February 4, 2020 • 45 mins
Just before the release of his first solo album in over a decade, Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon sat with Rick Rubin to talk about his tumultuous career that's spanned five decades. Friends since the early '80s, they discuss the early days of Black Sabbath, Ozzy's first encounter with his late guitarist Randy Rhoads, and how blown away Rick is by the power of Ozzy's voice at 71 years old.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Pushkin. It's been fifty years since Black Sabbath released Iron Man,
but its guitar riffs are still some of the hardest
and darkest in rock history. While Black Sabbath is often
giving credit for creating heavy metal, none of its members
had the success or longevity of their original frontman, Ozzy Osbourne.
(00:29):
In the eighties, Ozzie successfully turned his Prince of Darkness
alter ego into a decades long career. With help from
his manager and wife, Sharon Osbourne, Ozzi's released eleven solo albums,
with seven of them going multi platinum. They also created Ozzfest,
a Tory metal festival that became a mecca for metal
fans everywhere, myself included, and of course, they had their
(00:51):
pop culture crossover moment with the reality show The Osbourne's
on MTV. Ozzie and Rick Rubin first met when Rick
had just moved to la and the two became fast friends.
Their friendship eventually turned into Rick producing the last Black
Sabbath record, the Reunion Album from twenty thirteen. Ozzie's mostly
kept a low profile since then, but at seventy one,
(01:11):
he's back to making music. He has a new album
called Ordinary Man, it's his first solo album in a decade. Rick,
Ozzy and Sharon sat on the bus at Changing a
Lot to talk about the record and how a gift
from his father turned an ordinary boy from Birmingham, England,
into the prince of darkness. This is broken record liner
(01:33):
notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Ozzie
and Sharon Osbourne in conversation with Rick Rubin. They start
things off talking about the track Ozzie did with Post
Malone and Travis Scott take what you Want? Did you
hear the track as he did with Post Oh, he's
(01:55):
got to hear that. I'm Travis Scott's a big shot now. Yeah. Yeah.
When Andrew I did your song we Post He's great. Though,
he's doing great. I've was stunned that it's just him
on stage. It's not bad man, no nothing, just him incredible.
(02:18):
Ye tell me tell me your first memories of any
performance anytime you was the first time you remember being
on stage. I was in a band called the Prospected
because the singer was it was sick. I never do know.
We did a gig Birmingham fire Station. There's three three
(02:41):
firemen and a drunk in the audience. You think I
was going to be shot. I was so nervous. Yeah,
that was the first thing I ever did we do
cover songs or oh yeah, blues stones, yeah, uh damn,
you know, and it was um back in. The whole
(03:05):
game has changed now when when we're there's no way
to playing that much anymore. And when we used to
go to Webb when we were Sabbath, we messed around
with different names. It was like a polkas blues band
Earth and then then we wrote the song Black Sabbath
and then Guisers, what don't we call the band? And
(03:27):
that was it. Then how did the band come together? Well,
I was it always you know aboutman called the Red
Ruby Geezer. I never did a gig with them. But
the only reason the gigs I had to pay, I
said Guizer, and I said I want to get out,
so do I. And shortly around actual Geiser and Bill
had a band called Mythology and they had been busted
(03:50):
for smoking dope. I had to break up because it
was like the curse. She used to go to the
same school as Tony and we didn't around school. It
was like high school. Yeah, and one thing I think
we started. We originally had a saxophone player and a
(04:11):
bottle bottle and guitar player like because it was like
the Fleetwood Mac that were that were around, but the
original Fleetwood Mac nothing what they ended up being. I
wished to go and see them. We n see John
Miles Blues Breakers. And there was a club in Birmingham
called I'm Anish Club now, but we used to go
(04:34):
in and we used to see all these different bands.
You know, I saw Candy Eat there once. I was
like an American banding Birmingham freaks out, how many how
many people would be in a club like that? Then
no Ah, great, there's seven hundred thousand and most. Then
there was a club, a few clubs in Birmingham. We
(04:56):
used to go with our van full of a quick
my just in case the band never made and we've
got any bank. We've gone played be Standing for Blands
or ten years after jeth Road Show the band amazing,
and then we played with Jets Hotel and Tony got
off with the gig and then I remember thinking, oh, no,
(05:18):
it's gone now because Tony was somewhere else for it.
I mean he still is. Yeah, it's nobody on the
face of the other couldn't come up with the riffs
like the King of the Riffs. Oh it's great, And
then you know it was just it's kind of we
all live. Did he ever play with Jethro Tuller, No,
(05:39):
what I think he did a couple of TV thing
He died a rock and roll the Rolling Stones, rock
and Roll circles, yes, which was a chary thing. And
then he died a couple of things. We wouldn't win
him too long and he came back and he said,
if we get out of stuff together, oh we can
do it. I was like fucking house. He left Jethro
(06:00):
to come back to us and that was a big job.
That was. But Tony's one of these guys he has
been told what to do, you'll do You'll fucking punch one.
I know that. You know I've seen him do it.
You know it's some he has been so I told
me have to wear hats and and but he he was.
(06:23):
But it was all Everything was new. Well, I mean
we'd get in the van. We played the Star Club
Hamburg for residency, but we had nothing to lose. It
was exciting. Did people like the band right away or no? No,
we we we do like at the Star Club. But
it was a good training ground because you do forty
(06:45):
five minutes on and another band would you go different
every forty Yeah, so we do one that we blues
songs and Bill would do a job solver once said,
Tony would do a guitar us every one. I'd fuck
around doing all this stuff and climbing ladders, painting my
face and just generally pissing about, you know. But it
(07:08):
was a good experience, better than being in Birmingham unemployed.
I said. We just got b lived from hand to
mouth and it was fun. Any band that I've ever
been in the early stages of the band have been
the most fun because everybody's in the same boat. But
that remember, I'll remember Jim Simpson, the original manager sign
(07:30):
on the Wye down to the Fairies today Ferry. We
just stop off with the recordings to the region sound
and record them songs you've been doing. Probably just got
the set up recording went away two days like the
two six l seasons twelve. So just like the live
set we had the audience. We've been planning life. So
(07:53):
I remember coming back from Europe for Christmas and the
managers come over. I got the artwork to show and
back then to have the gate Pole album Sleep was
like the big thing. And when we saw that first
album Sleep, we're like, fucking, what is this? We right,
(08:13):
just seven album that was so cool. And then the
album came out and we heard the album with a
because when we recorded it, we never had the effects
like the thunder, the weird voice effects, and it was
just amazing. And then I'm in a club and I'm
(08:34):
my first advance was one hundred and five pounds. I thought,
I never thought, let's say that much money. So I'm
in the club and this guy comes. Just when he goes,
I said, he's got some good news to tell you.
As so what's that? This is? Your album entered the
British chart next week and someone was seventeen or something.
Are you winding me up? You're joking? And it remained
(08:56):
there for eighteen months. Time it was going ome and
down the chart which showed me had parent and went
straight at number one. I'm like, because he must as yourself,
you don't when you do. When you're doing something, you
like it, yeah, but when somebody goes, I fucking that's
that's all you need. But when somebody comes and says
your album's in the charts and everything's going one way,
(09:18):
and it was just it doesn't make sense. It's like
you don't believe it. He don't believe real. Ye, it's
like you can't accept it, you know why? Well I
did complain. Things started to look up and Sharon Father
one of the managers, then somebody else that worked for him, girls,
and it's just everything was up and up, but we
(09:40):
got ripped up royally by manager and badly. Remember the
first time you do a show where people really liked it? Yeah,
the first time they liked it, like like we did
a jump Pell radio show. Oh y, we hadn't even
recorded the more written the songs by that point people
started to when they album got in the chart. It
(10:01):
was like we used to play his underground clubs. Underground
then was what underground underground? But it was good word
of mouth. Yes, saw Black Sabbath in the first we
said fuck TV, fuck doing this. We were a people's
band calling and back in England then it was like
doing top of the pubs was a banging but we
(10:23):
all did it or eventually and it was just to
make the first something ms you could sabbably sell. Then
the drugs, the alcohol, the wives, the divorced and all
the trappings. You know, we found it the man who
was ripping us. Though we tried to manage ourselves, we
fucking clue and the booze started to get heavy. I
(10:43):
started to drink more, and Bill started to drink more,
and me and Bill and Tony and Gooze we just
got ugly. Now I didn't get good. There was no fight.
