MUBUTV Insider Podcast Episode Transcript
[Rudy Sarzo]

Ritch Esra: Rudy, thank you so much for joining us, we really appreciate it.

Rudy Sarzo: It’s my pleasure, how you guys doing?

Ritch Esra: Doing very very well! Doing really good, how about you?

Rudy Sarzo: I’m doing great!

Ritch Esra: Good! You know, I’d like to start by asking sort of at the beginning of your own life to go back and at what point of your life did you know that music was going to be your professional career path?

Rudy Sarzo: Ooh, you know, it’s, well I guess by the time that I decided to move to Los Angeles and pretty much leave Miami where I had been living most of my life after my family left Cuba in 1961. By the time I left Miami, I knew that music was going to be my career basically. What kind of a path it was going to lead me to, I did not know, but I had a lot of faith to continue through the struggles of trying to survive on the road. Basically, once I left Miami I considered myself going on the road. I did not have a steady home basically until I was in Quiet Riot, when I bought my first house in 1984. So it was a basically a ten year journey from the time I left Miami like around 1974 to 1984 when I bought my first home and then I knew I was going to be a California resident for good.

Eric Knight: Yeah, that’s amazing, this is Eric by the way, it’s such an honor to have you on the show, so I wanted to ask you just, and you were speaking about this in the previous answer that you were giving. And I ask this obviously because I’m Cuban-American, I was born here in the states but my family immigrated I think on or around the same time you came and settled in Miami. So my question is what was it like coming to the US as a child who grew up in Cuba? Was that like a big culture shock? I mean I know at the time there was a lot of stuff going on with Castro and stuff, and I’m just curious how was that for you?

Rudy Sarzo: I can only give you the reference of two places that my family moved to. First was Miami, we were there for a couple of years before we were relocated to New Jersey. There was a relocation program through the Catholic church that you were given choices of places to move to anywhere from Los Angeles to Chicago to Alaska. They were looking for people to work at the pipeline up there. So my parents figured well if we go to New Jersey, if anything, if we change our mind, we could always drive back down to Miami. So we stayed there for about 3 years, from 63 to around middle of 67.
By the time I got to Jersey in 63, I was there to experience the shock of Kennedy getting shot and I was in school, I was there for the Beatles coming to Ed Sullivan, you know, all of that. All of those different changes. Miami in 1961, 1962 is completely different from what it is now you know. There was not that huge Latin community that exists now, it was very different. Very little jobs, most of the jobs were either in the tourist trade which is working in a hotel or my dad got a job building boats, yachts. His job was like the least desirable one which was basically jumping into a tank, a water tank, with a boat and sanding the fiberglass. I believe today that would be considered a toxic job but back then in ‘61 there was no protection, he’s just jumping the tank and started sanding away. He would come home with fiberglass in all his pores in his body. It was tough, very tough. So that’s why my family decided to move to New Jersey just to have better opportunities to make a living. By the time we moved to New Jersey was where I encountered more ethnic varieties. In New Jersey, in West New York particularly, there was a lot of Italians and Puerto Ricans. Basically that urban New York City New Jersey feel. It was really interesting because before that in Miami, it was basically the very few initial Cubans that had left right after the 1959 revolution, New Year’s eve, the Batista era. Those Cubans were the one who were actually the upper class who had homes in Miami, like vacation homes. So their vacation homes became their steady homes, that’s where they moved to. So that was a lot of the Cubans that I met in school, their families were from that wealthy background that now the kids were going to public school and trying to deal with assimilating, having lost all of their businesses and family properties. The homes and whatever else they happened to own in Cuba and starting all over again. The rest were basically just Americans, your average Miami Americans that lived in Miami. By the time that my family moved to New Jersey is when I started to experience a more diverse ethnic background. It was pretty interesting, it was something that I understood very quickly at the age of eleven, was in order to survive, which became that generation of Cubans, we were all in survival mode, how are we going to survive this how are we going to assimilate. We knew that assimilation was an essential tool to our survival especially in a country where there were less ethnic groups back in 1960, early 60s, 63 by the time we moved to West New York.

Eric Knight: And I know people weren’t very happy either, I mean there was a lot of racism going on at the time, I can tell my stories of my family telling me stuff that was happening to them in the schools and like you said, trying to assimilate.

Rudy Sarzo: Recently, I was on a flight and I decided to watch West Side Story. And I’m looking at it today, because I’ve seen it so many times but everytime you watch a movie, you can get a different thing out of it. The story line was pretty much that. Of course, this is a land, unless you’re a Native American, everyone’s an immigrant. But you know for example in West Side Story, I think there were Polish and Italians, the Jets, they were there they got there first so they’re basically just preserving their turf. And then the Puerto Ricans come in and they want to be a part of that, they want a piece of the turf. I mean of course we’re talking about a movie but that story line was very true, true to life in urban cities such as where I lived in West New York.

Ritch Esra: Rudy, I want to sort of move to when you moved out to LA from Miami. The LA scene was very heavy into showcasing bands for record labels at that time. The club scene was rather small then, comparatively speaking, to today. What I'm curious about is when you came to LA when you arrived, can you talk to us about how you were able to connect with other working musicians in the community at that time?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, of course you know we did not have the advantage of social network with the internet like we have today. But there was a social network back then, a place called the Rainbow.

Ritch Esra: Okay, which is still there, yeah.

Rudy Sarzo: It’s still there and also I would say just going to clubs every night and mingling and meeting people. Also, you might be surprised by this but females, the ladies, the ladies that were hanging around that scene, they knew everybody. And they were always welcoming, because people were coming in, musicians were coming in everyday, they were from all over the United States or even the world. We had so many musicians from England at the time that had moved to Los Angeles after some of their bands broke up because by the second half of the 70s, radio airplay in America was basically disco music. There were some stations yes that would play rock and roll but disco was the sound of the time. A lot of the English bands they just broke up because they couldn’t survive. So a lot of them wound up in Los Angeles hanging out at the Rainbow, putting new bands together and so on.

