According to Blabbermouth, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Ozzy Osbourne discussed the rivalry between his frequent collaborator Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. The discussion comes after the release of Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon documentary which arrived back in May. 

To offer a bit of background, Rhoads’ Quiet Riot had been playing gigs throughout West Hollywood’s music scene on the Sunset Strip at the same time as Van Halen, setting the two bands up as natural rivals. Van Halen, however, became commercially successful before Quiet due to the latter band scoring a record deal years after the former. 

Speaking to Rolling Stone about the rivalry, Osbourne offered, “I heard recently that Eddie said he taught Randy all his licks … he never…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.”

The quote Osbourne is referring to is part of the documentary which uses archive audio and film, images and interviews to paint a picture of Rhoads’ life. The film includes a snippet of audio from the late Van Halen in which he says, “[Rhoads] 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?”

Earlier this year, Rudy Sarzo opened up about Rhoads’ tragic passing, revealing that he had almost boarded the plane flight that killed him in 1982. Both Rhoads and Van Halen certainly left an undeniable legacy on the heavy metal and hard rock genres.