Rudy Sarzo has done it all. From his newest band that sees him wear makeup and play anime speed metal, to jamming with Randy Rhoads in Quiet Riot, to being a counselor for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, to touring with Blue Oyster Cult and more. He has been an MTV darling with QR and Whitesnake and he is one of the most respected bass players from his era. He is also a very personable man who admits he still loves music because he has been a fan of music longer than he has been a professional musician.

Rudy is also taking part in the USA tour dates for the Dio Disciples. He joined Ronnie James Dio’s band in 2004 and stayed with the band until the iconic singers untimely death. In the interview that follows, Rudy describes what Ronnie James Dio was like, both on, and offstage. He speaks of how important it is to keep Dio’s music alive, especially in the United States. Rudy also talks about working with Randy Rhoads, and the documentary, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, that he was interviewed for. Lastly, we discuss Blue Oyster Cult and how it feels to be a superhero in Japan.

Read on for an amazing discussion with a truly amazing man.

Rudy: I also am doing Animetal USA, like anime but metal. Right now, it is just being announced in Japan, as that is the only place it is being released. Scott Travis is in the band along with Mike Vescera and Chris Impelliterri. It is called Animetal USA, as there was a previous release that was Japanese of what we are doing. We’re basically recording anime theme songs of certain shows that the record company wanted us to record but we are playing speed metal versions of them. It is the craziest record I have ever played on in my whole life. I’ve never played so many notes. Everything is about 180 beats per minute. It’s humanly impossible to play. We are playing Loud Park on October 15^th, which will premier the band. Each guy in the band is a superhero. We wear makeup. Jen Farhood does our makeup for Animetal. She is really talented. We wear kabuki makeup and we are characters. There is a photo of us on my Facebook page. My character is called Stormbringer. The record sales are unbelievable; they are jaw dropping good. I’m having a blast.

Rudy: I was. I joined the band in 2004. I had met Ronnie, socially, as everybody used to live in LA and hang out at the Rainbow. We knew each other from there or from seeing each other backstage at concerts. I participated in Hear N Aid but we had never worked together before.

Rudy: I was on tour with Yngwie Malmsteen for the 2004 Attack USA tour when I got a call from Wendy Dio wanting me to come in and play on Ronnie’s Master of the Moon album. I apologized because I was committed to Yngwie. I told her that as soon as I was done with my commitments I would call her, as I would love to work with Ronnie. Jeff Pilson went in and recorded the album and when I became available I called her and I joined Dio. I was in Dio until Ronnie passed away.

Rudy: But I love that, it was a blast to do that. It gave me an opportunity to get inside of Ritchie Blackmore’s brain, as a composer. I learned that he really had amazing compositional skills; it was just beautiful, those songs are just epic.

Rudy: Without a doubt, they were an incredible band. Right now, we are going through all of the songs that we want to do. I haven’t performed “Gates of Babylon” since the first tour. I remember back when I joined I said, “Ronnie, please, please lets do ‘Gates of Babylon’ because I love it.” He was apprehensive about it because he had tried it before and it wasn’t so good but for some reason, we made it work. The song actually became one of the favorite moments on tour. It was like a big blockbuster movie and we were in it.

Rudy: I was very familiar with Ronnie. It wasn’t as much the voice as it was his uncanny ability to tell the story and deliver the message of the lyrics that he wrote. To me, that is what separated Ronnie from everybody else. His lyrics were very philosophical. I’ve played with singers in the past that were very blues based and they wrote blues based lyrics. If you listen to blues based lyrics, the singer is always the victim. I’ll give you an example, I used to play with David Coverdale in Whitesnake and once in a while one of the guitar players would pull out “Mistreated” and start playing it. David would start singing it and I believed him. I know things about his life and I understand it. I heard Ronnie, when I joined Dio, doing “Mistreated” and I said, “Ronnie, I don’t buy you being a victim. All of your lyrics are about overcoming and being the hero in your own stories. You can sing the blues but you aren’t really a blues singer.” We would discuss that stuff and talk about it.

I realized that Ronnie was a fighter. He would stand up to anybody in any situation. From the conversations I had with him, it came from his grandmother. He credits her for his doing the Malloy, which is the evil eye. She was very feisty and Ronnie was very feisty. It must run in the family DNA.

Rudy: He still does. His influence will linger on me for the rest of my life. When I felt that I had experienced just about everything one could experience in the music industry, I got to work with Ronnie. He brought one element that very few people had ever been able to display in front of me and that is the magical element. One thing I learned, working with Ronnie James Dio was to not make it about you. Make it about the event; make it about being there to share with the audience. Ronnie was very interactive. He was not about having people check him out; he was there to deliver a message to the audience. People kept coming back just for that reason. He was not up there going, “Check out my amazing voice” it was about him going, “I’ve got this message that I want to share with you.” When he sang, and he happened to have the most beautiful voice that I’ve ever heard… it was amazing. Even so, it was still the message that was most important to him.

Rudy: That was just Ronnie. He was not about, “I am Ronnie James Dio and you’re not.” He was about the human experience.

