Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,119

This is the grave of Randy Castillo.

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1950, Castillo was just a regular kid, part Apache, part Hispano. And like a lot of regular kids, in 1964, he saw The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. He was mesmerized, like so many. And like so many, he decided he wanted to do that. So he took up the drums to become the next Ringo Starr. Lots of kids took up instruments after seeing that. Not many would have a career at it.

Now, playing in Beatles-like bands was not going to be Castillo’s future. This was Albuquerque. Having lived there for 7 years, it’s a strange music scene. It’s pretty terrible for almost everything. It’s a poor city, it’s sprawling as all hell so you can live there and be 20 miles from downtown, it’s distant from just about everywhere, most bands don’t go and when they do play, few people show up. I saw Dave Alvin play once in a bar there and he hopped on stage and said “So this is Albuquerque on a Monday” and he did not mean that in a good way. He then put on a great show for those 40 of us or so who were there. But there’s one big exception to all this. Albuquerque is a great metal town. It’s a huge part of Albuquerque culture. It’s a place just about any metal band can go and get some attention and people will show up. Metal is huge in the Native communities and it’s huge in Latino communities and it’s pretty big in the white community too.

So it’s not surprising that the early version of this is where Castillo would go. He and his friends formed a hard rock band in the late 60s. This was the era of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and the like. More to the point, it was the era of Black Sabbath. Castillo and his friends moved to Denver. They eventually moved to Denver and he stayed there. Of course the band didn’t do anything, but he rose in the Denver rock scene and started appearing on albums in 1980 with a band called The Mud and another called The Offenders.

Somehow, Castillo was hired by Lita Ford to play in the studio on her 1984 album Dancin’ on the Edge. I assume Castillo was in Los Angeles by this time. Anyway, the album did OK in the world of glam metal that was on the rise in the 80s. But she was dating Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue at this time. Ford and Castillo liked each other and she introduced him to her boyfriend. Through Sixx, he became buddies with Tommy Lee. Awhile after this, Lee was at a party with Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy told Lee that he needed a new drummer. Lee said that he knew a guy. He called Castillo. Now, it wasn’t the best time. Castillo had broke his leg in a skiing accident and so couldn’t use his bass drum. But a couple of months later, with the leg recovered, Castillo auditioned for Ozzy and got the job. Initially, he was just to be there for a short time. But he would remain with Ozzy for nearly a decade.

For the most part, this was not Ozzy’s most critically successful period. The Ultimate Sin did sell some copies but by most accounts, it’s a bad album. No Rest for the Wicked was divisive in the music world, with some loving it and others loathing it, but it did go double platinum. But 1991’s No More Tears was the real highlight of this era, with a couple of major hits and hitting #7 on the Billboard Albums chart in the U.S. Now, I can’t speak too much about Castillo’s drumming on all of this. I haven’t heard any of these songs in 30 years. But what I can say is that Castillo has a lot of writing credits on these songs, so he was doing more than just hitting the drums. He was making good money on this–a writing credit on “Mama, I’m Coming Hone” would have brought some pretty good royalties.

I’m not sure why Castillo left Ozzy in 1993, though he did come back for a tour in 95. But he played around a bunch in mostly minor bands in the late 90s. Then when Tommy Lee left Motley Crue, Castillo was hired to replace him, which is kind of insane, I mean who replaces Tommy Lee. Also, who gives a flying fuck about Motley Crue in 1999, talk about a band of irrelevance. Someone has to play the casino tours I guess. They released an album in 2000 called New Tattoo that no one cared about.

But as the band was about to tour, Castillo got sick. He had a perforated ulcer. I don’t want to stereotype, but those often happen with extreme drinkers and given the scene, well. He nearly died and required emergency surgery. Then he discovered a lump on his jaw. He didn’t immediately go the doctor. Unsurprisingly, the tumor grew. He finally got around to seeing someone. It was squamous cell carcinoma. Usually that’s treatable, but usually people go to the doctor. He didn’t, it was too late, and he died in 2002. He was 51 years old.

Randy Castillo is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If you would like this series to visit other figures from the glam metal years, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Given the way these guys lived, there are plenty who didn’t live a long time. Ty Longley, the drummer for Great White killed in the Rhode Island nightclub fire that also killed 100 fans (and has an amazing and bizarre memorial you can visit), is in Sharon, Pennsylvania. Slaughter guitarist Tim Kelly is in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.