Eric Knight: Did you do many recording sessions during this time? Did you just hit the ground running when you got there or how did that work?

Rudy Sarzo: Basically, there were a bunch of us who had been playing in a band in the midwest prior to moving to Los Angeles and one of them was Frankie Banali, who I later on played in the Metal Health version of Quiet Riot and so on. The other one was Bob Marlette, who was a very well known producer. He was our guitar player, keyboard player. We all wound up in Los Angeles. I drove to LA with Bob from Lincoln, Nebraska in his family’s station wagon. We actually put a band together here in Los Angeles. We did one gig, but out of that one gig we got a lot of connections. During that time, I actually met Quiet Riot, I actually watched Kevin and Randy and Drew and Kelly who were that version of the band, performing at the Star Wood. I bumped into Kevin after their show and I told him how much I really enjoyed it and that they were on the right track. Even when Quiet Riot was playing clubs, they had an arena approach to their presentation which was very rare. There was a lot of bands that I saw playing in clubs that just came off as club bands and very few came off as arena bands, and they were one of the very few. So I just told him that, not thinking anything else but say hey, you guys are on the right track and moved on. Later on when they started looking for a bass player, I happened to be out of town but getting ready to return to Los Angeles. So I got a call from Kevin, he tracked me down and he called me in New Jersey. I went to New Jersey again to stay with my brother and my sister in law.
They had a band there so I was working with them, getting some money together playing clubs until I got enough money to return back to Los Angeles. It just so happened that they were looking for a bass player at the same time, Quiet Riot, and so after he called me, I returned to LA within a week, I auditioned for the band, and I got into Quiet Riot. And that’s how people got to really know how I play because we only did one gig with Frankie and Bob Marlett in Los Angeles, so nobody really had any idea because there were so many musicians hanging around but not gigging, not gigging at all so nobody got to watch them perform. It wasn’t until Quiet Riot that the local network of musicians got to actually know about my playing abilities.

Eric Knight: Interesting. Let me ask you, Rudy, you once said that lasting in the music industry is about being aware of your role in the situation that you’re in - you know you’ve worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake, Dio, Blue Oyster Cult just to name a few. Can you talk about the mindset that you need as a musician to join a band? I think a lot of the musicians just think of it as a job but it’s much bigger than just a job.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah I mean if you’re going to think about it as a job, if you treat your band as a job, the audience is going to know about it. I mean, they’re going to see you play, watch you play on stage and go oh, “OK, this guy’s just gigging. He’s not giving it beyond. There’s no passion. How many people really have passion at their jobs, a lot of people just show up and punch in their timecard and then just get out and go home and might not even have any passion about life. You have to be passionate about your playing. I never called it a job! To me it’s not a job because I play at work, I play. And I love what I do and if you love what you do, it’s gonna come off that way. I play for the audience. I play for the celebration of everybody showing up, not just the band, but the audience. I mean, without the audience, it’s just a soundcheck. It doesn’t matter to me if there’s ten people or ten thousand people, if there’s ten people, it’s not their fault that the other 9,990 people did not show up. I’m gonna give you the show that you not only paid for, but sacrificed everything else just to be there. And it’s because I’ve been a fan longer than I’ve been a professional musician. I know what it’s like to be a fan, I know what it’s like to leave your house, stand in line to buy the ticket, drive in traffic to find a parking spot, all of this, just to watch that show. And when I watch that show, I want to see something magical. I want that special moment where I’m at the show and I go “Oh My God this is so awesome, I’m sure this is just happening tonight” so it’s not scripted. I want that spontaneity and that magical element to a performance. I’m still a fan, I’ll be a fan even if I stop playing for whatever reason. So I approach it like that. I have the passion of the fan who just happen to get that opportunity to now okay you’ve been a fan for so long and now is your time to get up on stage and do what you’ve been watching other musicians do.

Eric Knight: And let me ask you a follow up to that question, some of those situations that were already established, some of the bands that you were in, and some you were in on quite early. Can you talk about your role in each of those particular bands?

Rudy Sarzo: Okay, can you give me a band?

Eric Knight: Well, you know like in Ozzy, Quiet Riot, and Whitesnake, they were all kind of situations that were kind of already happening.

Rudy Sarzo: With Ozzy, what Ozzy had happening with him by the time I joined the band was that two records had already been recorded. His place in the industry was not defined yet because he had yet to make a name for himself as a solo artist, which was very hard especially following such an iconic band like Black Sabbath. So that was a very, I had not been in a situation like that afterwards where you have something like that. For me, it was basically, I had a role and my role was, they’re establishing, first it was called The Blizzard of Oz, then it became Ozzy Osbourne the Blizzard of Oz, and then it just became Ozzy Osbourne. And usually that is just the industry will make those calls. Basically, sometimes it’s easier to promote one person than it is a whole band especially if it’s the singer. Because you know musicians will move on and still that brand remains the same. They do things like that, especially if there’s a woman in the band. They’ll go wow it’s easier to sell this female, you know let’s say Janis Joplin, it’s an early story in music. Janis Joplin, you know it was Big Brother and the Holding Company, and then it became Janis Joplin and Big Brother, and then it was just Janis Joplin. Because it’s so much easier just to promote and market Janis Joplin. It’s a no-brainer for the business people at the record company to do that. With Ozzy, it was that type of situation. It was something that was very focused thanks to Sharon Osbourne. You know she worked very hard to get Ozzy to where he was at, to where he is at today. But the band, she always treated the band, and so did Ozzy, as a band. It was not a backup band. We all traveled together, stayed at the same hotels, and we got the same treatment. We shared the same dressing room while I was in the band. So I moved on with Quiet Riot, and Quiet Riot we were all members. We all owned the brand at the time, so that was a whole different dynamic, and then Whitesnake, there was a certain business arrangement that we had that we were not necessarily hired hands. So each situation has its dynamics. It’s all very different.