It was a band that we believed in what we
were doing at first, and then we got royally take
into the cleaners and we just thought, what's the poison?
(11:05):
And when they fired me, I thought, Sharon's Votom's managers
yet again, and I thought, we don't want you to
be getting sucked up all. That's what I was, And
I gotta be honest. At that point, I just said
I'm done. It sounds like it was already bad at
that time. Anyway, rememberable we ended up making music to
(11:28):
pay our lawyers fees. Yeah, And we all said to
each other many times what we needed someone like Sharon
or Father, somebody to come and say, hey, you need
to try yourself though, get your shit together and write
somebody to tell us what we what was wrong because
our egos, we're running the show in under the implant,
the drugs and alcohol. I just went to and Sharon's
(11:55):
officer got me up a partmagine in West La Parker Hotel.
I thought, I fucking last spling any money I got?
How old were you at that time? I was about thirty.
I thought I got that spinge. So Sharon comes O
away when sing, she goes. Listen as she goes. If
(12:18):
you get yourself to go, we want to manage her
because I was thought. I thought no one wanted to
manage a singer. Then I met Randy, and then then
another thing happened to me. How do you meet Randy?
A guy called Dana Strum from Slaughter remember the bunch o.
Dana Strum was my original choice for a bugget. Sharon
got me auditioning people. I'd never auditioned anybody in my life.
(12:41):
Or I go, no, I don't like him. She will
tell him I got no, you tell him I get
it a woman so um Danna said, got me all
this guitar house. I was out to lunch all the
from I remember part one, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring
(13:01):
this one kid, and you got it's great, some m
three sheets to win. I'm in my apartment and he
comes in, this little guy who must have weighed one
hundred and five pounds wet. I mean he was like
like a woman. I said, Oh, you gotta be joking.
(13:22):
He's just hear me out. He's gonna come down to
my studio studio working. Hear him play. Yeah, oh go
ahead the studio. I'm thinking I'm hallucination. This kid comes
in with this little lamb. I'm blew my lights wow,
And you knew right away. I mean this kid was
like this kid was like someone else, always like even
(13:45):
in the fuck up sto you want a gig? I mean,
he was unbelieving. Then he came to England and I
was still married to my accent. He's just stayed with
me for leaving me in for a while and we
wrote Goodbye to Romans the first time we ever wrote incredible.
But then he was like it was like this. It
(14:05):
wasn't like he didn't get He wasn't a party. He
was a true musician in respect. He wrote music, you
talk music and he would give the opening bands lessons
on fucking finger chapter and what. But it was yeah,
there again, it was the early time. Then we got
successful in the fucking lawsuits. Sorry, agreed, but you know
(14:29):
it's for some reason. I've been out of sabbaths now
forty years, but it seems like the time that I
was with him seems longer than I'm being are. I
don't know what a is. Yeah, it's just it's such
a defining it's such a defining band. But we don't.
But when you're in it, yes, you know you you
(14:52):
love the adulation, you love the success, yes, but you
just go because you did it. Yeah, you don't know.
You don't understand what. I'll never forget about working with
you in that studio. Yes, you do this. Every time
I'd sing it, go Ozzie, I'd have to like nine
times you go Ozzie. That was great, Just give me
one more, Like how can it be fucking in that
(15:17):
fucking book? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, we made a
good album. I was great it right, number one. That
was our first number number one in both solo and
big incredible in America. It was like number one in
thirteen countries. Yeah wow, I mean the album was called
(15:41):
thirteen number one in thirteen countries. But that dang, And
you know the first time. I remember the first time
we talked about making the Black Sabbath three about nineteen.
It was a very long time ago in that place
in a sunset yes for you and the other game,
we were saying you your yes. I remember we sat
(16:01):
in that room and all the members were there and
we talked about doing it then, and you had spoken
before before that separately Yes, yes, yes, And I remember.
I don't know if you remember this, but for me,
this was a big deal in my life. You came
to my house one night before before that house, my
first house in La You came late one night after
(16:22):
the Rainbow Yes, and we listened to Black Sabbath music
until the sun came up, and you performed a whole
Black Sabbath performance for me in my living room. And
it was one of the greatest experiences of my life
because I never got to see Black Sabbath became me.
(16:44):
Are going listen, You're gonna mind me a promise if
you ever get back wellecond but if you ever get
back with the boys, please let me produce an album.
You pop at different plays. I like that song maybe
the Student, and I don't know, I don't know what
(17:06):
we're doing but you can and you and oh the
extra tracks on the live album, you go, I like
that that one sucks and walks out, I mean, and
then I was the arkepts going in brick rooms. He
really wants to do an album. Yeah, it was fun
doing that. It was fun. It was fun worth that
(17:27):
and it's funny that we talked about it like fifteen
or twenty years before and then finally came to fruition.
Do you know, I was just tongue hundred the democ
what I said, you know something, Well, I'm a believer
in this. The amount of people on this plane is
and in a one lifetime you'll only meet a certain amount,
(17:49):
and things are meant to happen the way. It's when
I believe believer too. I mean when when I when
I was married to another woman, Yes i'd see Sharon,
I would go should we do? I was always a
track And it's amazing the why things turn out meant
to be meant to be. And you guys are incredible together.
(18:13):
Well nobody else could put up I'm not, but it's
just incredible. I look award to look down that road
and the things that happened. I just I can't believe it.
Sometimes seventy one and I'm just bude. Another album. Amazing,
(18:35):
so cool. The album's really cool. It's amazing when it
just comes together like that in a month I've done.
It's so great. We'll be back with more from Sharon
and Ozzie after the break. Here's Ozzie and Rick listening
to Straight to Hell, the first single off Azzie's new album.
(18:56):
That's great. Your your voice is ever eternal. It's like
it's unbelievable how much you sound like you all the time,
and how good it is. Amazing, so exciting to hear.
Ordinary man Alten's on this phone. Let's hear how did
that song come about? It just climbed out the first
(19:17):
song we ever wrote. It's so good. It's really good.
You know I signed to something recently. Most of the
best stuff I've ever done. Yeah, I just clime out
of nowhere. Amazing. Can you sit there for weeks and
weeks you think you're going now And some of them
I remember you telling me stories about the way Sabbath
(19:38):
would write, where you just jam and what Sabbath would do.
We're just jam on my pick, riff, shout and just
lincome together. And I just like stick of vocal now.
It was it was a good education because a lot
of kids I've never heard of. It's a jam, you know.
Maybe it was a lot of fun, you know, absolute
(20:00):
Is it fun to make? Music's the best thing in
the world. Oh no, I don't know anything. Ye a
journey fifty years and we're so lucky we get to
do this. Unbelievable. I mean, I don't know where it
can I'm from, you know, But it's just I'm complaining.
That's amazing. I hear also, I hear like some of
(20:21):
the Beatle influence on the writing and the string parts
so cool. And if you sound and you sound the same,
which is what's so incredible. It's like you sound so
remarkably like you every time, and strong and fresh and
all of the there's so much energy in your voice.
It's unbelievable. I just do you just do it. I mean,
(20:45):
there's no nobody else in my family has ever been
involved in music in any way. I've come from stress
far with those siblings to have died. But no, he's
uh got any beautical Jack my son goes to me,
statusis I like the Beetles, But I don't see what
(21:07):
you're going about it, and okay, it's slightly imagine this
going to bed today in black and white and waking
up in Carla. That's what it was like. Yeah, and
he goes what I thought. I still don't understand. I said,
we in England were just I was like nineteen sixty
whatever early and the water ended fifteen years ago. We
(21:29):
changed that long and all of a sudden this band
comes out, which swamp the last thing we have do
that much matters in Germany and they were like fucking huge.
Do you remember the first time you heard them? Yeah, exactly,
tell me I got a transit transistor radio. Yes. Then
(21:51):
it was that they progressed to get over. I'm walking
down Posy Ministry. I'm about thirteen, and I'm leaning on
all his leading on the lamp post and fucking all
his pub songs and whatever. You're on the radio. Suddenly
she Loves You comes on. I stopped and it was
(22:13):
like I was awakened. Wow, it was like, holy shit,
I want with Paul McCarney to marry my sister. I mean,
it was just fantastic for me, and it was I
loved them. I absent my wed by a wall in
my bedroom was covered in anything with the name on
(22:35):
and anytime anything they put out you would be you
would get an immediately. I'd work delivering food, call or whatever. Yes.
