By Paul Freeman [1997 Interview]

February, 2017, we await the farewell concert of Black Sabbath. So we thought we’d revisit our 1998 interview with Ozzy Osbourne, after the band’s “Reunion” album was released. It was recorded at Birmingham NEC, as the tour began, and featured the original lineup of Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

They band had begun in Birmingham in 1968. Blaming his drug and alcohol abuse, the other members ousted Osbourne from the group in 1979. Countless lineup changes happened over the years. Ronnie James Dio was among those who tried to replace Osbourne behind the mic.

Osbourne carved out an immensely successful solo career. But fans always hungered for a reuniting of Sabbath’s original fiery four.

We spoke to Ozzy as that historic event took place, before he went from heavy metal god to reality TV star.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
What were you feeling the first night of the reunion tour in Birmingham?

OZZY OSBOURNE:
We hadn’t played together in 20 years or so. We’d done jams here and there, at Live Aid or whatnot. It was kind of all right. We had two shows in Birmingham to prove ourselves. The first night, the press there wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. The second night was phenomenal. You can hear it on the album. It was just absolutely fantastic.

PCC:
But were you nervous going into the first night?

OZZY:
Yeah, man. It’s like running a race. it’s like going into the ring with a boxer. One wins and one loses, you know?

PCC:
What about getting everybody back together? Was that difficult?

OZZY:
No. We had tried for so long. We had all tried to get together on our own. But in the end my wife said to me again in the last year, ‘What do you want to do about this Sabbath thing?’ And I said, “Well, you know what? You’re my manager. I’m your artist. I’ll say yes and you take it from there.” And then she came back and said, “They’ve all agreed to do it.” And I said, “Fine.”

PCC:
What about recording the two new tracks, how easily did those come together?

OZZY:
They said, “Try and get some new stuff” and we just went straight into it and it came really easy.

PCC:
Were you surprised at how easy it was to get it to all click again?

OZZY:
Oh, yeah. I suppose that’s the way it goes sometimes. You sit around for three months and can’t do one song. And other times it just happens quick.

PCC:
What do you think is the unique power and magic of you four guys together?

OZZY:
I don’t know, but I’ll tell you, I realized there is a magic, when we got out there and the reaction of the crowd was deafening.

PCC:
When you hear tracks by Sabbath without all the original members, how do you react to that?

OZZY:
To be perfectly truthful to you, I’ve heard the occasional track on the radio with Dio and a few other singers, or the others drummers, and it’s difficult for me to relate to it. I’m too close to it. They said it’s a band called Black Sabbath and it didn’t mean anything. But what do you expect them to do? I would have liked the name Sabbath to have been shelved for a while, but I don’t own the name.

PCC:
And yet there’s so much excitement over the new project.

OZZY:
Yeah, because it’s the original four.

PCC:
Did the four of you talk about how to avoid reviving old conflicts?

OZZY:
It’s been years and hopefully we’ve learned.

PCC:
The way things broke up, was it easy for you to forgive and forget?

OZZY:
You know, if I would always have a f-ckin’ burr up my ass about things that have happened in my life, I would never get out of bed in the morning.

PCC:
Are you surprised at how into the band the young generations are?

OZZY:
Absolutely. I mean, I’m 50 in December and some of the kids weren’t even born when we were writing our first songs. It’s an honor, really.

PCC:
When did you first become aware of how much of an impact Sabbath had?

OZZY:
The first time I really, really had an inclination about Sabbath was when I went out on tour with Metallica in the 80s. They were opening up for me. And every time I passed their bus, going into the gig, I heard all the Black Sabbath songs coming out of the bus. I thought they were trying to f-ckin’ psych me out or something. They’re trying to piss me off. What’s up with that?

When you’re in something, you never realize. You just write songs and you think, “Oh, that’s good.” And then you get a break… But then their tour manager says to me, “No way, man! You’re the reason they got going in the first place!”

In my opinion, for the period of time when Black Sabbath wasn’t together, if anyone took over, I would have to say Metallica did.

PCC:
What about your relationship with the fans? Henry Rollins has talked about the way you relate closely to them, there’s no distance between you and the fans.

OZZY:
Well, I have fun with them. I hate when you go to a concert and it’s like your privilege to see the artist on stage. It’s my privilege to see the people who bought a f-ckin’ ticket, because if they don’t buy the ticket, I ain’t gonna have a f-ckin’ house over my head, you know? I never forget the days when I had nothing. And my job as front man is to go out there and give them the best show I can. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s f-ckin’ awful. But I always try.

PCC:
From the original Sabbath days, do you tend to remember the good stuff, rather than the troubled times?

OZZY:
I was stoned all the time, so my memory is very vague. I mean, we did a lot of traveling. And a lot of cocaine. And a lot of drugs. And a lot of booze. And f-cking a lot of groupies.

PCC:
I guess now life is totally different on the road.

OZZY:
No drugs. No groupies. [Laughs] Dogs and kids and wives.

PCC:
But it’s still fun?

OZZY:
Well, the difference between the Birmingham shows and the shows years ago is that I can remember these shows.

PCC:
You mention kids. How do your kids react to Black Sabbath?

OZZY:
You know, I haven’t really sat down and talked to them about it. Really, whether it be Black Sabbath or myself solo, I’m just Dad to them. I’m not that kind of guy, where I come home and demand that they bow down to me, because of who I am.

Sometimes I’m walking down the street and people will turn around and go [shouting] “Hey, man! It’s you, Ozzy!” And I go, “Oh, yeah, it’s me.” I’d forgotten who I am. I just want to be one of the guys, you know.