Ritch Esra: Rudy, you know, in your experience, how important, because it’s interesting listening to you because you’re speaking about a lot of different situations with Ozzy, with Quiet Riot, with Whitesnake, with the arrangement and I’m curious, how important is trust, honesty, and dependability versus just the pure musical talent of members when people are putting a band together?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, I mean and I say this over and over again. Trust is the most important ingredient. I mean, obviously I’m talking about people that can play. Obviously, if you’re in Los Angeles and you’re seriously making music your career, you’re gonna be a musician of a high skill level. That’s taken for granted. But the musician that is going to get the band, that position that they're trying to fill, is the musician that they already know and trust. Lately in LA, let me just rephrase that. There is a trend, nowadays, for solo artists, if you look at country music pop music and so on, even urban, there’s not many hip hop bands. There’s hip hop artists, there’s DJs, there’s collaborations among different solo artists, so it’s the same thing in country music. Maybe not as much in rock, but then rock doesn’t get the same attention as country music, something more mainstream.
Pop, you’d be talking about Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift and Katy Perry and so on. What’s happening is in LA, there is a network of musicians that most of them went to Berklee. There will be one individual who happens to be the music director so his band or her band is composed of musicians that they went to Berklee with. People that they know, that they grew up musically, that they trust. And these same bands may back up different artists. I know that there’s a network of musicians who are part of Pink’s band and when Pink is off the road, they go and they perform with Cher. Because they have the same management so they can actually control touring dates so there’s no conflicts of one band. And a lot of times there’s like subs for these musicians if they happen to have other opportunities but it’s definitely a network.

Eric Knight: And that’s so important to have that network. I was going to ask you, Quiet Riot broke through with a massively successful album, Metal Health, which I think has the dubious honor of being number one, the first metal record to go number one

Rudy Sarzo: Actually, the first debut

Eric Knight: The first debut, excuse me, the first debut exactly. And it went on to sell eight million copies, had a massive hit single with Come On Feel the Noise

Rudy Sarzo: Actually, there’s more records that were sold beyond eight. I have a diamond plaque, so it’s beyond ten worldwide.

Eric Knight: Awesome. That’s amazing. What did it feel like to be part of that? Were you mentally prepared, no pun intended with the words here, for that level of success?

Rudy Sarzo: No I mean you know especially back in the day and I say back in the day because bands used to tour you know in the 80s.

Eric Knight: Yeah, you cut your teeth on the road.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah well not only that, it’s that there was really no time for additional projects for bands. There’s just, the average musician no matter how successful they are today, it’s expected of them to do outside projects.

Eric Knight: Yeah, you gotta have like two or three projects now.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, because you have the time you have the time. It’s not because you need the money, it’s because you have the time. You must occupy your time playing - otherwise, you know. It’s like athletes. Athletes, I don’t know if they still have this but I remember growing up in Cuba, when the major leagues in the United States, when the season was over, most players would go on to other leagues, you know like the Carribean league, the Sugar league in Cuba. There were a lot of players from the major leagues that would go down to Cuba to play just to stay, you know keep your body in shape.

Eric Knight: Yeah, keep their chops up.

Rudy Sarzo: Keep your chops up, yeah. Athletes do that. So, musicians, we do that. Back in the day, it was easy because if you had a successful record, let’s say, as a reference let’s use Quiet Riot. Our album Metal Health came out in March of 1983. Immediately, we started touring. We went upstate to San Francisco, we did some shows with Vandenburg, Adrian Vandenburg band, then we came down and we got on the Scorpions tour. Now, the Scorpions were warming up for the US Festival. And then by the time that we got to Denver, and there was a spot on the Metal Day Barry Fade the promoter invited us to perform at the Us Festival. From the US Festival, we did some shows on our own, and then we got on the ZZ Top tour. From ZZ Top we went on to the Loverboy tour. Meanwhile, we’re promoting the record, doing instores and radios and making videos, and then from the Loverboy tour, they did not pick up our option for the second leg so we were not headlining small arenas and even big arenas like Market Square Arena in Indianapolis and selling it out, and then we went back on tour, opening again, for Iron Maiden, building it up. By now, we have Come On Feel the Noise on the radio, not only on the radio but on MTV every half hour, then we got on the Black Sabbath tour, and by the time, by November, record came out in March, by November, we hit number one. And now that we hit number one, what do you do? Well, we had some prior commitment to go tour with Judas Priest in Europe, so we did that. As soon as we came back, we started headlining. New Years Eve of 1984, which was basically December 31st 1983, we headlined our first show, Cobble Hall Sold out. On that tour, we had Night Ranger, we had Girlschool, and Saga. On and off. We kept touring until the record company, in the spring of 1984 say hey guys, the record has been out for a year, we need you to go back in the studio and make another record because we need to release your new record which became condition critical in 1984 in the third quarter, which is basically the end of the summer tour, like around August. There’s usually four quarters that records would be released. And unless it was a greatest hits or a Christmas album, you did not want to release your record in the fourth quarter, you wanted the latest, the third quarter. So here we go, we have like four weeks to deliver an album and we did that. We went back, got out the tour, immediately went into pre-production of the album and recording, deliver it, and keep doing shows because there was a demand. Now, you got the festivals and they’re saying wow, we would love to have Quiet Riot in the festival. So while you were recording the album, you would do one offs here and there. Then the album comes out and you start all over again. So, there was no time, for any outside projects. It’s impossible. That was the, if you had a hit record, that was, not just Quiet Riot, that was pretty normal for any band that had a hit album.