And by a Beatle record, I mean it was fucking amazing,
which people go, you know, hut it out to some
people now, But the Beatles for me, were you other
than the Beatles? Were there other who were the other
(22:57):
things that really just let you up musically? Uh? The King,
the Kinks, you really got my l uh manfred Man? Yeah,
uh this down? Led Zeppelin? Yeah, I mean when we
when we When I first heard them first two Zeppelin albums,
(23:19):
it it was unbelieving. Really you were you already a
band yet or not? Yes? But were you remove about
has breast behind them? I mean when I heard that
first Zeppelin album, yeah, one and two, Yeah, I just
put after that, I kind of lost you. The moment
could be we're doing our own thing. I was to
go drinking. We bought them a law, good guy. I
(23:43):
every drunk. Great when the show when you show me's
an asshole, I've been around you drunk. You you were
never an asshole? Oh not to not to me. I
never said I never saw I've seen you bad, but
I've never seen you unpleasant to be around. Hard my moment.
I mean, I've had two wives, I don't know a job,
(24:10):
another job, the more fuck up your turn up to
a gig, Oh it's going to be crazy, gonna be
a good notice, which I remember there was a story
where one of you tried to kill the other. Which
which was it? Oh that one he tried to kill you? Yeah, okay,
how how serious was it? He had? He had a blackout,
(24:32):
as he had a blackout and it was really really serious.
But I knew something was happening because he'd been out
of it for like a week. So it was a
week of like experimenting with pills and alcohol and he
was just like on a roll. Yeah, and you could
feel it building. You knew something was going to happen,
(24:54):
and yeah, it happened. But then then he was good.
Had to go into treatment for six months. He was good. Okay, man,
I got drunk again. But you know, you know, you know,
they go, oh, I tried rehab. It didn't work. You
get it when you get it, if you but if
and if you don't get it, you don't get it. Yeah,
(25:16):
I don't to be honest with you, I have a
problem walking with that alcohol now, line with it. You know.
If I if I was okay, we got'll be still drinking. Yeah,
but I got so fed up, a feeling like crap
without it, you know. Oh no, No, I just must
(25:37):
have been six or seven out rehab three or four,
a few rehaps about fifteen, and then I just stopped. Great,
I'm just about any seven years now. Amazing. Congratulations our son.
He's what I mean, sixty seventeen years. Wow, he got
(25:58):
so bad seventeen I believe that it's amazing. It really is. Yeah,
watching a bit about him, I'll never never forget what
he said to me. We had a run such him
one day. So long as going now suck? What the
fuck are you always complaining about? You've never wanted for
(26:19):
a damn thing? Oh yeah, what about your dad? That
was a good fucking I just read fuck Jack Arms
so sorry because it's undeniable. Yeah, always there but not there, yea, yea, yeah,
that's what alcohol and drugs. You think physically there, but
(26:41):
you're not there. You might maybe at ark on the
fucking road. You know. We'll be back with more from
Ozzy Osbourne after the break, we're back with more from
Ozzy Osbourne. Any of the metal bands that you liked, um,
(27:03):
not really okay, Any any bands that came in the
week I didn't we good? I mean that last Black
Sabbaths it was pretty We had been fighting each other,
fighting the world, and now we're going down, so well,
I'd go, let's fucking get a bling. It was Carlot,
(27:24):
we're needing a break from you loved? I say, oh, well, great,
yeah for me, for me too. It's the Beatles and
a CDC are like blun Scott was a great singer,
great great Brian's all right, but I prefer Barn Yeah,
the Highway to Hell, the rhythm section, the way those
(27:48):
guys playing, I mean, diammed up a Black Sabbaths in
nineteen seventy one. Thing Wow in Sydney, Australia. Wow. Great.
Did you know what time you saw me? Like you
knew it was special? Oh? I mean angers, To be honest,
I thought it's been a gimmick and a sash on
a short pack. But they when they playing, yeah, when
(28:10):
they fucking I mean, here's a guy didn't do all
this little all beyond the neck and all his fucking
he played me. That's what I like about it. There
ain't no one to touch Hanger's young for that groove.
Yeah down, you know when you can bang your head
all day and not get fed up. It's true. I
(28:33):
mean they worked the absolute but two that you said
about their rhythm section was brilliant. You just never had
any It's so the rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, it was always
so danceable. Yea, even you know, why don't we try
(28:53):
and do a fucking danceable kind of because we missed
the riff man. He could fucking come up wanted to do,
but that Sabbath would try and fuck things. Oh, I
mean what we would do be sending sound remotely commercial.
We throw a spanner in the work, all these fucking words,
(29:14):
the weird changes and that that wasn't my copy. And
when they got gerald woodroupe and keyboard, I was like,
fuck this. Me and Bill used to travel together on
a GMC mobile home, which was looking back, we had
such a fucking blood it was. It was like a
(29:34):
fucking You'd get up every morning, you have a coffee,
glass of milk, a glass of orange Jude, and the
Bill every morning altogether. Yeah, so I'd go, Bill, excuse
me for asking you this? What's the deal? We all
(29:57):
the what's the Rabby morning he was all the coff
if he wakes me up, the orange, excuse me out healthy,
the milk, put butts a line on my stomach, and
the Bill put me back to sleep. He had it
all worked out. So you and you rode on the
bus with Bills and and he was your your travel partner. Yeah,
(30:18):
and then would Geezer and Tony team up that would
be flying everywhere m you preferred the bus. B and
I were like close. I when when the actual encome
that got him to fire me? Wow, I bother were
surprised when they fired you. Now you know what to
(30:39):
be perfectly truths. I'd lost it. Yeah, I just I
was just, I mean, I go, why do you have
to fly off around the world to do nothing? Yeah,
isn't he I mean, I should say said At one
point I was going, well, Queen did this, this one
did though? We should do And I said, and I said,
(30:59):
one day, I think we've got a problem with the
bands that we want to influence and now influence in us.
Can we look at the way And I wasn't any
better than them. Oh that were any better. It was
just we're like, we need we needed rescuing, but we
didn't trust anybody. I didn't want to do it anymore
with them. I was bored with the concerts. I was
(31:22):
bored with the recording. I would be poor bored with it.
I did. Wasn't into it, Yeah I was, But the
problem is where do I go? Yeah? I felt like
if you've had a life from where you come from,
it it's been up your fire everywhere you find great hotel. Yes,
and you know, I was thinking, if I've jumped, I'm done. Yeah,
(31:47):
I'm never going to do it again. And when Shannon
came out and said you wanted to marriagement, I was like,
why does anybody want to move? Fucking And then behold
it happened again. Amazing. And then because when I was
on my doing my solo thing, yes and we all
had a Matella was opening for me, I'd compass said,
(32:15):
just remember not a sorry, he's taking the piss out
of me, joking with me. I know why. And every
time I Compass e recon start playing Black Sabbath music.
Now I think you're Black Sabbath of their heroes. Yeah,
I didn't. I didn't think people would commentary talking to
(32:36):
me about Sabbath all the time. I'd go, you like that,
I got paranoid, I am and warping. And then it
took on sing thing. You know, it got bigger than
we did. Yes, yeah, you know it kind of like
it's that's just kind of fair statement, the myth of
(32:59):
Black Sabbath, But we didn't really mean. Gauze is a great,
great lyricist, amazing and a great bass player. Oh for fantastic.
Nob to touch him. He's fucking fantastic in the band
building building his day was a great drummer Tony. He's
always going to be the great kids. No one to
touch him player. And to this day, I still don't
(33:21):
understand how he plays guitar because he's got no fingertips,
plays with plastic fingers. Yes, I don't know. I don't
know him. Chime and chili again, how do you know
when you're hitting the string? When you when you met him,
had he already lost his fingers? It was scored? Was
he think you couldn't even watch more? Sixteen seventeen and
the doctor said, forget playing guitar, You'll never play again. Wow,
(33:45):
only shroved le Bron. I mean he did not only
play it again, he fucking become one of the world
fucking best. I mean there's a man you know, when
he got diagnosed at cancer, what have I got to do?
