(Credits: Far Out / Ozzy Osbourne)
Fri 24 October 2025 7:00, UK
Anyone who has ever had the luxury of getting close to Ozzy Osbourne knows that he operated to a very high standard.
He wasn’t always the most sensible, nor did he ever really do anything by the book. With Ozzy, it was as much about the energy you brought to the table as it was about being a little rough around the edges, and knowing that, sometimes, there’s more value in mistakes than being over-polished. Nothing proved this more than the guitarists he admired.
Anyone who self-professes to being the “conductor of mayhem” will likely prefer their bands to understand the power of imperfection. Often, however, this wasn’t necessarily about doing things wrong but doing things in a way people didn’t even know was possible. It’s also one of the reasons he wanted Randy Rhoads on board before he’d even given him a proper chance to prove himself.
Rhoads entered the metal circus as a young force in his early 20s and absolutely floored Ozzy in more ways than one. He was, in Ozzy’s eyes and a handful of others, way too young to hold the talent that he did. But he also had a fire that pushed him to do things differently if it called for it, like when he went into the studio and triple-tracked his solos; something reserved only for pros.
As Randy’s sister, Kathy, later told Guitar Player that Ozzy saw Rhoads as “somebody that comes to this planet and bursts off like a shooting star”. She also recalled how his triple-tracking moment blew Ozzy’s mind, another symptom that there was somebody else out there that matched his own knack for the most explosive of primal urges.
Ozzy’s gravitation towards impossibly good guitarists is also what made him realise the type of player that didn’t suit him. Different players have their own attitudes, techniques, and approaches, and Ozzy’s favourites were always the ones who obliterated their space into countless tiny pieces without caring much for the cleanup.
Because of this, he didn’t really enjoy those who came across as too perfect, mainly because, to him, it meant they were boring. Speaking to Guitar World in 1990, Ozzy revealed his favourite kind of guitarists and named the two he didn’t really understand the fuss about. “I want someone that’s hungry,” he said. “I want someone who wants to go out and kick Eddie Van Halen’s ass. I look for that hunger, that ability to succeed.”
He went on: “This Yngwie Malmsteen guy must have the capability to do some amazing things, but it’s too cold; it’s too much for the mind to take in. And watching Steve Vai is like watching a good mechanic strip down an engine in three seconds and rebuild it. He makes things run perfectly, but there’s no nice little errors that make things sound human.”
He simplified it by comparing guitarists to a rack of suits: there might be rows of ones that look similar, but only “one grabs you”. With Ozzy, therefore, choosing the right guitarist always hinged on a significant amount of gut feeling. If it felt right, it was probably going to work. And if it didn’t, it was probably too boring to entertain anyway.
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