Ritch Esra: Yeah, and I remember that so well because partially too, not only the success of the album, but that was a top five hit. Massive, massive hit worldwide, the single, Come On Feel the Noise. You know, massive pop radio and as you pointed out, Rudy, you also had the video which MTV was coming into its prime at that point.

Rudy Sarzo: Not only was it a top five hit, but it was one of five, only there were five, gold singles that year. It was not just because it was a top five, it was a gold single that means a million, gold singles were a million sales. Gold albums were half a million, platinum, one million, and you know double platinum so on, two million, three million. But as far as singles, it was a whole different count that they used to do.

Ritch Esra: Rudy, I wanna shift gears here. It’s interesting because you touched on this in a previous answer about 15 minutes ago and I just want to talk about it. Preparing for our conversation, I realized that you have worked with Ozzy Osbourne, David Coverdale & Ronny Dio. All who are brilliant frontman from very famous iconic bands who were able to successfully reinvent themselves and break again as solo artists, which is as you said and I know from my experience in the music business is not an easy thing to do. We all can count on one hand how many people have done that, how many people have tried and really became as big as the act that they came from. You’ve worked with several of them and I’m just curious, do you ever recall having that conversation with any of them about that - that they were able to do that or the difficulty of that or just about that aspect creatively? Because it must have been an enormous challenge for those three people to have achieved what they achieved.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, it’s all a matter of a strategy. Whether it was a personal strategy or a business strategy, business meaning the management or record label made a decision of what to do or what direction for them to take. With Ozzy, it was definitely a business management decision to go from being called the band originally Blizzard of Oz to Ozzy Osbourne because I was there during the transition when it became Ozzy Osbourne rather than being called the Blizzard of Oz. With Whitesnake, it was interesting because you mentioned they’ve been having a solo career well, his band is Whitesnake, not David Coverdale, you know. I think that if it goes out, and his whole branding, and I know this because right now we’re in this situation where it’s very hard to break a new band especially if you have classic or legacy musicians involved. For example, there is very few who have become successful at it. One of them is the Sons of Apollo, which is a supergroup

Eric Knight: Right, the guys from Dream Theatre, they’ve got Soto and everybody

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah yeah, Billy Sheehan and all that. And at the moment I can’t really recall in recent years another gathering of a supergroup that has been successful. It’s because you don’t get the support of labels like you used to. A legacy brand, you know, for a promoter, guarantees that they’ll be able to put the names in the marquee and people will show up. I mean we’re looking at the era where we have holograms. Not just a video hologram hologram, there is a show on tour with Buddy Holly

Eric Knight: Buddy Holly, yeah. Bob Lefsetz just had a piece about this.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah and Roy Orbison

Ritch Esra: And Whitney Houston’s about to go out doing this.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, so it’s the brand you know. You know it’s a stake, it's the reality of the business. So what happens. I mean if you look at sports team, and of course music is arts and sports is sports, but basically when you go watch, you go to a Dodgers game, well you do not expect Sandy Koufax to go out there and pitch. You’re basically, you’re a fan of the legacy. You’re a fan of the memories that, if you’re a fan of a certain team, that that team has brought to you from growing up, all that. So basically I think music is entering that era, which is not very different from classical music. When you go to watch a symphony, you know an orchestra, perform Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, any symphonic music, basically it’s a tribute band. Think about it! But nobody calls it that, they’re very respectful, it’ll be the Boston Pops or the LA Philharmonic.

Eric Knight: Yeah I guess it’s because of the way it’s perceived.

Rudy Sarzo: Yes! Performing the music of, with a conductor who’s not old enough to have been around 300 years ago.

Eric Knight; Yeah, that’s an interesting take

Rudy Sarzo: So yeah, so we’re entering that era. For example, I play in a band called The Guess Who, it’s a legacy band, and I took over the original bass player. He decided he didn’t want to be touring anymore. We have the original drummer. A lot of bands that we play on tour with such as Foghat and some other that I would really have to think hard, it’s just one original member. And a lot of bands don’t have that, a lot of bands, let's say Foreigner, most of the time Mick Jones does not perform with the band but it’s Foreigner, and these guys are headlining. So we’re entering that era that is going to be common to experience that when you go to a show. Because after all, it’s a celebration of the legacy, the music, the time in our lives, the soundtrack of our lives and a lot of times this is what happens. Musicians start to be replaced by other musicians. Let’s say when Kelly came into Foreigner. Now, Kelly Hansen was not the only singer that has replaced the original singer in Foreigner. There’s a history of it. And also there’s a history in Journey of different singers replacing the original vocalist. So in our case, in The Guess Who, we have members who have been in the band for twenty years. Our singer, our current singer, Derek Sharpe, has been in the band for fifteen years. We have a new album that came out with original The Guess Who music, performed by the band. It’s almost like continuing the legacy of the band. It doesn’t mean that we’re just gonna stop contributing to the library of the music of The Guess Who, no. There’s new songs being added by the new members of the group. And I’m just talking about The Guess Who because it’s my best reference because I’m in the band, but this is something that most bands do experience. I’ll give you another reference. One of our guitar players, Will Evankovich, not only is he a co-producer and writer in The Guess Who band, but he also co-produces and co-writes the music for Styx, him and Tommy Shaw. They have a long history of working together so again, it’s not the original Styx band but there’s enough members, I mean Tommy Shaw is such a great contributor.
To me, when Tommy Shaw joined Styx is when I started listening to the band because he brought that rock edge to it. To me, that was like when it really became a rock band. So he’s still in the band, of course, and there’s the original guitar player, DeYoung, but some of the, Chuck Panozzo the bassist, sometimes he tours a band, he performs a couple of songs, but the core of the band is really two original members from Styx and then Tommy Shaw when he joined the band, which was kind of like reinventing Styx. So it’s weird coming to that place in the industry where those situations become the norm.