Rudy: The way that I always put it is like this: Kevin had an issue with me. I never had an issue with him. When we were not working together anymore I was just like, “Life goes on, carry on. It’s been nice.” I really was like that.

Rudy: I have had the toughest time in my own band than I have with others who people say are difficult. I left my own band at the very top. I was there and I was an equal member of everybody else in Quiet Riot. Life was too short to be unhappy so I left. The second time, we just broke up and it fell apart. I just went on to something else.

Rudy: I never had a problem with any of those guys. There is nothing to have a problem about. I go up onstage and I do what I am supposed to do and that’s it. I expect from myself to be the best that I can be every night. I expect myself to deliver and nothing else matters. I think that is why I keep doing what I do because that is what I’m there for. I’m not there to create any chaos or disharmony in any situation. I’m there to be a musician. Whether you are onstage or off stage you just need to make it simple and do your job.

Rudy: I can’t give you the exact date we first discussed it. I remember it was last New Years Eve that Wendy threw a party and we talked about it then. It was a wonderful party. Ronnie and Wendy would throw a very lavish New Years Eve party every year and anybody who was part of the Dio family would attend. The year that Ronnie past away, and the year before, when he was ill, there was no New Years Eve celebration.

Wendy said something that the idea of what became the Dio Disciples was nothing more than a celebration of Ronnie’s life. He did a lot for others, including myself. Everybody who is involved in the situation has a lot on their plate. I’m involved in three bands, plus the Rock n Roll Fantasy Camp. However, this is a ‘must’ for us to be a part of. We must go up onstage and celebrate Ronnie’s music. It is very important that we do this in the United States because the last official Dio tour was in 2004 and we want to keep his music alive.

Rudy: I did not play any of the European gigs, as I was in the middle of a tour with Blue Oyster Cult and I was committed to playing with them. I wasn’t about to leave the guys in the band stranded for six weeks in a row. I think that would be unfair to Blue Oyster Cult.

Rudy: I am very excited, needless to say. We have a few dates booked in the USA but then Tim has to go back out with Yngwie for a while. We start on September 21^st in Poughkeepsie and then it ends the 9^th in Dallas. We are very busy. For example, I will get back home on October 10^th and then fly the next day to Japan to do Loud Park with Animetal USA. We have three days off during the Disciples dates and I’m flying back home to rehearse with Animetal, I’ve booked the flight already. I will not get a single day off.

Rudy: What I really wanted to be, when I grew up, was a musician. I didn’t want to be a person that the industry would pigeonhole into a certain identity. Playing with Blue Oyster Cult really gives me the opportunity to play all of these diverse styles of music that I always wanted to play. A song like “Shooting Shark” lets me do some thumping, as Randy Jackson, from American Idol, was the bass player on that. I get to play “Godzilla” or ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.” BOC always reminded me of the attitude that bands from the ‘60’s had. They have very diverse styles and they were never pigeonholed into being one type of band. It is almost the same experience of being with Dio and playing Rainbow and Sabbath tunes along with Ronnie’s songs. BOC is very diverse and diversity, to me, is everything.

Rudy: Both of those are ‘must play’ songs in our set. Those songs have evolved throughout the years and they are magnificent songs to perform live. Buck Dharma is an amazing guitar player, as well. He has influenced many guitar players. I can go up to Joe Satriani and say “I think you got that part from ‘Buck’s Boogie.’”

Rudy: That’s right. BOC sent me a list of about fifty songs to learn. I went out on the Internet and got all the music. In my search, I found this record, Imaginos, which had “"The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" on it. I told them, “Man, I think this is your best record. I think it sounds really timeless, the way it was produced.” Eric wasn’t really nice about it. They feel the complete opposite about it. They told me the entire back story about it and now I know better. Regardless, it is a great record. It was actually not supposed to be a Blue Oyster Cult album but it ended up one.

Rudy: There is no time to think about that. Right now, I have to learn around thirty songs. I am rehearsing with Dio Disciples and Animetal. On top of that, I have to retain all fifty Blue Oyster Cult songs because you never know when Bloom is going to call one of them out on stage at any given moment.

Rudy: I’ve been a fan longer than I’ve been a professional musician. I love doing this. The thing that I really, really love, and what has become a major priority for me, is the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp. The TV show is not your average camp. The TV show was not scripted but it was cast, so the TV show is a little different than a camp that is not a TV show. For the TV show, they have to audition the participants and they have to do background checks on each participant to make sure they are not criminals, or anything like that, then, they have to look for personalities. The normal camp is not like that.

Most of the participants in a normal camp were pursuing a career in music and, at some point, life got in the way and they went another direction. They were very successful outside of music as doctors, lawyers or whatever. They are Type A personalities that are very focused. I can get more done in a three or five day camp with them then I can get done with the average musician. They have different work ethics than the average musician. I try to reference what they are successful at and bring it into a band situation. I have them communicate with each other in the room. It is the fundamental reason why we play -- people are communicating on stage. When you and I go watch a band we want to witness magic between the band members. A band like Led Zeppelin, or Deep Purple, really were good at communicating with each other onstage. They had a certain chemistry and it brings a certain kind of magic. We go to concerts to witness that.

