In a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar‘s David Slavković, Dokken guitarist George Lynch talked about being fired by former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne.
A few months ago, I got the chance to speak to Jake E. Lee. And according to his story, he came in to audition for Ozzy – he kind of wasn’t satisfied with that whole audition – you were there, you met him there, and apparently when Ozzy asked him if he wants to take the gig, he said yes, and according to what Jake said, you were fired on the spot. In front of Jake. Is that story true?
“Yes.”
Completely true?
“Yes. I was very devastated. My wife was with me, I had quit my job. We had two little kids, we lived in an apartment. We didn’t really have much money, so it was a great opportunity for me.
“I was a delivery driver for a liquor company and I would kind of deliver booze into the not-so-good areas. Nobody else wanted to drive into those areas so I took that job.
“It was a good union job so I made enough money to support us. And I had to quit that job to go do the Ozzy thing. And when they fired me like that… And they didn’t pay me, and they didn’t give me any compensation, they didn’t ask me if I was okay or anything.
“They just didn’t care, they just said… It was literally like… It took, like, a minute. Ozzy just said, ‘Hey, it’s not gonna be working out. Thanks a lot for your time. See ya later. Bye.’ [Laughs]
“Yeah, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe it. My heart just dropped and… Yeah, I think I cried on the way home. [Laughs] It was very devastating.”
