By Steve Newton
The music world is still coming to grips with the death of heavy-metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away on Tuesday (July 22) at the age of 76.
I was fortunate to have interviewed Ozzy twice, in June of 1982, when he was touring behind the Diary of a Madman album, and in March of 1984, when he was touring behind the Bark at the Moon LP.
Here’s 10 of the best quotes I got from the Prince of Darkness while he was making headlines during the halcyon days of hard rock and metal.
June 1982: “Randy and I were just beginning to get things going real good. I don’t think the music world really fully appreciated the fact of Randy’s talent. He was incredible, he could do anything.” –referring to former guitarist Randy Rhoads, who’d died in a bizarre plane crash three months earlier.
June 1982: “No, we used to, but we had to stop that. We got a fair amount of complaints, and it went a bit over the top, so I put a stop to it. And I don’t kill any animals on stage, if anybody’s worried about that.” –responding to a write-up in Circus magazine that claimed Ozzy would throw real calves’ livers and pigs’ guts around.
June 1982: “Somebody threw a live bat on stage, and I thought it was one of those fake things, you know. But I bit it, and it was real. I went to have rabies shots, but I didn’t actually contract the disease.” –replying to me asking what all the fuss was about him biting a bat’s head.
June 1982: “It’s phenomenal. I guarantee that you’ll be blown away by it. It’s very gothic, like the cover of Diary of a Madman. There’s even the hanging of a midget.” –describing his current stage show.
June 1982: “Naw, not anymore. There was! But why spend the rest of my life disliking them? It’s a pretty bad situation to be in. Good luck to them. I hope they do well, because they deserve it.” –on whether there was any bad blood between him and the current Black Sabbath lineup, which featured Ronnie James Dio on vocals.
June 1982: “At the time of writing that, there was only me and Randy, and we were trying to get players and everything was flying at us. There was just one thing after another, you know, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going crazy’. You just think that you’re going off the rails on a crazy train.” –on whether “Crazy Train” was an autobiographical song.
March 1984: “Very much so. To the point where I realize I can’t ever go back. The vibe we had once in that studio is no longer there, you know. So I’ve got to find a new place.” –on whether he felt the presence of former guitarist Randy Rhoads while recording his latest album, Bark at the Moon, at the same studio he used for his first two solo albums.
March 1984: “Only one”. –his response when I mentioned that on his last tour he got a little crazy with biting the heads off animals.
March 1984: “People get this impression that I’m some sort of a f***ing warlock that wants to go around changing people into Satanists. Those aren’t my intentions at all.” –on what he feels the effect his music and concerts have on impressionable teenage fans.
March 1984: “Not at all. I’m just more in love with her now.” –on whether getting married to manager Sharon two years earlier and having two kids had changed his lifestyle much.
To hear the full audio of my 1984 interview with Ozzy Osbourne–and my interviews with former bandmates Jake E. Lee, Tommy Aldridge, Rudy Sarzo, Tony Iommi, and Zakk Wylde–subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock since 1982.