While the Fantasy Camp does this on a much smaller level than say playing an arena with Van Halen, the emotion is the same. I am not concerned about the musical skill of the individual. I have been in a room with people who can play a thousand notes but not say one interesting thing. I would rather hear one note and have it raise the hairs on my arm and have it move me. I want people to share something with me through their instrument. That is our mission in the camp. We want to reconnect the individual with being a musician. Just because you don’t make a living playing music should not keep you from identifying yourself as a musician. You’re a dentist, a brother, a son and you’re a musician. We do all of that in the camp. We do a whole lot more at camp but that is it in a nutshell. They are life changing, rewarding experiences. The campers really care about being there and the counselors really care about them being there. I think that is why we get so many return campers.

You’re a writer, when you write you have to reach down deep and put that message on a page. It doesn’t matter what the art form is, it is the message you deliver. Its not about the messenger, its about the message you deliver. A song will live forever, even after the messenger is gone.

Rudy: I am not a professional writer. I wrote this book because I wanted to tell the story about playing with Randy Rhoads and Ozzy. The number one question I have gotten, around the world, is what was it like playing with Randy? I would tell them a little story about it and then we would go our separate ways and I would think of a better story that I should have told them. The hardest thing was to talk about the crash. I decided to write a book that would take the reader by the hand and walk them through that experience, chronologically. I go clear back to being a member of Quiet Riot with Randy. I tell the young kids that they will never experience something like this because there used to be a music industry, which is gone now. I give them all of this information and it might sound like a little fairytale but it happened. The book is really a time capsule about the pre-MTV ‘80’s and the mid 1970’s.

Rudy: If you’re an Ozzy fan then you have to watch the documentary, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. I have watched it twice; I went to both of the West Coast premiers. The first time, I sat in a small venue with Sharon and we watched it together, which was very emotional. It is going to be coming out soon on DVD. My contribution, as far as interviews, was very painful as we were talking about the crash. Every time I watch it, it puts me in a really weird space, so I may not be able to watch it again. It is a very incredible film as Jack Osbourne asked the questions that only a son could ask and he took the camera into places that only a son could bring cameras into. Ozzy was very comfortable and at peace during the entire process. I look at this as a son in search of his father. At the end of the film he speaks about the Ozzy he knew growing up was just a guy who used to lie on the sofa, dribble, and be drunk. He had no idea who his father was. He wondered what everyone saw in that man. It is an amazing film and it is very, very well done.

Rudy: We would not be having this conversation. It would have been so sad for me that it really is unthinkable for me to imagine. I would be in a very bad place and I just don’t want to think about it. That is why I am so grateful for everything that has happened.

Rudy: I know, I was there [laughter]. I will tell you the truth of it… I have kids who reach out to me on social networks and say, “I’m ten years old and I’m a huge Randy fan.” I ask them why they love Randy and the consensus is that they listen to Randy and they find that he is the source for a lot of music they love. Kids can tell where stuff started. Randy sounds real. He wasn’t trying to sound like anyone else.

I was having a conversation at a NAMM show with one of the guys from Fender, and this guy was in a very famous Death Metal band, and he was a huge Randy fan. Fender now owns Jackson and they reissue all of Randy’s guitars. This guy spearheaded that department. He told me that Randy, with the song, “Diary of a Madman” spawned the entire Death Metal movement. From that composition came a whole new genre of music. That is how influential Randy is. I don’t think he became a better guitar player after he died. His music is still alive; it’s not dead. His influence is not dead because he is still influencing people today. I disagree with Lemmy. The proof is in the mind and ears of the new generation that is discovering Randy.

Rudy: They released a 30^th anniversary of Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman. There is footage on a bonus DVD of us playing at The Palladium in New York. They just discovered that. There was a guy with a photo pass who happened to carry an eight-millimeter movie camera with cartridges. The camera had a microphone. I wish the guy was standing at the other side of the stage closer to Randy but it is amazing. I think that might have been our seventh show of the entire tour -- it may have been before that.

Rudy: Speak of the Devil is the name of that. I have the same Brazilian bootleg. It is now a proper release. Without Randy in there it is not quite the same but Brad did an incredible job; he really, really did.

Rudy: Its very simple, the major difference was that with Quiet Riot, we were just like every other band in LA trying to get a record deal. We were just playing stuff to please the record companies. Ozzy took Randy and Randy said, “What do you want me to play?” and Ozzy said, “Just be yourself.” That music is just what came out.

Rudy: There is a press release coming out. The album comes out October 12^th. It already went to #1 in Japan, just with prerelease sales. It is the most phenomenal record I’ve every played on. It is the most rip your head off album. The kids in Japan know all of us and they think it is cool because we are a little super group playing all of these anime songs that they love…wait until they hear it, they’re going to freak out. I have never been as proud of an album as I am of this one.

Rudy: Wait till you hear it. It is an amazing record. Each individual in the band contributed to it in a big way. It would never have sounded this good without each individual’s contribution.