Off The Rails Aboard The Crazy Train In The Blizzard Of Ozz - Rudy Sarzo

Off The Rails is a rock and roll book that is a tribute to the late, great Randy Rhoads.
Off The Rails is a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the The Blizzard Of Ozz band.
The main focus of the book is on Rudy Sarzo's day to day relationship with the classical metal guitar great, Randy Rhoads. Finding a rock and roll book with day to day details like Off The Rails is very rare. Rudy Sarzo kept a day to day diary of all his dealings with Quiet Riot, Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy, Randy Rhoads, Tommy Aldridge, Don Airey, Motorhead and Brad Gillis from Night Ranger during his rise to fame to fortune.
What makes this book so great is that it contains tour stories from every performance and day to day details you'll never read from someone on the outside looking in.
Every city that the Blizzard Of Ozz performed in is mentioned because Ozzy was always up to something. Alot of the stories are funny but some of them are extremely sad.
Rudy had a great relationship with Randy Rhoads since they hung out together before shows and more often than not, after the shows as well.
Randy "Rand" and Rudy "Rudes" didn't always party every night like Ozzy.
Off The Rails is a great Rock and Roll book and it is a rare glimpse into Ozzy's inner circle at the beginning of his solo career.
I grew up listening to Ozzy and Randy Rhoads and I've always been a fan of Rudy Sarzo so I enjoyed every page of this book.
Zakk Wylde recently called Ozzy's solo career "The house that Rhoads built" and I would have to agree 100%, especially after reading Off The Rails.

Ozzy & Randy Rhoads

Randy Rhoads played a Les Paul in a innovative and exciting style.
Randy's musical output and untimely death have made him a guitar playing legend.

If you can gets hands on one, there are many full color, glossy photos of Randy in action in the Ozzy Osbourne HM photo book.



I've always been a big fan of Ozzy and Black Sabbath. I especially love the Randy Rhoads, Blizzard Of Oz Ozzy stuff. I've also loved the above photo since I first seen it way back when in glorious B&W. So I decided to do a little online searching and I found a few color photos to post along with it along the same theme.

Randy Rhoads may have been small in stature but he was a giant talent on the electric guitar. A friend of mine once told me that Randy's playing is over rated but anyone who knows anything about playing a guitar knows that Randy's playing was innovative, exciting and instantly recognizable. Randy had a unique style and sound all his own.

This post is in recognition of the new re-releases of the 2 original Blizzard Of Oz records, each re-release has new bonus material. As soon as I heard about these new re-releases I instantly bought the Diary Of A Madman double CD. This double CD set contains an entire CD of never before released, Blizzard Of Oz tour, live material.

Now my only wish is that someone in the Quiet Riot camp will finally come to their senses and re-release the 1st 2 original Q.R. records in the USA. These records were only released in Japan.
These 2 records feature Randy on guitar and were released before Randy auditioned for Ozzy's band. You can occasionally find these records in CD form on e-bay.
This post is dedicated to the memory and the legacy of Randy Rhoads.


1987's Tribute album cover.

Bootleg album cover.

Thank you for taking an interest in my blog! I appreciate it very much.

Randy Rhoads

Straight out of the "Diary Of A Madman" Ozzy tour book...

Quiet Riot 1 Album cover, featuring Randy on guitars.

Quiet Riot II, featuring Randy on guitars and Rudy Sarzo on electric bass. Randy in TM polka dot outfit.

This is the recent mag where I learned about the new Ozzy rereleases, featuring Randy in TM polka dot vest from an early Blizzard Of Ozz show.

Cool live shot from an outdoor Ozzy live show, from Guitar World feature, w/TM polka dot custom flying V guitar.

This is a must read for any serious Randy Rhoads fan, picked this up @ Barnes n Noble book stores. Traces Randys entire life from his humble beginnings to his tragic death.