I'll go in my bunk and wake up the next morning, Randy is saying Rudy, roots, roots. And I open up the curtain and he's standing in the doorway, looking at me and he says, Hey, come up. I'm going to go on the plane up with the bus driver on racial. And I said, no, I knew that we were I grew up in Florida. The last thing I wanted to do was go up on a sesna, flying around where I grew up. And he is like, no, yeah. I told him, I'm just gonna wait until we get to the hotel. I'm gonna get out of the, by bunk and lay by the pool. Okay, that was the day off. The next day we were playing the tentering bowl with foreigner. And so I shut the curtains and go back to sleep and I wake up to bone and I go, yeah, I'm startled, you know, the bus was shaking. And I woke in my curtain and Sarah and I see come out of the back lounge and we're all, you know, that area where the bunks are. It's the doors close to the lounge and then I opened and there's glass everywhere. the the passenger side window is blown and I see or tour manager on his knees pulling his hair yelling they're gone I have no idea what is a yelling about and So we're trying to get out of the bus and share him chubs the bus drivers

in the A-cock Andrew. His wife off to the one side so we could get out to see what's going on because she was frozen standing there holding you know the frame of the door. And I get out of the bus and I look over to my right, and there's a tree right behind the bus, and there's a garage attached garage to a house on fire. Now, at that moment, I was not ready to accept the possibility of the reality that was very good. So, I'm looking around what's going on and then little by little information comes up that that was the plane that crashed. Suddenly, I went deaf and all I heard was a low hum. Like a frequency. It was deafening. I could see people yelling, crying out, but I couldn't hear anything. And then it just appeared again. And I could hear the crackling of the fire, everything. And all the chaos, it took about an hour and a half for the fire department to arrive. Because this is 1982, middle of nowhere and central Florida. There's no cell phones to be calling, you know, cops or the fire department. So somebody that was on a horse riding a horse, went, so what happened? There's a house on fire, they ran, they rode back to their home and they're the ones who called the fire department. And so we were in this hell, trying to figure out what's going on, what, what, what can we do? And just in this belief that we had lost Randy and Rachel who were also on the play. So as you said, there's just 10 days where everybody's trying to figure out you guys are going to go back on tour. Yes. And we knew, we knew, and we briefly spoke about it. Everything was very solemn decisions made by Sharon. they were basically Let's keep Ozzy busy Let's keep him occupied Because at one of the triggers it thinks start getting a little bit of Kilt for Ozzy. Right around when Randy decided that he really did not want to partake on the speak of the devil recording. He would stay up for a few nights drinking. It was tough for him. That it was a decision that he had no control on. You know. I as far as making that record and then they not wanted to be a part of that so already Ozzy was you know very delicate at that point and We knew that if Ozzy went home he would drink himself to death. Mm-hmm so on of I'm paraphrasing what you're telling me but tell me if this I'm understanding it's It's better to keep him moving forward. Yeah, and did you agree with that from a personal point of view for being there? Okay,. That was the only decision to make. Okay. But set that aside. You just lost your buddy. Somebody loved him was close to. How did you process that? Because that's not... I began a robot on stage. We did a show, filmed a show that Randy was supposed to be a part of at Irvine 1982 that was the last continental US diary of ematman show And when I saw myself In the video performing I Know that I was being a robot but I but to actually witness, to see myself like that. I said, you know what? I did not get into this to become inhuman. I wasn't playing notes anymore. I was trying to survive a moment, a show, an hour and a half of survival. I would not look at the audience and would not look at Ozzy. All I did was when we played the Garden, Leslie Square Garden, I just put my head down and I cried right through the whole show because if when I first looked out, there was banners. God bless Randy. It was all about Randy. It was awake.

Yeah.

And I just lost it completely.

Yeah.

See if this tracks with you because I've had my own versions of these things

where playing is the hardest thing to do because of loss.

