The former Skid Row and Saigon Kick drummer, and Ozzy Osbourne bandmate, Phil Varone recently joined in for a brand new interview with Meltdown of Detroit radio station WRIF. During the interview, he recalled a disastrous audition he had in 2000 to play in Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band after which he moved out to L.A. Dave Grohl was previously threatened by Ozzy Osbourne guitarist.
Phil Varone reveals moving to John Corabi’s house
Varone revealed that back in 2000, he moved out to L.A. and he was living at ex-Motley Crue member, John Corabi’s house. He was informed about Osbourne auditioning for drummers and recollected how the late Vinnie Paul from Pantera arranged his audition. Varone further revealed how his audition went poor.
Here is what he said:
“In 2000, I moved out to L.A. ’cause I figured, ‘I’ve gotta be out in something. I’m gonna give it a shot.’ And I was living over at John Corabi’s house. I heard that Ozzy was auditioning drummers. So I called Vinnie Paul — the late, great Vinnie Paul from Pantera — and I go, ‘Vin, can you get me into this audition?’ They were only auditioning a handful of guys. And Vinnie calls Sharon Osbourne and gets me an audition. Incredible, right? I go down there. Crabby [Corabi] comes with me for support. And boy, I don’t know what happened, but it was like I never played drums before in my life. It was incredible. I got Popeye arms, which means I just tensed up so bad, I couldn’t hold the drum sticks. So I was probably like a monkey back there — I could not play. And it was all the great songs — ‘Crazy Train’ and all the stuff that we played as kids. And it was brutal.”
Varone had joined Skid Row in 2000 about four years after singer Sebastian Bach parted ways with the group. Four years later, Phil decided to part ways with Skid Row and the music business to try out his luck in the fields of acting and stand-up comedy.
During this time, he produced and starred in the feature-length documentary “Waking Up Dead”, released in 2007. In recent years, Varone garnered worldwide attention on VH1’s hit show “Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew” and “Strange Sex” on the Discovery channel. In April 2013, Riverdale Publishing released Phil’s first book called “Un-Philtered: Real Life On and Off the Rock ‘N’ Roll Tour Bus”.