Eric Knight: We recently had an interview with John Kalodner who as you know was instrumental in signing David and Whitesnake to Geffen

Rudy Sarzo: I was there

Eric Knight: Yeah, and you know we know that he played a big role in putting the supergroup lineup together. Did you get to work with John directly during this time and if so, what was he like to work with?

Rudy Sarzo: Well, I consider John a genius and I’ll tell you why. He’s got magic ears. He knows. And there’s no grey area with John, it’s either you’re gonna be huge, or you’re not. If John doesn’t think you have the potential of being huge, I’d put it this way, with John it seems to be beyond potential. He knows. He knows that if, it’s kind of like an equation, if you have A plus Z plus Y equals success, he knows that. He knows how to put all the elements together. And repeatedly.

Eric Knight: Yeah. Yeah he did it continuously, he did it continuously.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah it’s not a fluke with John, it’s not like oh one time he signed a band and they became huge, no! Continuously he kept doing that until the industry just basically went away you know. And I’ve worked with John, I know the difference of what it is like to work with John and let him do what he’s supposed to do or drive John away. Which is what happened during the making of the Slip of the Tongue. There were some dynamics outside of the band going on that drove John away from you know, making the record in the studio. So what happened, John decided well, screw this, I’m gonna go up to Vancouver and work with Aerosmith and they came up with Pump. And if you look at the record sales, the record sales speak for themselves. The comparison of the hit that Pump was and Slip of the Tongue, who did very well, I’m very proud to have played with that record, did not have the success that Pump did.

Ritch Esra: Very much. Rudy, you saw the transition of music from vinyl to CD as well as you saw radio evolve with the birth of MTV making music marketing far more visual. I’m curious from your perspective, how did this so-called perfect storm of combination of factors affect the music and live performance?
I mean as the demands on bands creatively became bigger, how did this affect the bands in terms of performing, how did it affect their whole sense of going out, did it do something to them creatively?

Rudy Sarzo: Well, the biggest factor that I experienced with the transition from vinyl and I’m gonna skip cassette because cassettes were just an extension of vinyl records with maybe one or two bonus tracks added because of the capability of adding those songs to CDs and then when CDs got extended, you know, and so let me go back I want to address that. Vinyl, ideally, was less than 20 minutes of music per side of the record. Basically, it was a physical decision. Physical meaning that the physicality of an album would only hold that much, the limitation due to the grooves and the more minutes you add into a record, the less low end you’re gonna have because of the grooves. If you have too many grooves on the record, too deep, the needle will start to skip when the record played due to the bass and that’s where certain mastering engineers, when the record got, actually vinyl mastering was an artform because you know there were certain mastering engineers who could actually maximize, if your song, had too much music on one side, you could actually somehow someway get some bottom end out of it without losing it. So once we made the transition into CDs, the first CD was, I think it was 615 megabytes and it was decided on that due to one of the engineers who came up with the invention of the CD. He asked the question how long is Beethoven’s 5th?. Seriously. Because they needed to put that into one CD, the whole work. So that became the norm and then other engineers started saying wait a minute we can actually fit more information into this CD and then you got what is it 750 or 720 megs. I mean I don’t play CDs anymore so I’m a little rusty on those figures. Then, the industry figured hey, wait a minute, we can actually fit more music, more songs on a CD which means we can actually charge more charge more money for it and by charging more money, you know the CD sales, the prices are going up so high which coincided, when CD prices started climbing, coincided with some of the major artists renegotiating their deals because their recording contracts were about to be renewed. So they started demanding advances. Multi-million dollar advances to resign with the label. The labels basically were saying yeah we’re giving this advance and they thought woah we’re gonna have to recoup by raising the prices. Also by adding more songs means that you have more of a publishing cut, more money goes into publishing from the wholesale price of those records. So instead of having 10 songs, now you got 15 songs which means your publishing costs for those songs for writers and publishers has basically 50% instead of you know ten songs now you got 15, five more songs, which is a 50% raise on that. So as far as performance goes, I don’t think it really changed that much. There was still that separation between a record and a tour, You would make about maybe three or four videos for any new release, but that’s been going on since the 80s. If you had a hit record, you would still make that list, two or three videos. The time I was touring with White Snake, we were making four videos per album. And those were expensive.

Ritch & Eric: Especially back then.

Rudy Sarzo: Especially by the end of the 80s, there was no guarantee that your video, no matter how big the artist was, was going to end up on heavy rotation. So you could spend three hundred, three hundred fifty thousand dollars on a video that would be on rotation, not even heavy rotation but rotation for about maybe six weeks? Which means that in order for you to extend your tour, because you know tour planning was like six months in advance and if your records not doing very well, somehow you have to pump up your presence on radio and on MTV to promote your tour. Because nothing gets butts in the seats like a hit record. You know. There’s no way that, especially back then. Nowadays, a lot of bands don’t even release an album they just keep playing their classic catalog. But back then, you were expected. If you were on tour, you’re expected to have a record. You tour to promote the album. Now, basically you make a record to promote the tour or to give the promoter, because you gotta go to the promoter with a story. Hey we have a new record out, okay we’ll put a tour together.

Eric Knight: Do you prefer session work or being in a band recording and touring?