I played the night after I found it, my mother died. And it was one of those things where the funeral was going to be in a few days. So it was like, cancel the show or just go ahead and play the show, you know what I mean? And the reason I feel I understand, but I'm seeing if this tracks with your thing is, music is such a beautiful joyous celebration that when it isn't that, it's almost like the exact opposite. It's so painful because how do you do something that you love so much and it's mean so much to you? But when your heart is broken, it's like, you don't know how to do those two things. Does that make sense? It took me decades to figure it out. I mean, nowadays I go on tour with choir riot. And for the first time, I have a higher purpose than just being like, hey, Rudy's up there rocking. no. It's I'm there to celebrate the memory of those who have passed Randy, Frankie Bernali, Kevin DeBro, and the legacy of the band. That's my purpose for doing that. No, but it took me decades because when I left Aussie, it was because I had no idea of that responsibility that we, the bandmates, who were left behind, we have to those who have passed on to keep their music alive, our music, you know? I didn't know then. All that happened to me is I went into a shock. You know, it was trauma. It took me, again, I don't want to bring out the book, but it took me writing the book to actually put it onto paper to fully get closure of the trauma that I had. And it leaves the scar, it's healed. The scar is healed, but the scar is still there. Yeah. Yeah. So, quiet riots doing this song Thunderbird. I heard this song before, but I didn't know it was connected to Randy until I listened to him today. It was a beautiful track. I mean, you can tell that everybody involved is their hearts there. It's how I got to go back to what became known as Gwaya Raya because originally, that was a continuation of Dubro. When I left Dubro to join Ozzy, all the members came in. You know, it's just Kevin named the band Dubro so it could be a revolving door. So he wasn't okay before he would be the only constant. Okay. You know, because 40 something years ago, I mean, music, it's never easy to succeed in music. So you know, back then, just like we have right now, we have musicians who have multiple projects. Sure. Until one of them takes off. Yeah. Those were different times too, that was as far as what people, you had to kind of pick one lane. And yeah, exactly. You know, so it was named to bro, and I get a phone call from Kevin, I was getting ready to go and do speak of the devil, and there are the rits in New York. And he said, hey, there's a possible record deal. And how would you like to come down and record on Thunderbird? Which I, most of the songs that wound up in the Metal Health record were duperos songs that I used to play with Kevin when I was playing in dupero. So when I left Aussie on see I actually went back to Dubro, which was the band that I was in, but it got renamed Choiriah because I didn't want to join you leave one of the biggest bands in the world to be in somebody else's band. I see. You know, it didn't make any sense. You know, so I said, okay, we have to get a band name and gave us a, well, you and I, we used to

being choir, I was a, what else will I call it choir, right? And how does Frankie, but now he come? He was in Dubro at the top. Okay. He was in Dubro before it came back to record Metal Hell. So it's called a Scalaso. Yeah, yeah. But Frankie have many other gigs going on. Yeah. We can talk about Frankie real quick, because I was listening to some of Frankie stuff today.

No one I was going to talk to you. And it's interesting because I see Frankie as a crop of those drummers from that time. But now that I think about it and do the, like he's actually way more influential than I thought he was. Like he kind of set the template for the way a lot of those people played like he was that guy before everybody else does that make sense? Yeah. From playing with him and knowing him personally, I know he had well he had the biggest record collection. He used to work at a record store in for a Auto Dale. So he always, when I started playing with him, he's the one who brought me into that world. The, he got me closer to getting out of the Miami Cuban rock scene, which wasn't even rock. There was more Cuban, right, than rock. And I wanted to be where everybody sang with an accent We were in the kinsie and yet us Circuit chirp and one day will Lee shows up with his with a band playing with a with a Cuban band Willie the the basis for yeah, that's right. They've a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's from Miami So I know that yeah, yeah, Jacko and all that but there's will leave and I'm going This guy is like for Mars, he's from Miami. So it's Jacko. Yeah, Jacko and all that. But there's will leave an ongoing

This guy's like from Mars. He sounds just like

The radio

Yeah, because I have an accent really sings and it's playing amazing. Yeah, of course his dad was the

The Dean of the music department of the University of Miami. So he had a proper music education

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