And he will do with you. That's what he's. That's him.
Yeah you can. I mean I'm like, he's like, right,
(34:07):
what I have to do? Yeah, he's He's always been
lay very calm. He go if you don't panic. Hey
was the band really and we were all part of
the band, but he was the most irreplicable one. Oh,
I don't hard to say, hard to say. I feel
(34:27):
like it's the four, the four together as well. Yeah
it is. It's like you could replace, you can't replace.
You can't you can't replace any of them. But you
don't know that because you always think online alcohol, bline, instrument.
But it's often the it's not who's best, it's the
combination together that makes It's like it's like if you
(34:48):
don't know, it's like if you're cooking something or garlic
is better, it's it's the recipe, yes, right, but it's
like you but you know, you always think it's you.
It's called in the band back cut. I'm playing this
when people will say to me, why did you always
sing on the side of the stage, I don't fucking know.
Just I don't know, just because Tony he's one of
(35:13):
the few people who could walk into this room, don't now,
and I would fucking feel intimidated. Wow. He intimidates the
fuck enemy. Wow. And he knows it. But when on
the album that we made last, I didn't get the
feeling that there was any you know, you know, I've
(35:33):
got the impression. I don't know what. I've never known this.
But he had his friend with him. I don't know
what the deal was with him, why he bore him.
Remember that guy he bought out with him? I can't remember.
He was the guy does his own work at home.
I don't know. I mean engineer, maybe producer, engineer, Yeah,
because he's one of he wants to fill every hole. Yeah,
(35:58):
and that's what just what happens, you know. So when
we first did the first album, we did it on
two four track machine bounced Over. Then we had eight
track there, we had a sixteen track, then we had
thirty two so one. But on that first album and
half Apparent sometimes only don't look forward track. You mean
him dubbed everything on the first album Bill drums were
(36:19):
in mono and peas around. You just started playing bass
not longer. You know, it was just to play rhythm
in the robbery. But he just we just wanted to play.
He's a great player, great lyricist. Hey. It was just
you know, I supposing in fairs to say that the
(36:41):
chemistry and the recipe was a good recipe, absolutely, and
the tone of your voice next to the next to
the guitar, next to Tony's guitar, that combination amazing that
just happened. It's like it's a miracle. I mean, I
remember when we did Uh Volume four, which was originally
gonna be cool snow Blind, but the record well Warner
(37:04):
too drug orient tried to show Now you get fucking
gladly calling from I don't know how we used to do.
It's just I've tried writing that form with the bounds. Yeah,
because no, it's it's unique to that particular group of people.
And it when as soon as you guys came here
(37:25):
and started playing, it's so unremarkable. It's like remarkable how
much it always sounds like Black Sabbath when you guys
are together. It's like you can't not sound like you
could play a cover of someone else and it would
still just sound like a Black Sabbath song, an original. Yeah. Yeah,
But the only thing about the album word the video
is Bill wasn't playing. We'd have been still doing the
(37:50):
fucking album now, because it's funny because he almost was.
I remembered when we rehearsed with him and he was
excited and then he sort of backed away. Yeah, from
the rip up those He takes so much time over everything,
and and Tony said to me, one day's not Bill's trouble.
He still thinks everybody's not ripping muffle, which I get.
(38:12):
I mean, Sharon's my fucking but I ain't no better
than Bill or any of them. I'm lucky to have
a wife who's on my side. Yes, because he's fuckers
man that would come in and give you all this bullshit,
drive you around in a fucking flash car, show a
bit of money, and then you can sue them, and
(38:36):
it takes you a fucking lifetime to win. The lawyers win,
you gloss your start and your fuck and that's where
they go. Sharon five was a ring now fucking rip hey,
you know, it's like I love my world. Now. I
mean I've done some stupid things. He's will been weird much,
(39:00):
but sometimes you go, she must love me. Yeah, I
must be lucky to have someone that does love me. Yes,
she well, he got stung for a lot of cash.
But then again, I said to Bill Ward one day
on the phone a little while ago. Now, I say,
you know what, in a way, for as far as
(39:21):
almost concerned, it was a blessing that I never got
all that cash up front, because with what cash I had,
with what cash I had, I don't know a good
joe and nearly killing myself. Yeah, I knew you'd Bill, Yes, yeah,
you're right. I wouldn't be sitting here. And that's for sure.
If I got all the millions up front, we would
(39:41):
have been fucking dead. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good money
at the I mean, you get kids from a fuck
all one day and give them a million dollars. Fuck,
I don't know what to do. Have you ever gone
back to where you were one train? You go? What
the fuck would I thinking? All the time. It's like
anytime I anytime I happened to tap back in or
(40:04):
see an old picture or something, and I try to
remember what that was like. It's like a different life.
Oh no, it's like, why did I get there? From there? Okay,
I mean not. I was married, I had two children,
I was done. You know, I got a house, car, holidays,
(40:26):
somewhat bit a cat drink when I wanted to do
bit of dope when I wanted to do so, I
thought that was you. Yeah, and then I thought I don't. Now. Look,
I mean, life's amising journey. Do you never know what's
going to come up? You know? Oh? This take this
last year, I got to go to the bathroom, fell
(40:48):
on my face. I'm virtually crippled, totally. Guess it's approbably
I snapped my well did something more spine. But then again,
I've fallen downstairs, I've fallen out of windows of fucking
this and that, and it's something stupid like I'm for
a bit, I'm falling on your face in the middle
(41:09):
of the night. That's typical, ito, isn't heah Sides law.
But yeah, I'll tell you what so many one said
to me, Oh see, what was the best gift you
ever had? I'm thinking, shambled me on watch, trying to think,
(41:30):
and then it fucking hit me. Had my father that
brought me a microphone, I wouldn't be here. Wow, my
father bought me a pa yes when you dead for it,
and bought me a microphone, and that's caught me gigs. Yes,
I mean I never repaid him because I was so
(41:50):
fucking going out and I'm the king of the world
for fucking tenua. Then he passed away my mom. So
what I did? I well, okay, my siblings bits of
money in there. But it does seem like it's it's
meant to be like I mean, I think my my
pearl dad went to work, comrade come shine at nights
(42:15):
the fucking as long as I can remember. And I
never fucking crossed his palment. I mean, he was still working.
It was fucked up, and must have he must have
been really regardless of that. He must have been really
proud of your SI had to be. I uh. Before
(42:38):
I got five from the showers, I left for a
short while, perhaps a month show. I went, I went
to the pre I love Davis anousment. I was such
a such am. I left black sabers. He went threw
so he always back to you. He was a good
(43:00):
It sounds like good simple man. Yeah, he just I mean,
I only wish I wish he was sure. You know,
sometimes I'll go to my own like, Okay, I wish
he was here for me to have a chat, like
I'm talking to you now, I'd love to have a
chat with him, and so many one situations. I'll never
(43:23):
get on with my father. But he's on his deathbed.
I don't know whether I should go and see him.
Let me tell you something, Whether you got something nice
or bad to say to him, do it now because
we're up the road. He ain't. Yeah, you're gonna kick
kick your butt forever. Just say what you gotta say.
How's your relationship with Jack? Now? Oh it's great, it's great.
(43:47):
He's got three girls, he got married, he got fucking divorced,
and I mean I love him, I absolutely, I love
My kids will take off me though, Oh fucking I'm
sponging up. But I got that. I go, what is he? Yeah?
You actually your boy gets older? Yeah? Boys are cool. Yeah,
(44:10):
girls will send you to a fucking learns. Because I'm
not joking. Jack goes, come on, let's go go on
the shooting Ryan just an. But Jack, he's a great father,
he's a great he's pretty good hands on dad, yeah,
(44:30):
which all I wasn't so much fucking hands on me,
get me back to bed. It's been great saying you're
Rick same man. A pleasure always and I hope to
see you again soon. Absolutely out and listen to music.
Thanks to Sharon and Nazzy Osbourne for stopping by Shangula
(44:51):
to catch up with brick. Azzy's new album Ordinary Man
is out now, and also be sure to check out
hasy dot com to keep up with the Osbournes. You
can hear some of Ozzie's music by visiting broken record
podcast dot com, where we have a playlist available for
you to listen to. Broken Record is produced with help
from Jason Gambrel, Mia Lobel, and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries.
