Thrash and jazz shredder Alex Skolnick has opened up on his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spell as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist that lasted just one impromptu show.
Since Randy Rhoads’ explosive talents helped launch Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career in the early ‘80s, the role of the Prince of Darkness’ chief shredder has been one of metal guitar’s most coveted jobs.
Jake E. Lee, Zakk Wylde, and Gus G have all since assumed the position, be it for a single album or several decades. Meanwhile, plenty of big hitters – from Marty Friedman to Vito Bratta and neoclassical hotshot Chris Impellitteri – have either auditioned or been touted for the role when it has become vacant at various points over the last 40-something years. Very few have made the cut.
However, Alex Skolnick’s short-lived tenure in the band has become a footnote in the band’s history that many seem to forget about. He may have only lasted one gig – an unannounced show at Rock City in Nottingham, England in 1995 – but it came at a vital moment in his career.
“I don’t know why their separation happened, but I guess Zakk [Wylde] was doing other stuff and there was this search for a new Ozzy Osbourne guitarist,” he tells Metal Hammer during a new, career-spanning chat. “I was just honored to be in the running because I’d heard about some pretty well-known players that never got past the audition phase.”
Zakk Wylde was very much a permanent fixture in Ozzy’s band and was some seven years into the job by this point. However, one of the singer’s many attempts at retiring – the upcoming blockbuster Sabbath show promises to actually be his last – had seen the guitarist form a new project, Pride & Glory, to fill the void.
Ozzy’s return was unexpected, and with Wylde already committed to plans with his new band, the Prince of Darkness was forced to find a replacement. Skolnick had left Testament, an outfit he said his academic parents were “not thrilled” about him joining in 1985, three years prior. He was still looking for a venture, and a shot at being Ozzy’s band, and reviving his career, felt opportune.
“I actually got to the point of doing a show and Ozzy hired me – he said he wanted me to do the gig,” he reminisces.
“It was an unannounced show at Nottingham Rock City and it was great. I didn’t get the role full-time, which I think was a management decision, but it was a great motivation at a time when I didn’t really know what to do next.”
He gave more clues to the context behind the “management decision” when speaking to Loudwire in 2016. It doesn’t seem that the decision to look elsewhere was entirely musical.
“[After the show] there was one person who didn’t congratulate me,” he says. “A lot of hints had been dropped – things like, ‘Maybe you could lower the guitar,’ or ‘Maybe you could stand like this.’ I realized, ‘Oh, I think she wants me to be Zakk Wylde.”
He was quickly replaced by former David Lee Roth guitarist Joe Holmes, with Wylde eventually rejoining the fold and featuring, alongside Steve Vai, on his new album Ozzmosis, later that year.
Dispute Skolnick having had the briefest of stints in the band, he’s thankful for the shot in the arm it gave him.
“That was when I enrolled in the university called The New School in New York, and studied with these greats like [jazz musicians] Cecil McBee and Reggie Workman,” he concludes. His studies led to the formation of the Alex Skolnick Trio, which has released five albums to date.
Skolnick rejoined Testament in 2005 and is currently readying his fifth album of his second spell with the band.
A recording of Crazy Train, the last song Skolnick played on that fateful night in 1995, stands as one of the few souvenirs from his reign. The rest is left to fantasy and thoughts of what could have been.
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