Rudy Sarzo: Well, being in a band recording and touring, it’s the best because you want to play those songs live. If you do a session, you basically hear the song once or twice and you record it and that’s it. You’re done. There’s no more, your contribution to that is pretty much done. And I can tell you this having recorded a few big records, it doesn’t matter how much pre-production you have, when you go into the studio. You really understand the song or the band really really puts across what the song is all about when they go on tour and they live it. Because now you’re performing the song in front of people. Now you’re communicating what the song is all about. And that’s why when you listen to live albums, there’s a certain chemistry, a certain magic that albums do not have. Albums might be too clinical, too under the microscope, each note each layer. And then also what happens is you know you have overdubs in the studio. When you’re on the road, and I’m talking about the bands that do not rely on pre-recorded music, you know playing along to that which is just a band playing and singing. There’s more room to expand your expression of what the song is about if you have like two guitars maybe one keyboard and a guy singing and background vocals and a drummer and a bass player, there’s more room because there’s no overdubs. There’s more space to do things.

Ritch Esra: In past interviews you have spoken about the fact that you would not have had the career that you’ve had without Randy Rhodes. Was he the inspiration for you to write your book, Off The Rails, and what was your relationship with him like?

Rudy Sarzo: Well I mean, if you could reverse engineer the question with the outcome, I took a year and a half out of my life to write a book for a friend. You know, and you go like wow, how many people do that? I mean there was no guarantee of making any financial gains from it or anything. I just did it because I had to. I had to write that book because nobody else did. That book specifically about Randy Rhoades. Actually, to answer the number one question I get asked, what was it like to play with Randy Rhoads. When I travel around the world, that’s all I hear. The fans want to know.
And now, I always used to walk away feeling like I did not say enough about Randy so I figured let me put that on a book, everything that I could ever say about Randy Rhaods. And it’s all there.

Eric Knight: Yeah and we’re gonna have links to that in the show notes in the description so people can check it out. For our audience that’s comprised of musicians and people that wanna get into the industry, do you have any pre-show rituals that you can share with us?

Rudy Sarzo: You know, my whole life is a pre-show ritual! I’m already getting ready right now as we speak for the shows that I’m gonna be playing. Next week, I’m doing this charity event in Canada for this organization that I’m a part of, and then as soon as I get back from Canada, the following day, I’m playing with The Guess Who in November first so it never ends. It’s not like okay, I’m gonna do a show in an hour, okay I’m gonna get ready for that, no I’m always

Eric Knight: You’re always in preparation mode

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Knight: I guess what I meant was is there any particular things that you do to get yourself in the mindset, I mean clearly you’re in that mindset I would assume at all times but if there were any specific things.

Rudy Sarzo: No, just because. Just because it’s part of my, it’s like breathing, I breathe, that’s part of the preparation.

Ritch Esra: What about performance advice, I mean can you give any performance advice? You’re a man who has literally played for millions of people around the world in your career and I figured you must have some sort of insights into what makes a great performance in your mind and what makes one that you know was like eh or there were problems or whatever, when you’re on stage?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, okay, problems on stage. Give me an idea of what a problem on stage would be considered.

Ritch Esra: Oh I guess you’re not feeling it that night, you’re not gelling with the other musicians, something is blocking you emotionally, those kind of things where you’re not connected, you’re not connected to what you’re doing.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, I, you know, and it happens but you have to realize that what keeps that from being the norm is the healing qualities of music. The healing qualities of being able to communicate through music and to share that with an audience or, just as important, with your band members. I always say I do the worst soundchecks.
Soundcheck, you know, it’s not showtime. Soundcheck is soundcheck, I got my street clothes on and we do a lot of flyaways which means that I see a lot of gear for the first time and hear it and plug in and try to get a continuation of the tone that I hear in my head and I have in ears and sometimes, you know, not all amplifiers sound the same and not all amplifiers are well taken care of with backline companies. And so it’s like, that’s what I go through during soundcheck, trying to find that sweet spot out of my amp that fits in timbre wise with the rest of the group. And so that’s my focus. Once it’s show time, all of that is secondary, I don’t even think about that. It’s all about the performance, the showtime. It’s all about what we’re there to do. It’s all about the magic and the chemistry.

Ritch Esra: Right exactly. You know, you mentioned you did a lot of flyaways and I’m just curious for our audience who I think would be very interested in your particular situation, Rudy, is, what gear are you using these days when you’re touring and performing with ongoing things not necessarily a flyaway but you personally, what gear do you use?

Rudy Sarzo: I’m a longtime Ampeg and SVT user. And one of the great things about Ampeg is that they are accessible around the world. You can go to any country in the world and if there’s a backline company, they will have a SVT available for you. And in my case, they’re very flexible. I mean I play rock and roll, I’ve never been in a funk or soul band, so I don’t know how a SVT sounds in a situation like that, but as far as what I do, I’m a rock player, it’s perfect. It can deliver just about exactly what I’m looking for. And I say just about because it all depends on how the equipment is maintained by the backline company.