(45:11):
I theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
for listening.
Pushkin. It's been fifty years since Black Sabbath released Iron Man,
but its guitar riffs are still some of the hardest
and darkest in rock history. While Black Sabbath is often
giving credit for creating heavy metal, none of its members
had the success or longevity of their original frontman, Ozzy Osbourne.
(00:29):
In the eighties, Ozzie successfully turned his Prince of Darkness
alter ego into a decades long career. With help from
his manager and wife, Sharon Osbourne, Ozzi's released eleven solo albums,
with seven of them going multi platinum. They also created Ozzfest,
a Tory metal festival that became a mecca for metal
fans everywhere, myself included, and of course, they had their
(00:51):
pop culture crossover moment with the reality show The Osbourne's
on MTV. Ozzie and Rick Rubin first met when Rick
had just moved to la and the two became fast friends.
Their friendship eventually turned into Rick producing the last Black
Sabbath record, the Reunion Album from twenty thirteen. Ozzie's mostly
kept a low profile since then, but at seventy one,
(01:11):
he's back to making music. He has a new album
called Ordinary Man, it's his first solo album in a decade. Rick,
Ozzy and Sharon sat on the bus at Changing a
Lot to talk about the record and how a gift
from his father turned an ordinary boy from Birmingham, England,
into the prince of darkness. This is broken record liner
(01:33):
notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Ozzie
and Sharon Osbourne in conversation with Rick Rubin. They start
things off talking about the track Ozzie did with Post
Malone and Travis Scott take what you Want? Did you
hear the track as he did with Post Oh, he's
(01:55):
got to hear that. I'm Travis Scott's a big shot now. Yeah. Yeah.
When Andrew I did your song we Post He's great. Though,
he's doing great. I've was stunned that it's just him
on stage. It's not bad man, no nothing, just him incredible.
(02:18):
Ye tell me tell me your first memories of any
performance anytime you was the first time you remember being
on stage. I was in a band called the Prospected
because the singer was it was sick. I never do know.
We did a gig Birmingham fire Station. There's three three
(02:41):
firemen and a drunk in the audience. You think I
was going to be shot. I was so nervous. Yeah,
that was the first thing I ever did we do
cover songs or oh yeah, blues stones, yeah, uh damn,
you know, and it was um back in. The whole
(03:05):
game has changed now when when we're there's no way
to playing that much anymore. And when we used to
go to Webb when we were Sabbath, we messed around
with different names. It was like a polkas blues band
Earth and then then we wrote the song Black Sabbath
and then Guisers, what don't we call the band? And
(03:27):
that was it. Then how did the band come together? Well,
I was it always you know aboutman called the Red
Ruby Geezer. I never did a gig with them. But
the only reason the gigs I had to pay, I
said Guizer, and I said I want to get out,
so do I. And shortly around actual Geiser and Bill
had a band called Mythology and they had been busted
(03:50):
for smoking dope. I had to break up because it
was like the curse. She used to go to the
same school as Tony and we didn't around school. It
was like high school. Yeah, and one thing I think
we started. We originally had a saxophone player and a
(04:11):
bottle bottle and guitar player like because it was like
the Fleetwood Mac that were that were around, but the
original Fleetwood Mac nothing what they ended up being. I
wished to go and see them. We n see John
Miles Blues Breakers. And there was a club in Birmingham
called I'm Anish Club now, but we used to go
(04:34):
in and we used to see all these different bands.
You know, I saw Candy Eat there once. I was
like an American banding Birmingham freaks out, how many how
many people would be in a club like that? Then
no Ah, great, there's seven hundred thousand and most. Then
there was a club, a few clubs in Birmingham. We
(04:56):
used to go with our van full of a quick
my just in case the band never made and we've
got any bank. We've gone played be Standing for Blands
or ten years after jeth Road Show the band amazing,
and then we played with Jets Hotel and Tony got
off with the gig and then I remember thinking, oh, no,
(05:18):
it's gone now because Tony was somewhere else for it.
I mean he still is. Yeah, it's nobody on the
face of the other couldn't come up with the riffs
like the King of the Riffs. Oh it's great, And
then you know it was just it's kind of we
all live. Did he ever play with Jethro Tuller, No,
(05:39):
what I think he did a couple of TV thing
He died a rock and roll the Rolling Stones, rock
and Roll circles, yes, which was a chary thing. And
then he died a couple of things. We wouldn't win
him too long and he came back and he said,
if we get out of stuff together, oh we can
do it. I was like fucking house. He left Jethro
(06:00):
to come back to us and that was a big job.
That was. But Tony's one of these guys he has
been told what to do, you'll do You'll fucking punch one.
I know that. You know I've seen him do it.
You know it's some he has been so I told
me have to wear hats and and but he he was.
(06:23):
But it was all Everything was new. Well, I mean
we'd get in the van. We played the Star Club
Hamburg for residency, but we had nothing to lose. It
was exciting. Did people like the band right away or no? No,
we we we do like at the Star Club. But
it was a good training ground because you do forty
(06:45):
five minutes on and another band would you go different
every forty Yeah, so we do one that we blues
songs and Bill would do a job solver once said,
Tony would do a guitar us every one. I'd fuck
around doing all this stuff and climbing ladders, painting my
face and just generally pissing about, you know. But it
(07:08):
was a good experience, better than being in Birmingham unemployed.
I said. We just got b lived from hand to
mouth and it was fun. Any band that I've ever
been in the early stages of the band have been
the most fun because everybody's in the same boat. But
that remember, I'll remember Jim Simpson, the original manager sign
(07:30):
on the Wye down to the Fairies today Ferry. We
just stop off with the recordings to the region sound
and record them songs you've been doing. Probably just got
the set up recording went away two days like the
two six l seasons twelve. So just like the live
set we had the audience. We've been planning life. So
(07:53):
I remember coming back from Europe for Christmas and the
managers come over. I got the artwork to show and
back then to have the gate Pole album Sleep was
like the big thing. And when we saw that first
album Sleep, we're like, fucking, what is this? We right,
(08:13):
just seven album that was so cool. And then the
album came out and we heard the album with a
because when we recorded it, we never had the effects
like the thunder, the weird voice effects, and it was
just amazing. And then I'm in a club and I'm
(08:34):
my first advance was one hundred and five pounds. I thought,
I never thought, let's say that much money. So I'm
in the club and this guy comes. Just when he goes,
I said, he's got some good news to tell you.
As so what's that? This is? Your album entered the
British chart next week and someone was seventeen or something.
Are you winding me up? You're joking? And it remained
(08:56):
there for eighteen months. Time it was going ome and
down the chart which showed me had parent and went
straight at number one. I'm like, because he must as yourself,
you don't when you do. When you're doing something, you
like it, yeah, but when somebody goes, I fucking that's
that's all you need. But when somebody comes and says
your album's in the charts and everything's going one way,
(09:18):
and it was just it doesn't make sense. It's like
you don't believe it. He don't believe real. Ye, it's
like you can't accept it, you know why? Well I
did complain. Things started to look up and Sharon Father
one of the managers, then somebody else that worked for him, girls,
and it's just everything was up and up, but we
(09:40):
got ripped up royally by manager and badly. Remember the
first time you do a show where people really liked it? Yeah,
the first time they liked it, like like we did
a jump Pell radio show. Oh y, we hadn't even
recorded the more written the songs by that point people
started to when they album got in the chart. It
(10:01):
was like we used to play his underground clubs. Underground
then was what underground underground? But it was good word
of mouth. Yes, saw Black Sabbath in the first we
said fuck TV, fuck doing this. We were a people's
band calling and back in England then it was like
doing top of the pubs was a banging but we
(10:23):
all did it or eventually and it was just to
make the first something ms you could sabbably sell. Then
the drugs, the alcohol, the wives, the divorced and all
the trappings. You know, we found it the man who
was ripping us. Though we tried to manage ourselves, we
fucking clue and the booze started to get heavy. I
(10:43):
started to drink more, and Bill started to drink more,
and me and Bill and Tony and Gooze we just
got ugly. Now I didn't get good. There was no fight.
