In a new interview with MusicRadar, bass legend Rudy Sarzo is asked about his Quiet Riot / Ozzy Osbourne bandmate, the late guitar legend Randy Rhoads, who tragically died in a plane crash on March 19th, 1982. Randy had asked Rudy to join him on that same flight, but he decided to stay on Ozzy's tour bus to catch up on some sleep.

Asked what kind of guy was Randy Rhoads, Sarzo responds: “My God. That’s the million-dollar question. That is the number one question I get asked when I travel, and that’s why I wrote Off The Rails, just to answer that. I’ll put it this way: I can say what Randy means to me.

“If it wasn’t for Randy, I would have never had the career that I’ve had, because he trusted me. This was the scenario: Ozzy was about 10 days away from going on the road, and they were in Los Angeles looking for a bass player. Not only a person that could play those songs, because there were many qualified musicians who could do that, but they needed somebody they could trust.

“I had already worked with Randy in Quiet Riot, so he told Sharon, ‘Listen, Rudy is the perfect guy because he’s not going to be a bad influence on Ozzy. He looks good, he’s reliable, and he’s going to be somebody decent to hang with in the bus'.”

On how well Randy knew Rudy, Sarzo reveals: "He trusted me. He put his reputation with Sharon and Ozzy on the line to bring me in. That’s how I got in, because I had no track record. Ozzy and Sharon brought me in and I was able to build a career from that and I am eternally grateful both to them and to Randy.

"And then, in addition, I am a thousand per cent convinced that Randy saved everybody in Ozzy’s tour bus, keeping the plane from crashing into us. It clipped the bus, but it did not crash [directly] into the bus, and if that had happened, we would all have perished along with Randy and the others in the plane.”

Read the complete interview at MusicRadar.