I love audience participation. When they sing along the lyrics with me, it sends shivers up my spine.

PCC:
Are you conscious of two Ozzys - the real guy and the stage persona?

OZZY:
Um, yes and no. I do my best to leave him, the performer, on stage these days. When you go home from work - some people do, some people don’t - I don’t want to take my work home with me. The performing side of me is one area of my work, but there are other areas of my work - signing photos, doing interviews, doing TV, doing radio, getting up at all kinds of hours and flying around the world to do this and that, you know. And then you’ve got to write new music, as well.

With the media, the information highway, you’ve got to be on the case all the time. You’ve got to try and tap into everything and it gets very hard.

PCC:
So does it seem like hard work?

OZZY:
I don’t look at it as work. I look at it as the most enjoyable… I like music. I couldn’t think of a better way of making a living than doing what I’m doing, because I love music. I don’t have to get up every morning and get in the car in traffic jams, going to a job that I hate, working for someone I hate, so I can take home a f-cking paycheck to a family that I don’t particularly care for.

I love my family. I love my job. I love my existence. I’m basically my own boss. You’ve got to do something to survive. I’m financially set up, but what am I going to do, sit in a big f-cking house somewhere and look out the window and wait till I die? This is the only thing I do.

And I haven’t abandoned my solo career, because of this Black Sabbath thing. None of us have. Tony is working on a solo album right now, as we speak. And Bill’s just finished one. Geezer’s working on another one. And no doubt, one day in the near future, I’ll start working on a new Ozzy album.

But the main thing I’m really happy about, at the moment, is that we’re all friendly again, after all these years. It’s so good. Because when I left Black Sabbath - or rather I got fired - it felt like it was unresolved.

We were all in tatters, because we’d been fired through that cannon once too many times. We were all rags and tatters. But so no one was any worse than anybody else. Someone’s got to carry the load. And unfortunately, I suppose it was me. And if wasn’t for Randy Rhoads, I don’t know where I’d be now. Randy Rhoads helped me get out of my depression.

PCC:
But you and the other guys in Sabbath are more friends that business associates now?

OZZY:
Absolutely. I leave the business to the management. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what the financial side of it is. And my wife, all the managers, there are four managers, they’ve all got managers, and they all sort it out for their artists. So nobody can come back to me and say, “You ripped me off” or my wife ripped their manager off or whatever. Whatever goes on, they’re all informed by their managers.

There’s not one person who’s got the authority to tell another person what to do and how much to do. It’s all discussed through the managers and then the managers take it down to the individual artists and say, “Do you want to do this TV interview with the band or do you not want to do this TV?”

So nobody can say I get too much publicity or Tony gets too much publicity or any of us gets this or that or whatever. So it’s all discussed freely and openly. And the way it is, is the way it is, take it or leave it. And that’s the only way it ever could have happened, because I’m not a negotiator, I’m not a manager. That’s why I’ve got my wife managing me. And she’s done a pretty damn good job so far, you know.

PCC:
After all these years, you all must have changed in some ways. What now brings you together as friends?

OZZY:
Friends and business, you can’t have, you know. You’re either in business or friends. We have a real good time, you know. That’s the way it should be, because, if you don’t get on with each other, how can you go on stage and be honest about your music and have fun with your music?

PCC:
But is it shared history, the love of music you have in common, the personalities?

OZZY:
I don’t know. It’s a chemistry that was meant to be. I have done covers of Sabbath songs in my set over the last 20 years. And I’ve done pretty good covers. But nothing is like the original.

PCC:
How old are you kids now?

OZZY:
15, 14 and 13.

PCC:
Are they really into music?

OZZY:
Yeah, but to be honest with you, I’m so busy, I don’t really know… I know they’re into Marilyn Mason a little bit. It’s all kinds of weird stuff. Whatever they want to listen to, I don’t have any problems with it.

PCC:
You mentioned your 50th birthday coming up, when you began could you ever have imagined still rocking at that age?

OZZY:
No way. I mean, I never thought I’d make it to my 25th birthday, you know.

PCC:
What do you think about rocking in your 50s?

OZZY:
You know what? I don’t feel any different now than I did when I was 40. And I don’t think I felt any different when I was 40 than when I was 30. But I never stop and go, “Wow! You’re 50!” I’m just a 50-year-old person. What am I supposed to do, just say, “That’s it. It’s all over. I’m going to retire. Resign?” What do you do? If you want to carry on, you carry on.

At any given time, whether you’re 20, 30, 40 or 50 or 60 or 70, you carry on as long as you want to carry on and then you’re free to pull the plug whenever you want to. But believe me, if there wasn’t any demand for me or for Black Sabbath anymore, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to play to empty halls. What I love doing is getting in front of an audience and working an audience. That’s what Ozzy is all about, whether it be a club or an arena or a festival or whatever, I love the feeling of being on a stage. It’s where I’m meant to be.

PCC:
Do you think people make too much of the age of rockers?

OZZY:
Oh, I haven’t heard it lately. But when I was younger, I used to think, “Oh, the f-ckin’ Stones, they’ve got to be over the hill, man. They’ve got to stop.” As you get older, you don’t feel older. How do you feel at 49? I don’t know. I’m telling you now, I feel great at 49. I wouldn’t want to be 21 again, because I was doing so many stupid f-cking things when I was 21. I still do stupid things, but not so often, you know?

PCC:
Sounds like you have a lot of exciting times ahead.

OZZY:
Well, that’s what I want. Until it becomes a problem, if I’m enjoying it, why should I stop? If I’m not enjoying it anymore, then I’ll stop.