Ozzy Osbourne has discussed the rumoured rivalry between late, legendary guitarists Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, The Prince Of Darkness sheds light on the two musicians' competitive nature, likely derived from the fact that both men were battling for the attention of Sunset Strip audiences in the late '70s, Rhoads with Quiet Riot, and Eddie Van Halen with the Pasadena band who took on his surname.
"I heard recently that Eddie said he taught Randy all his licks … he never," Osbourne offers. "To be honest, Randy didn't have a nice thing to say about Eddie. Maybe they had a falling out or whatever, but they were rivals."
Randy Rhoads was the first guitarist Ozzy collaborated with after leaving Black Sabbath in 1979. He worked on two of the vocalist's solo albums, The Blizzard Of Oz and Diary Of A Madman, released in 1980 and 1981 respectively.
The rivalry was previously visited in the documentary Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon, which was released earlier this year (as reported by Blabbermouth).
Within the film, Eddie opens up about the alleged competition, in which he says: "He was one guitarist who was honest, anyway. Because he said everything he did he learned from me.
"He was good. But I don't really think he did anything that I haven't done. And there ain't nothing wrong with it. I've copied some other people, you know?"
In the same documentary, Rhoads's guitar tech Brian Reason reveals how he used to stick a picture of Eddie Van Halen to his wah pedal.
"He wasn't very excited about [it], but it was in the perfect place, because every time he stomped on his wah wah pedal, he stomped on it as if he wanted to crush it" Reason recalls.
