Robert Trujillo recalls when he accidently cut off Ozzy Osbourne's stage power

In a recent interview with Revolver, Robert Trujillo recalls the time when he accidently cut off the stage power to Ozzy Osbourne. It happened long before Trujillo was playing bass in Osbourne's band, it happened when he was supporting when playing in Infectious Grooves.

Robert Trujillo recalls “When Infectious Grooves first opened for Ozzy Osbourne, it was a theatre in Austin, We were really excited. … And the first thing we see when we get off the tour bus is … a pentagram on the ground and a dead raven, black roses and candles! ... It’s like, ‘Welcome to the tour.’ We’re literally like, ‘What are we getting ourselves into?’”

On the night after Infectious Grooves played their set, Trujillo went to watch Ozzy's set from the side of the stage. “We had a beer and we’re like creeping around backstage as Ozzy’s playing,” he recalled. “And it's dark – and I tripped over a pile of cables. I basically fell [into the] connectors for the monitors, the power lines and everything – and I knocked out the power to the monitor system! It was like slow motion: I see myself falling … and I’m knocking out like three of the input jacks, and all of a sudden the power’s out onstage.”

He recalled being “so scared,” He thought that was it, Infectious Grooves is getting kicked off the tour. Lucky for him one of Osbourne's crew saw what happened and quickly fixed the situation. “I was like, ‘Oh, man, we’re going home,’” he said. “I went into the catering and I was trying to just play it off. … And Ozzy’s tour manager came behind me and he was really nice about it, luckily. He put his arm around me and said, ‘Robert, did you knock out the power to the monitor rig?’ And then I said, ‘Yes.’

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“And he goes, ‘OK, don’t do that again, please.’ I go, ‘Are we going home?’ And he goes, ‘No, just don’t do that again. … You’re lucky. Ozzy thinks that there was a power outage in Austin.’ ... It was a cursed first gig. Welcome to the world of Ozzy Osbourne.”

You gotta hand it to the great techies who saved the day, techies seldom get the recognition they deserve. It's a funny turn of events that years later Rob Trujillo would be playing bass in the band. Trujillo also spoke with Revolver about his favourite Ozzy Osbourne song.

"I love that song 'Diary of a Madman.' To me, it's the classic Ozzy song. It's just got a balance of everything. I love what the rhythm section's doing on there and the counterpoint or sort-of pulse rhythms. The dynamic range of that song is really, really powerful.

You know, I remember when I was a teenager being at Guitar Center — I think I had ditched school and I snuck over to Hollywood by myself — and I saw Randy. I think he was in Quiet Riot at the time. He wasn't even in Ozzy's band yet. There was nobody else in the store, just him and these guys that worked there handing him guitars. He was this small little skinny kind of dainty guy — and he was ripping! He seemed very shy and I went up and, you know, nerded out on him for a second, like, "Hey man!" [Laughs]

Some of the stuff he was doing reminded me of John McLaughlin, like Mahavishnu Orchestra. In fact, if I remember correctly, I feel like he was playing the chord progression to 'Diary of a Madman.' And I was like, Wow. … And he looked up at me and kind of smiled. Again, he seemed very shy, but he was just ripping. I was like, Who is this guy? And then when I discovered Quiet Riot, I realized who he was … and then all of a sudden he's the guitar player for Ozzy. And the rest is history."