Beyond that, I have my different basses that I use currently, even though I have my signature model with Spectre. Our equipment, OK we use rental backline but our guitars are shipped Fedex. Fedex, from gig to gig, unless we’re doing like three or four shows in a row which means we’re either driving to the gig or flying to the next gig, then if we’re flying, it goes under with the luggage, or if we’re driving, that bass goes with me in the car or whatever vehicle we happen to be using. But the normal is that our equipment flies or our guitars Fedex. I’ve seen so many nightmare situations of opening up that case and finding a Les Paul with a busted headstock. So I am not gonna put my three thousand dollar signature bass to suffer that. First of all, because it’s a neck through. If the headstock is busted, that’s it. It’s done. I am playing a wonderful with The Guess Who Yamaha BBP34, and it’s a Bowton. Not only is it a Bowton it’s six bolts in the back, which travels really well no matter what the climate change is that we have. For example if one gig is in North Dakota and the next is in Florida, there’s gonna be a climate shift with your instrument. I can easily fix if there’s any tweaking that I need to do to the neck, I can fix that, I’ve learned how to do that professionally. I don’t mean professionally because I get paid for it, but I can fix my own gear in my hotel room. I got these little tools to work with it. So on the road it’s very road, it can handle everything the rigors of touring, and it’s a great sounding instrument, it’s passive which is the sound that the band needs, and so I’ve been playing that on the road. I have also my signature model acoustic basses with a company called Sawtooth and they’re a wonderful instrument. I use the D’addario’s, I’ve been using the 170SL bass strings, I think they’re the most consistent best strings available in the world right now.
I use an array of pedals, lately I’ve been using the Dark Glass bass pedals. Also, I use TC electronics, some Boss pedals, oh yeah Ultimate Ears in-ear monitors. They’re the greatest. And let’s see what else, that’s pretty much it.

Eric Knight: You’re a journeyman, you’ve been a professional touring musician for most of your life, can you share with our audience any insights that have really helped you to survive life out on the road over all these years?

Rudy Sarzo: Well, I enjoy touring now more than I ever did because you know by choice. I’m in a situation where I do flyaways and it’s really by choice because I spent a decade and a half on a tour bus basically

Eric Knight: And the flyaways are like, for the audience, they’re like weekend warrior gigs right?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, well we don’t consider weekend warrior, we just say flyaway cause it’s what we do. Look, let’s face it unless you’re a major headlining band, I’m talking about Metallica and bands like that, the rest of us, our itinerary is pretty much playing a market and then the weekends and then playing secondary markets on weekdays just to get from point A to point B because there’s just not that many gigs. So what we do in The Guess Who, we do a lot of casinos, a lot of performing arts centers, we do fairs, we do festivals in the summertime, and lately we did a cruise a rock and roll cruise, and we’re getting booked to more cruises in the future so it’s not like we go and do an arena tour. We would love to do that, but those are usually very short and usually in the summertime. And we’re always, our calendar is full all year long.

Ritch Esra: You started a podcast a while back called Six Degrees of Sarzo and I’m curious, what was it that inspired you to start your own podcast? I believe you did it on Monsters of Rock Radio?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah actually I had a podcast

Eric Knight: The Dash, right?

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, the Dash, that was my first attempt at doing interviews and so on. Six Degrees of Sarzo is actually a radio show because there’s no podcast place to go and download them. So you have to go and listen to it live.

Ritch Esra and Eric Knight: Oh OK!

Rudy Sarzo: It’s live streaming, yeah. Which was not my decision, that’s the way that Monsters of Rock Radio works. It’s live streaming through the Dash network. But my podcast, which is still available, is just called the Dash, Rudy Sarzo the Dash. And I started doing that because we’re at the age, my generation, where some of us unfortunately are passing.
I started attending a few memorials like Lemmy’s memorial and Jamie Baines and so on and there’s all these wonderful things being said about our friends and colleagues and I’m thinking, I’m sitting there and thinking wow wouldn’t it be nice if they were here to hear these things or have these catalogues? We’re the first generation that can actually like we’re doing right now, we’re cataloguing this for future generations to listen to. I mean, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, they didn’t have that luxury. We do, and we should take advantage of that. Maybe somebody out there listening to this might be inspired or might find the answer to the question that they’ve been lingering, how am I gonna do this how am I gonna get into the music industry? Or you know it might help somebody going in the right direction. So that’s why it’s called the Dash because it’s celebrating my guests’ life in music or whatever they happen to do. If you look at the headstone, it has the birthday and death date and then there’s this dash in between that and that’s life.

Ritch Esra: That’s life, exactly yeah.

Rudy Sarzo: That’s life, yeah, and that’s why it’s called the Dash. And then after, I was doing that podcast for a couple of months and then I got a call from the CEO of Monsters of Rock Radio and invited me to bring it, what I was doing, as a show on Monsters of Rock and I have been doing it ever since.

Eric Knight: Rudy, professionally speaking, what have your biggest mistakes taught you?

Rudy Sarzo: Biggest mistakes. I don’t look at it as a mistake, I look at it as a lesson. As a lesson because you know first of all you realize it’s a mistake or that you did something wrong and do not repeat it because you will make mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes in life, you’re not living. And that’s what we’re here for and I guess I’m bound to do a few more mistakes because I’m still around., which means I’m bound to learn a few more life lessons you know and then once I’m done with them, I move on to a whole different plane of existence.

Eric Knight: Or lessons, the lessons that you learn from those mistakes, yeah.

Rudy Sarzo: Lessons, oh, a lot of lessons. But then again, most of my lessons are actually because I listen to people or watch situations or benefit from being in the company of outstanding musicians and business people. Sometimes, you do not have to make a mistake to learn something, you just have to keep your ears open and eyes wide open and just watch and listen and learn, you know. Again, going back to the greats in the music industry that I’ve been associated with, like Sharon Osbourne and John Koladner, and Trudy Green who managed Whitesnake. There’s a lot of great people and I got a lot of great advice from them. Maybe not directly,

Eric Knight: But indirectly, seeing them and observing them

Rudy Sarzo: Being in their presence, you know.

Ritch Esra: Rudy, throughout your career as a musician, do you recall any books or films that have really resonated with you professionally speaking that you could recommend to our audience?

Rudy Sarzo: Books or films….

Ritch Esra: That really resonated with you that just really yeah

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, you know what, I was part of a documentary called Hired Gun.

