Legendary hard rock bassist Rudy Sarzo, who played with iconic guitarist Randy Rhoads in Quiet Riot from 1978 to 1979 and again in Ozzy Osbourne’s band from 1981 until Rhoads’s death in a plane accident in 1982, has pushed back against the long-circulating narrative of a rivalry between Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen.
Speaking with Gastão Moreira of Brazil’s Kazagastão (transcribed by Blabbermouth), Sarzo was asked directly whether a rivalry existed between Randy and Eddie Van Halen. Rudy responded: “No, that’s… No, I think it’s a myth. A myth that people… We’re in a time in history where alternate realities are very common. People invent things to suit their own journey in life. People don’t know the difference between an opinion and a fact. So they’ll make a statement based on an opinion to somebody who has experienced what they’re talking about, because they’re so programmed to believe an opinion rather than a fact.”
Earlier this year, Quiet Riot’s original bassist Kelly Garni told the “Booked On Rock” podcast that Van Halen and Quiet Riot knew of each other, even though they only shared the stage one time while they were coming up on the Sunset Strip, on April 23, 1977, at Glendale Community College in Glendale, California.
“At some point, we became well aware of Van Halen,” Garni said. “Especially when we were at the Starwood, as we were for a number of years. And we knew they were playing down the street at Gazzarri’s, which wasn’t really our type of a club. Because the Starwood was. Of course, the Whisky was the Whisky, but it had more of a punk rock scene going on there. So, we kind of avoided that place. The punkers didn’t like guys that looked like us either, so you got the jocks and the punkers wanting to kill you.”
Garni, who was Quiet Riot’s bassist from 1975 to 1978 and played on the group’s first two albums — 1978’s Quiet Riot and Quiet Riot II, which were released only in Japan — went on to say that there was “no competition” between Eddie and Randy. “And most certainly, there was no competition in Randy’s world,” he explained. “Because Randy didn’t compete. It just wasn’t in him to try to compete. He couldn’t. The way his brain was wired, he could not form the thought, ‘Oh, I’m gonna be better than that guy.’”
As for whether Eddie and Randy ever met, Kelly said: “[Randy] went down to Gazzarri’s because people were talking about this guy, and Randy said, ‘Well, I’ll go see what the deal is.’ So he went there, he and his girlfriend Jan, and he wanted to meet him. He saw him play, and he went, ‘Yeah, okay, the guy’s good.’ And so when they got all done, Randy was trying to get backstage to meet him, and he did get back there.”
“You gotta remember, Van Halen was doing all cover tunes at this point,” Garni continued. “Every once in a while, they’d sneak in one of their originals. But that was the deal at Gazzarri’s, is a more upscale crowd went there, that weren’t the rowdy, unpredictable, way-underage bunch at the Starwood.”
“So he did get back there, but Eddie was acting kind of crazy and bouncing off of walls in his underwear,” Kelly recalled. “And Randy was, like, ‘Oh, okay. Well, not the best time to meet this guy.’ So that was his opinion. He said, ‘Yeah, he was really good. But he looked kind of nutty.’”
Rhoads’s pre-Ozzy band Quiet Riot had been gigging on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, at the same time as Van Halen. Although both Rhoads and Van Halen later became some of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century — playing with a similar flair and incorporating finger-tapping into their fleet-fingered solos — Eddie found commercial success before Rhoads, due in part to the fact that Van Halen landed a record deal years before Quiet Riot did.
Rhoads and two others were killed on March 19, 1982, when the small plane they were flying in at Flying Baron Estates in Leesburg, Florida struck Osbourne’s tour bus, then crashed into a mansion. Rhoads was 25 years old. Eddie Van Halen passed away in October 2020 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The 65-year-old died from complications due to cancer.
