🎸 Guitarist Adrian Vandenberg has disclosed that he was approached by Ozzy Osbourne about joining his solo band in 1984, an offer that Vandenberg suggests explains why his band, Vandenberg, ended up supporting “The Prince of Darkness” on tour.
This revelation, which came during an interview with “The Metal Voice,” places Vandenberg (long before his impactful tenure with Whitesnake) among the list of high-profile guitarists considered to fill the enormous shoes of the late Randy Rhoads. The tentative offer occurred while Jake E. Lee was already established as Rhoads’ successor.
The Initial Encounter
Vandenberg recounted meeting Osbourne during the 1983 tour when his band was the supporting act. He admitted that the initial exchange was brief and casual:
> “I did. A story that I never told before, but it was Ozzy, actually. The first time I met him… he was not quite sober, which is very unusual for Ozzy, of course.”
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The introduction took place in a hotel lunchroom, where Osbourne simply asked, “Adrian, do you wanna join my band?” Vandenberg, aware they were supporting the current lineup and praising Jake E. Lee as “a fantastic player,” dismissed the comment as a drunken mumble.
Connection to Randy Rhoads
However, the idea gained traction later when other members of Osbourne’s camp began discussing Vandenberg’s style.
The guitarist revealed that keyboardist Don Airey and others suggested to Ozzy that Vandenberg’s playing style had a strong resemblance to Randy Rhoads’s approach. Specifically, they noted the presence of classical influences and “Euro metal type of stuff combined with American and blues.”
Vandenberg noted he was initially unfamiliar with Rhoads’s playing because, at the time, Ozzy Osbourne was not popular in Europe, making the invitation to support his band a surprise.