It was a band that we believed in what we
were doing at first, and then we got royally take
into the cleaners and we just thought, what's the poison?
(11:05):
And when they fired me, I thought, Sharon's Votom's managers
yet again, and I thought, we don't want you to
be getting sucked up all. That's what I was, And
I gotta be honest. At that point, I just said
I'm done. It sounds like it was already bad at
that time. Anyway, rememberable we ended up making music to
(11:28):
pay our lawyers fees. Yeah, And we all said to
each other many times what we needed someone like Sharon
or Father, somebody to come and say, hey, you need
to try yourself though, get your shit together and write
somebody to tell us what we what was wrong because
our egos, we're running the show in under the implant,
the drugs and alcohol. I just went to and Sharon's
(11:55):
officer got me up a partmagine in West La Parker Hotel.
I thought, I fucking last spling any money I got?
How old were you at that time? I was about thirty.
I thought I got that spinge. So Sharon comes O
away when sing, she goes. Listen as she goes. If
(12:18):
you get yourself to go, we want to manage her
because I was thought. I thought no one wanted to
manage a singer. Then I met Randy, and then then
another thing happened to me. How do you meet Randy?
A guy called Dana Strum from Slaughter remember the bunch o.
Dana Strum was my original choice for a bugget. Sharon
got me auditioning people. I'd never auditioned anybody in my life.
(12:41):
Or I go, no, I don't like him. She will
tell him I got no, you tell him I get
it a woman so um Danna said, got me all
this guitar house. I was out to lunch all the
from I remember part one, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring
(13:01):
this one kid, and you got it's great, some m
three sheets to win. I'm in my apartment and he
comes in, this little guy who must have weighed one
hundred and five pounds wet. I mean he was like
like a woman. I said, Oh, you gotta be joking.
(13:22):
He's just hear me out. He's gonna come down to
my studio studio working. Hear him play. Yeah, oh go
ahead the studio. I'm thinking I'm hallucination. This kid comes
in with this little lamb. I'm blew my lights wow,
And you knew right away. I mean this kid was
like this kid was like someone else, always like even
(13:45):
in the fuck up sto you want a gig? I mean,
he was unbelieving. Then he came to England and I
was still married to my accent. He's just stayed with
me for leaving me in for a while and we
wrote Goodbye to Romans the first time we ever wrote incredible.
But then he was like it was like this. It
(14:05):
wasn't like he didn't get He wasn't a party. He
was a true musician in respect. He wrote music, you
talk music and he would give the opening bands lessons
on fucking finger chapter and what. But it was yeah,
there again, it was the early time. Then we got
successful in the fucking lawsuits. Sorry, agreed, but you know
(14:29):
it's for some reason. I've been out of sabbaths now
forty years, but it seems like the time that I
was with him seems longer than I'm being are. I
don't know what a is. Yeah, it's just it's such
a defining it's such a defining band. But we don't.
But when you're in it, yes, you know you you
(14:52):
love the adulation, you love the success, yes, but you
just go because you did it. Yeah, you don't know.
You don't understand what. I'll never forget about working with
you in that studio. Yes, you do this. Every time
I'd sing it, go Ozzie, I'd have to like nine
times you go Ozzie. That was great, Just give me
one more, Like how can it be fucking in that
(15:17):
fucking book? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, we made a
good album. I was great it right, number one. That
was our first number number one in both solo and
big incredible in America. It was like number one in
thirteen countries. Yeah wow, I mean the album was called
(15:41):
thirteen number one in thirteen countries. But that dang, And
you know the first time. I remember the first time
we talked about making the Black Sabbath three about nineteen.
It was a very long time ago in that place
in a sunset yes for you and the other game,
we were saying you your yes. I remember we sat
(16:01):
in that room and all the members were there and
we talked about doing it then, and you had spoken
before before that separately Yes, yes, yes, And I remember.
I don't know if you remember this, but for me,
this was a big deal in my life. You came
to my house one night before before that house, my
first house in La You came late one night after
(16:22):
the Rainbow Yes, and we listened to Black Sabbath music
until the sun came up, and you performed a whole
Black Sabbath performance for me in my living room. And
it was one of the greatest experiences of my life
because I never got to see Black Sabbath became me.
(16:44):
Are going listen, You're gonna mind me a promise if
you ever get back wellecond but if you ever get
back with the boys, please let me produce an album.
You pop at different plays. I like that song maybe
the Student, and I don't know, I don't know what
(17:06):
we're doing but you can and you and oh the
extra tracks on the live album, you go, I like
that that one sucks and walks out, I mean, and
then I was the arkepts going in brick rooms. He
really wants to do an album. Yeah, it was fun
doing that. It was fun. It was fun worth that
(17:27):
and it's funny that we talked about it like fifteen
or twenty years before and then finally came to fruition.
Do you know, I was just tongue hundred the democ
what I said, you know something, Well, I'm a believer
in this. The amount of people on this plane is
and in a one lifetime you'll only meet a certain amount,
(17:49):
and things are meant to happen the way. It's when
I believe believer too. I mean when when I when
I was married to another woman, Yes i'd see Sharon,
I would go should we do? I was always a
track And it's amazing the why things turn out meant
to be meant to be. And you guys are incredible together.
(18:13):
Well nobody else could put up I'm not, but it's
just incredible. I look award to look down that road
and the things that happened. I just I can't believe it.
Sometimes seventy one and I'm just bude. Another album. Amazing,
(18:35):
so cool. The album's really cool. It's amazing when it
just comes together like that in a month I've done.
It's so great. We'll be back with more from Sharon
and Ozzie after the break. Here's Ozzie and Rick listening
to Straight to Hell, the first single off Azzie's new album.
(18:56):
That's great. Your your voice is ever eternal. It's like
it's unbelievable how much you sound like you all the time,
and how good it is. Amazing, so exciting to hear.
Ordinary man Alten's on this phone. Let's hear how did
that song come about? It just climbed out the first
(19:17):
song we ever wrote. It's so good. It's really good.
You know I signed to something recently. Most of the
best stuff I've ever done. Yeah, I just clime out
of nowhere. Amazing. Can you sit there for weeks and
weeks you think you're going now And some of them
I remember you telling me stories about the way Sabbath
(19:38):
would write, where you just jam and what Sabbath would do.
We're just jam on my pick, riff, shout and just
lincome together. And I just like stick of vocal now.
It was it was a good education because a lot
of kids I've never heard of. It's a jam, you know.
Maybe it was a lot of fun, you know, absolute
(20:00):
Is it fun to make? Music's the best thing in
the world. Oh no, I don't know anything. Ye a
journey fifty years and we're so lucky we get to
do this. Unbelievable. I mean, I don't know where it
can I'm from, you know, But it's just I'm complaining.
That's amazing. I hear also, I hear like some of
(20:21):
the Beatle influence on the writing and the string parts
so cool. And if you sound and you sound the same,
which is what's so incredible. It's like you sound so
remarkably like you every time, and strong and fresh and
all of the there's so much energy in your voice.
It's unbelievable. I just do you just do it. I mean,
(20:45):
there's no nobody else in my family has ever been
involved in music in any way. I've come from stress
far with those siblings to have died. But no, he's
uh got any beautical Jack my son goes to me,
statusis I like the Beetles, But I don't see what
(21:07):
you're going about it, and okay, it's slightly imagine this
going to bed today in black and white and waking
up in Carla. That's what it was like. Yeah, and
he goes what I thought. I still don't understand. I said,
we in England were just I was like nineteen sixty
whatever early and the water ended fifteen years ago. We
(21:29):
changed that long and all of a sudden this band
comes out, which swamp the last thing we have do
that much matters in Germany and they were like fucking huge.
Do you remember the first time you heard them? Yeah, exactly,
tell me I got a transit transistor radio. Yes. Then
(21:51):
it was that they progressed to get over. I'm walking
down Posy Ministry. I'm about thirteen, and I'm leaning on
all his leading on the lamp post and fucking all
his pub songs and whatever. You're on the radio. Suddenly
she Loves You comes on. I stopped and it was
(22:13):
like I was awakened. Wow, it was like, holy shit,
I want with Paul McCarney to marry my sister. I mean,
it was just fantastic for me, and it was I
loved them. I absent my wed by a wall in
my bedroom was covered in anything with the name on
(22:35):
and anytime anything they put out you would be you
would get an immediately. I'd work delivering food, call or whatever. Yes.