Ritch Esra: Yes, we saw that one, that was a great one yeah.

Rudy Sarzo: I mean you know when you make a documentary, you have no idea of what all the other participants are doing, their interview. So it wasn’t until I watched Hired Gun that I realized the magnitude of the actual documentary, what it had to say. I think a lot of, the meaning of the documentary is lost in the title because you get the idea that everyone in the documentary remains a hired gun, and actually very few remain hired guns because including myself, Steve Lukather, Ray Parker, the list goes on and on of the people that were interviewed. The rest, you know, went on to put their own bands together and to have successful lives or solo artists like in the case of Ray Parker. In his story, he was a guitar music prodigy.

Ritch Esra: Oh yeah, he was a great session guy for many many years before he had a solo career.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, working with Stevie Wonder, Stevie Wonder mentor him as a songwriter, then it was Radio, then Ray Parker and Raydio and then just Ray Parker solo artist. And then you have Steve Lukather, not only was he, is he a session musician, he’s one of the founding members of Toto, one of the most successful bands and then still remains a session musician because he’s a musician. I love the challenge of working in the studio and just this whole thing like right away, you have to come up with stuff or adapt to somebody else’s vision of what your role is for that song. It’s incredibly exhilarating.

Ritch Esra: Yeah, very much so.

Rudy Sarzo: Rather than to walk into the studio with a lot of pre-production with your band, and you doing what you’re expected to do in that role as a musician in that band, which sometimes can be very limited because the band is a sonic brand. You have to sound like the band, all of a sudden you cannot change your style and playing things you are capable of playing but it's not expected for your band. Unless you happen to be in a band like let’s say like Queen was. Queen could go into different styles of music. So did the Beatles. I think the Beatles really set the watermark of the band who could do anything.
And it was accepted and expected

Ritch Esra: And they were successful at it.

Rudy Sarzo: Especially in the 80s, a lot of the so-called our generation that became known as hair bands, you were expected to play one sound over and over again. Listen to AC/DC, which was the prototype of what the hair bands became sonically. Listen to Def Leppard, it’s basically making the same record over and over again. Fans love it, because that was the food you were fed, and you wanted that. You wanted more of the same.

Ritch Esra: Yeah. And they did those two gigantic albums of Pyromania and Hysteria.

Rudy Sarzo: Oh yeah, and there were so many after Pyromania, those gigantic records that they had.

Ritch Esra: Rudy, let me ask you, what advice do you have, and I’m sure you’re asked this a lot, for someone who wants to pursue a career today as a professional musician.

Rudy Sarzo: You can ask the same question even to a new musician, a modern generation musician and I think we’re going to give you pretty much the same answer. You know, there’s really no rules anymore. There used to be the rule of okay you have to move to Los Angeles or New York, which were the big recording company centers. If you were in a rock band. If you were country, you have to move to Nashville. Nowadays, all of my - 90% of my rock and roll peers have moved to Nashville, and they’re not even working in the country music field, they just moved there. And it’s so different now than it was then, I don’t think you can really follow any of the old rules, you have to make new ones and you have to like reinvent yourself according to what your needs are. But as far as reaching an audience, we have the best vehicle today that we did not have twenty thirty years ago, which is social media.

Ritch Esra: Right, the ability to connect and reach, exactly.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah I would say, be as interactive with your audience as possible, which was completely the opposite strategy in the old days even though I was part of the first generation that was heavy on meet and greet and in-stores. When Quiet Riot was, man we did so many instores. Every city, every market that we played, we would do an in-store before a show. Or on days off.

Ritch Esra: I remember in-stores back then, some of them got really crazy.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, and then, we did not do that many instores in record stores with White Snake but I did tons of them with Peavy Electronics in music stores. Yeah, Adrian Vandenberg and I, we were in Whitesnake the band, he and I would go to do Peavy in-stores, we pioneered their instore program.
So, I’ve always understood the importance of meeting your fanbase, nowadays, we call them Facebook friends. The people that support your music, just like I supported every band.

Eric Knight: Rudy, what is the best way for people that are interested in reaching out to you get a hold of you?

Rudy Sarzo: Social media, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. My page always has me with my little dog, and it’s me, it’s not somebody else running it for me or something like that. Also, we do free meet and greets after every Guess Who shows if the venues allow it. A lot of times, the venues are not set security wise to do something like that, but if they are, we always do a free meet and greet after the show. And what else, I mean yeah anytime you see me at the airport. I do a lot of meet and greet at the airport.

Eric Knight: Awesome. Well, we want to thank you so much for doing this and I just want to say really on a personal note, growing up, to me you were such a huge influence to me as a kid growing up and your parents, as you recall, that I worked at the record store back in Miami I used to work at this record store called Specs and your mom and your dad Rudolfo and Magnolia used to come all the time there and visit and check out what was going on and they were so proud of you and they were so nice because they helped get me backstage to all of these gigs where you were at and got to meet you and you know just me as a musician it was such a huge influence to see and I’m just so proud of what you have accomplished just you know being another fellow Cuban American and so many of my friends back home are so influenced and people around the world. I just want to tell you that they were a big influence and you were a big influence on my career because they were just so genuine and I think that shows with you. So I just want to say thank you so much for that.

Rudy Sarzo: Yeah, my mom and dad were heavily influential on my perseverance and faith and not giving up.

Eric Knight: Yeah, they were great people I mean just, I can’t tell you how fantastic which you obviously know that but I mean just knowing them on that level.

Rudy Sarzo: Well thank you so much Eric, thank you really appreciate it.

Ritch Esra: Thank you so much Rudy for doing this, we really really appreciate it very very much. It was a great conversation. Thank you again.

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