And by a Beatle record, I mean it was fucking amazing,
which people go, you know, hut it out to some
people now, But the Beatles for me, were you other
than the Beatles? Were there other who were the other
(22:57):
things that really just let you up musically? Uh? The King,
the Kinks, you really got my l uh manfred Man? Yeah,
uh this down? Led Zeppelin? Yeah, I mean when we
when we When I first heard them first two Zeppelin albums,
(23:19):
it it was unbelieving. Really you were you already a
band yet or not? Yes? But were you remove about
has breast behind them? I mean when I heard that
first Zeppelin album, yeah, one and two, Yeah, I just
put after that, I kind of lost you. The moment
could be we're doing our own thing. I was to
go drinking. We bought them a law, good guy. I
(23:43):
every drunk. Great when the show when you show me's
an asshole, I've been around you drunk. You you were
never an asshole? Oh not to not to me. I
never said I never saw I've seen you bad, but
I've never seen you unpleasant to be around. Hard my moment.
I mean, I've had two wives, I don't know a job,
(24:10):
another job, the more fuck up your turn up to
a gig, Oh it's going to be crazy, gonna be
a good notice, which I remember there was a story
where one of you tried to kill the other. Which
which was it? Oh that one he tried to kill you? Yeah, okay,
how how serious was it? He had? He had a blackout,
(24:32):
as he had a blackout and it was really really serious.
But I knew something was happening because he'd been out
of it for like a week. So it was a
week of like experimenting with pills and alcohol and he
was just like on a roll. Yeah, and you could
feel it building. You knew something was going to happen,
(24:54):
and yeah, it happened. But then then he was good.
Had to go into treatment for six months. He was good. Okay, man,
I got drunk again. But you know, you know, you know,
they go, oh, I tried rehab. It didn't work. You
get it when you get it, if you but if
and if you don't get it, you don't get it. Yeah,
(25:16):
I don't to be honest with you, I have a
problem walking with that alcohol now, line with it. You know.
If I if I was okay, we got'll be still drinking. Yeah,
but I got so fed up, a feeling like crap
without it, you know. Oh no, No, I just must
(25:37):
have been six or seven out rehab three or four,
a few rehaps about fifteen, and then I just stopped. Great,
I'm just about any seven years now. Amazing. Congratulations our son.
He's what I mean, sixty seventeen years. Wow, he got
(25:58):
so bad seventeen I believe that it's amazing. It really is. Yeah,
watching a bit about him, I'll never never forget what
he said to me. We had a run such him
one day. So long as going now suck? What the
fuck are you always complaining about? You've never wanted for
(26:19):
a damn thing? Oh yeah, what about your dad? That
was a good fucking I just read fuck Jack Arms
so sorry because it's undeniable. Yeah, always there but not there, yea, yea, yeah,
that's what alcohol and drugs. You think physically there, but
(26:41):
you're not there. You might maybe at ark on the
fucking road. You know. We'll be back with more from
Ozzy Osbourne after the break, we're back with more from
Ozzy Osbourne. Any of the metal bands that you liked, um,
(27:03):
not really okay, Any any bands that came in the
week I didn't we good? I mean that last Black
Sabbaths it was pretty We had been fighting each other,
fighting the world, and now we're going down, so well,
I'd go, let's fucking get a bling. It was Carlot,
(27:24):
we're needing a break from you loved? I say, oh, well, great,
yeah for me, for me too. It's the Beatles and
a CDC are like blun Scott was a great singer,
great great Brian's all right, but I prefer Barn Yeah,
the Highway to Hell, the rhythm section, the way those
(27:48):
guys playing, I mean, diammed up a Black Sabbaths in
nineteen seventy one. Thing Wow in Sydney, Australia. Wow. Great.
Did you know what time you saw me? Like you
knew it was special? Oh? I mean angers, To be honest,
I thought it's been a gimmick and a sash on
a short pack. But they when they playing, yeah, when
(28:10):
they fucking I mean, here's a guy didn't do all
this little all beyond the neck and all his fucking
he played me. That's what I like about it. There
ain't no one to touch Hanger's young for that groove.
Yeah down, you know when you can bang your head
all day and not get fed up. It's true. I
(28:33):
mean they worked the absolute but two that you said
about their rhythm section was brilliant. You just never had
any It's so the rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, it was always
so danceable. Yea, even you know, why don't we try
(28:53):
and do a fucking danceable kind of because we missed
the riff man. He could fucking come up wanted to do,
but that Sabbath would try and fuck things. Oh, I
mean what we would do be sending sound remotely commercial.
We throw a spanner in the work, all these fucking words,
(29:14):
the weird changes and that that wasn't my copy. And
when they got gerald woodroupe and keyboard, I was like,
fuck this. Me and Bill used to travel together on
a GMC mobile home, which was looking back, we had
such a fucking blood it was. It was like a
(29:34):
fucking You'd get up every morning, you have a coffee,
glass of milk, a glass of orange Jude, and the
Bill every morning altogether. Yeah, so I'd go, Bill, excuse
me for asking you this? What's the deal? We all
(29:57):
the what's the Rabby morning he was all the coff
if he wakes me up, the orange, excuse me out healthy,
the milk, put butts a line on my stomach, and
the Bill put me back to sleep. He had it
all worked out. So you and you rode on the
bus with Bills and and he was your your travel partner. Yeah,
(30:18):
and then would Geezer and Tony team up that would
be flying everywhere m you preferred the bus. B and
I were like close. I when when the actual encome
that got him to fire me? Wow, I bother were
surprised when they fired you. Now you know what to
(30:39):
be perfectly truths. I'd lost it. Yeah, I just I
was just, I mean, I go, why do you have
to fly off around the world to do nothing? Yeah,
isn't he I mean, I should say said At one
point I was going, well, Queen did this, this one
did though? We should do And I said, and I said,
(30:59):
one day, I think we've got a problem with the
bands that we want to influence and now influence in us.
Can we look at the way And I wasn't any
better than them. Oh that were any better. It was
just we're like, we need we needed rescuing, but we
didn't trust anybody. I didn't want to do it anymore
with them. I was bored with the concerts. I was
(31:22):
bored with the recording. I would be poor bored with it.
I did. Wasn't into it, Yeah I was, But the
problem is where do I go? Yeah? I felt like
if you've had a life from where you come from,
it it's been up your fire everywhere you find great hotel. Yes,
and you know, I was thinking, if I've jumped, I'm done. Yeah,
(31:47):
I'm never going to do it again. And when Shannon
came out and said you wanted to marriagement, I was like,
why does anybody want to move? Fucking And then behold
it happened again. Amazing. And then because when I was
on my doing my solo thing, yes and we all
had a Matella was opening for me, I'd compass said,
(32:15):
just remember not a sorry, he's taking the piss out
of me, joking with me. I know why. And every
time I Compass e recon start playing Black Sabbath music.
Now I think you're Black Sabbath of their heroes. Yeah,
I didn't. I didn't think people would commentary talking to
(32:36):
me about Sabbath all the time. I'd go, you like that,
I got paranoid, I am and warping. And then it
took on sing thing. You know, it got bigger than
we did. Yes, yeah, you know it kind of like
it's that's just kind of fair statement, the myth of
(32:59):
Black Sabbath, But we didn't really mean. Gauze is a great,
great lyricist, amazing and a great bass player. Oh for fantastic.
Nob to touch him. He's fucking fantastic in the band
building building his day was a great drummer Tony. He's
always going to be the great kids. No one to
touch him player. And to this day, I still don't
(33:21):
understand how he plays guitar because he's got no fingertips,
plays with plastic fingers. Yes, I don't know. I don't
know him. Chime and chili again, how do you know
when you're hitting the string? When you when you met him,
had he already lost his fingers? It was scored? Was
he think you couldn't even watch more? Sixteen seventeen and
the doctor said, forget playing guitar, You'll never play again. Wow,
(33:45):
only shroved le Bron. I mean he did not only
play it again, he fucking become one of the world
fucking best. I mean there's a man you know, when
he got diagnosed at cancer, what have I got to do?
And he will do with you. That's what he's. That's him.
Yeah you can. I mean I'm like, he's like, right,
(34:07):
what I have to do? Yeah, he's He's always been
lay very calm. He go if you don't panic. Hey
was the band really and we were all part of
the band, but he was the most irreplicable one. Oh,
I don't hard to say, hard to say. I feel
(34:27):
like it's the four, the four together as well. Yeah
it is. It's like you could replace, you can't replace.
You can't you can't replace any of them. But you
don't know that because you always think online alcohol, bline, instrument.
But it's often the it's not who's best, it's the
combination together that makes It's like it's like if you
(34:48):
don't know, it's like if you're cooking something or garlic
is better, it's it's the recipe, yes, right, but it's
like you but you know, you always think it's you.
It's called in the band back cut. I'm playing this
when people will say to me, why did you always
sing on the side of the stage, I don't fucking know.
Just I don't know, just because Tony he's one of
(35:13):
the few people who could walk into this room, don't now,
and I would fucking feel intimidated. Wow. He intimidates the
fuck enemy. Wow. And he knows it. But when on
the album that we made last, I didn't get the
feeling that there was any you know, you know, I've
(35:33):
got the impression. I don't know what. I've never known this.
But he had his friend with him. I don't know
what the deal was with him, why he bore him.
Remember that guy he bought out with him? I can't remember.
He was the guy does his own work at home.
I don't know. I mean engineer, maybe producer, engineer, Yeah,
because he's one of he wants to fill every hole. Yeah,
(35:58):
and that's what just what happens, you know. So when
we first did the first album, we did it on
two four track machine bounced Over. Then we had eight
track there, we had a sixteen track, then we had
thirty two so one. But on that first album and
half Apparent sometimes only don't look forward track. You mean
him dubbed everything on the first album Bill drums were
(36:19):
in mono and peas around. You just started playing bass
not longer. You know, it was just to play rhythm
in the robbery. But he just we just wanted to play.
He's a great player, great lyricist. Hey. It was just
you know, I supposing in fairs to say that the
(36:41):
chemistry and the recipe was a good recipe, absolutely, and
the tone of your voice next to the next to
the guitar, next to Tony's guitar, that combination amazing that
just happened. It's like it's a miracle. I mean, I
remember when we did Uh Volume four, which was originally
gonna be cool snow Blind, but the record well Warner
(37:04):
too drug orient tried to show Now you get fucking
gladly calling from I don't know how we used to do.
It's just I've tried writing that form with the bounds. Yeah,
because no, it's it's unique to that particular group of people.
And it when as soon as you guys came here
(37:25):
and started playing, it's so unremarkable. It's like remarkable how
much it always sounds like Black Sabbath when you guys
are together. It's like you can't not sound like you
could play a cover of someone else and it would
still just sound like a Black Sabbath song, an original. Yeah. Yeah,
But the only thing about the album word the video
is Bill wasn't playing. We'd have been still doing the
(37:50):
fucking album now, because it's funny because he almost was.
I remembered when we rehearsed with him and he was
excited and then he sort of backed away. Yeah, from
the rip up those He takes so much time over everything,
and and Tony said to me, one day's not Bill's trouble.
He still thinks everybody's not ripping muffle, which I get.
(38:12):
I mean, Sharon's my fucking but I ain't no better
than Bill or any of them. I'm lucky to have
a wife who's on my side. Yes, because he's fuckers
man that would come in and give you all this bullshit,
drive you around in a fucking flash car, show a
bit of money, and then you can sue them, and
(38:36):
it takes you a fucking lifetime to win. The lawyers win,
you gloss your start and your fuck and that's where
they go. Sharon five was a ring now fucking rip hey,
you know, it's like I love my world. Now. I
mean I've done some stupid things. He's will been weird much,
(39:00):
but sometimes you go, she must love me. Yeah, I
must be lucky to have someone that does love me. Yes,
she well, he got stung for a lot of cash.
But then again, I said to Bill Ward one day
on the phone a little while ago. Now, I say,
you know what, in a way, for as far as
(39:21):
almost concerned, it was a blessing that I never got
all that cash up front, because with what cash I had,
with what cash I had, I don't know a good
joe and nearly killing myself. Yeah, I knew you'd Bill, Yes, yeah,
you're right. I wouldn't be sitting here. And that's for sure.
If I got all the millions up front, we would
(39:41):
have been fucking dead. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good money
at the I mean, you get kids from a fuck
all one day and give them a million dollars. Fuck,
I don't know what to do. Have you ever gone
back to where you were one train? You go? What
the fuck would I thinking? All the time. It's like
anytime I anytime I happened to tap back in or
(40:04):
see an old picture or something, and I try to
remember what that was like. It's like a different life.
Oh no, it's like, why did I get there? From there? Okay,
I mean not. I was married, I had two children,
I was done. You know, I got a house, car, holidays,
(40:26):
somewhat bit a cat drink when I wanted to do
bit of dope when I wanted to do so, I
thought that was you. Yeah, and then I thought I don't. Now. Look,
I mean, life's amising journey. Do you never know what's
going to come up? You know? Oh? This take this
last year, I got to go to the bathroom, fell
(40:48):
on my face. I'm virtually crippled, totally. Guess it's approbably
I snapped my well did something more spine. But then again,
I've fallen downstairs, I've fallen out of windows of fucking
this and that, and it's something stupid like I'm for
a bit, I'm falling on your face in the middle
(41:09):
of the night. That's typical, ito, isn't heah Sides law.
But yeah, I'll tell you what so many one said
to me, Oh see, what was the best gift you
ever had? I'm thinking, shambled me on watch, trying to think,
(41:30):
and then it fucking hit me. Had my father that
brought me a microphone, I wouldn't be here. Wow, my
father bought me a pa yes when you dead for it,
and bought me a microphone, and that's caught me gigs. Yes,
I mean I never repaid him because I was so
(41:50):
fucking going out and I'm the king of the world
for fucking tenua. Then he passed away my mom. So
what I did? I well, okay, my siblings bits of
money in there. But it does seem like it's it's
meant to be like I mean, I think my my
pearl dad went to work, comrade come shine at nights
(42:15):
the fucking as long as I can remember. And I
never fucking crossed his palment. I mean, he was still working.
It was fucked up, and must have he must have
been really regardless of that. He must have been really
proud of your SI had to be. I uh. Before
(42:38):
I got five from the showers, I left for a
short while, perhaps a month show. I went, I went
to the pre I love Davis anousment. I was such
a such am. I left black sabers. He went threw
so he always back to you. He was a good
(43:00):
It sounds like good simple man. Yeah, he just I mean,
I only wish I wish he was sure. You know,
sometimes I'll go to my own like, Okay, I wish
he was here for me to have a chat, like
I'm talking to you now, I'd love to have a
chat with him, and so many one situations. I'll never
(43:23):
get on with my father. But he's on his deathbed.
I don't know whether I should go and see him.
Let me tell you something, Whether you got something nice
or bad to say to him, do it now because
we're up the road. He ain't. Yeah, you're gonna kick
kick your butt forever. Just say what you gotta say.
How's your relationship with Jack? Now? Oh it's great, it's great.
(43:47):
He's got three girls, he got married, he got fucking divorced,
and I mean I love him, I absolutely, I love
My kids will take off me though, Oh fucking I'm
sponging up. But I got that. I go, what is he? Yeah?
You actually your boy gets older? Yeah? Boys are cool. Yeah,
(44:10):
girls will send you to a fucking learns. Because I'm
not joking. Jack goes, come on, let's go go on
the shooting Ryan just an. But Jack, he's a great father,
he's a great he's pretty good hands on dad, yeah,
(44:30):
which all I wasn't so much fucking hands on me,
get me back to bed. It's been great saying you're
Rick same man. A pleasure always and I hope to
see you again soon. Absolutely out and listen to music.
Thanks to Sharon and Nazzy Osbourne for stopping by Shangula
(44:51):
to catch up with brick. Azzy's new album Ordinary Man
is out now, and also be sure to check out
hasy dot com to keep up with the Osbournes. You
can hear some of Ozzie's music by visiting broken record
podcast dot com, where we have a playlist available for
you to listen to. Broken Record is produced with help
from Jason Gambrel, Mia Lobel, and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries.
(45:11):
I theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
for listening.
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