From Rock's BackpagesOzzy OsbourneInterviewOzzy Osbourne on being Ozzy: 'You got to be somebody special'
Glenn O’BrienAs the Black Sabbath frontman prepares to release Memoirs of a Madman, here’s a 1986 Spin interview about going solo, accusations that his music encourages suicide and whether he puts secret messages in his songs
Black Sabbath to record new album and tour one more time
It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. I like to keep busy. Besides, this guy is something else.
What did I know about Ozzy? Not much. He bit a bat. He bit the head off a parakeet in the office of the president of Columbia Records. He used to be in a famous group called Black Sabbath. Now he is a solo act. All of his records are platinum. He was one of the rock stars targeted by the Parents Music Resource Centre. He’s a happily married family man and is friends with Dr Ruth Westheimer. I also knew that he had attacked a robot cocktail piano in the bar of a Central Park South hotel, and then wrote a manifesto to the musicians’ union on why he did it. And that he was being sued by the parents of a fan who committed suicide, allegedly while listening to Ozzy’s Suicide Solution.
I figured, hey, why not write about him? This is an interesting person.
OK, that’s all I knew about OO, I admit it. I say admit only because one expects a writer to be an expert on the subject, if not a partisan or foe. But everybody’s writing about Gaddafi. If they can write about Gaddafi, I can write about Ozzy. At least I’ve met the man.
I have never seen Ozzy perform. To my knowledge, before meeting Ozzy I’d never heard an Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath record, and I’m almost as old as Reggie Jackson. Ozzyites will say I should stop here, but I say: “By golly, it’s not my fault.”
I wouldn’t have accepted the assignment if I hadn’t seen this video on MTV. It was psychedelic in a real farmer-cheese kind of way. The group had really long hair and looked really adolescently cool, and had a sort of Cro-Magnonesque nobility about them. They were just standing there playing in front of a pastel light show that resembled the effect achieved by placing moderate pressure on the eyeballs. The music was really janitorial. I dug it. I figured it was the next big group. This is the most Stooge-esque group of the 80s, I reflected casually. Seconds later, I wondered if Redd Kross could have grown up so fast.
When the little tag came on at the end, it said the song was Paranoid by Black Sabbath. “Gosh,” I thought: “Black Sabbath is fresh.”
“Maybe,” I said to myself later, without moving my lips, “I really missed out on those 16 years of Black Sabbath.” Of course, I soon realized that was all water under the bridge. But it was not too late for me to meet Ozzy Osbourne.
Ozzy is on tour. His tours last years. He travels the country by bus with his band, his crew, and the guitars and flamethrowers and hardware. Today he’s in Garden City, New York. Tonight he’s at the Nassau Coliseum.
When you first see Ozzy, sitting there getting his hair blown dry by his personal hairdresser, you realise that you are in the presence of somebody. He looks like somebody. Maybe it’s aura. Maybe it’s attitude. Maybe it’s practice. Ozzy reminded me a little of Iggy Pop and a little of Mason Reese. His eyes are too big for his head. Baby fat makes him look smooth and cute.
Ozzy looks like a wild, fat, happy kid, like Piggy from Lord of the Flies grown up. Ozzy looks like the perfect scapegoat. He’s so cute. He looks like the chunky kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Is Ozzy the devil? It looks doubtful. Is he in league with the devil? Well, what league? The majors, the minors? Let’s look at the facts. If we’re going to have a witch-hunt, let’s at least bone up on our demonology. Let’s call a devil a devil, a gremlin a gremlin, and a troll a troll.
Ozzy is certainly not a devil. If anything, he is a benign gremlin, not dissimilar from the early Americann TV star Froggy the Gremlin.
Plunk your magic twanger, Ozzy. Hiya kids! Hiya! Hiya.
Ozzy doesn’t believe in magic, but he’s got the magic of rock’n’roll. I think Ozzy is basically into a demiurgically wholesome boogeyman mode. It’s a little primitive. Like postmodern Visigoth minstrelsy.
But it’s important for the kids. It’s a Resource, if you like. Oz is a panic, and as such rates as something of a landmark and deserves all the protections accorded landmarks.
Ozzy moves his chair into the sun. He looks out over Garden City and says to his valet: “Bring me a packet of those vitamins, will ya?”
“You look good, Ozzy.”
“I lost some weight.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight pounds.”
“How did you lose 28 pounds?”
“Jogged. I started jogging a lot. At one point, I was jogging three miles a day.”
They counted those miles on the speedometer of the bus from which dangled the bottle of wine Ozzy chased. Just kidding.
“I know this guy who was a bone-bender – what do you call it? – a chiropractor! He’s also got a sort of a clinic where he does hydro. Hydro! You know, they sort of suck of all the shit out of your body, clean your whole system out. He says red meat is fucking disgusting shit. It stays in there forever.”
Ozzy takes a large magenta-coloured antibiotic.
So, Ozzy … yourself.
“I’m Ozzy. I work hard. Play hard. Father of five children who I love dearly. I take vitamins every day.”
Ozzy is most effectively, some say brilliantly, managed by his wife, Sharon, professionally, personally, and maybe intimately, too. Between community property and the usual 10 to 15%, that would seem to give her a majority of Ozzy. But he seems to have enough of himself left to be happy. Sharon is home minding the kids. Ozzy has assistant managers, valets, hairdressers, and a big bodyguard to mind him and watch out for flying cookie jars.
So, Oz, what’s your day like?
“I live at night more than the day. I travel through the night. It keeps me out of trouble. If we stay in the town after the gig, it’s crazy. A photographer from your magazine came to the show last night, and he was white with fear at the end of the show. The audiences tend to get sort of very, uh … I don’t know why this last tour … I’ve noticed a hell of a lot of violence and destructiveness from the people. I don’t know if it’s the changing of time or what. When we did the Meadowlands, there was $172,000 worth of damage to the hall. I remember different tours from different incidents. But there seems to be a hell of a lot of tension in the people now.”
It is obvious that a person living in a state of pain requires a different form of religion from a person living normally. – Antonin Artaud, Theatre of Cruelty Manifesto
Do your audiences change?
“Definitely. The last tour I did, they were all into this glam kind of thing. We were touring with Motley Crue, and there was lots of chicks. This time we got lots of chicks, but the guys get real heavy. I don’t know why. But they’re cool, my people. They’re all right.
“I sat down and thought last night. I thought, ‘Fuckin’ ’ell, Osbourne, you been doin’ this an awful long time. Eighteen years I been doin’ this. It’s wild, man. It’s bigger than ever!
“I’m doing a part in a movie on Wednesday. The movie’s called Trick or Treat. It’s quite interesting. I’m looking forward to it. I play a vicar, a priest. One of these Bible-punchers who puts down heavy metal. I go on a chat show. The story is about a kid who has found this secret thing in a record and has become possessed by the demon in a heavy metal record. And he can do things.”
Do you think anybody ever put any secret messages in their records?
“I’m sure they did after people started claiming there were secret messages in there. I honestly believe that people don’t understand that as soon as they come up with an idea — they, not us — there’s always some little guy in a back-street band thinking, ‘Fuck this, I want to be where Ozzy is — I’ll do it!”
If I was going to put some backward message in a record I’d put in something like, “This is the Devil! Buy six more copies of this record.
“‘Six hundred and 66 more.’”
“A co-author of the Mr Ed theme song, which two Ohio ministers say conveys satanic messages, says his tune about the talking horse is innocuous – backward and forward. But the fuss is OK with songwriter Jay Livingston. Radio stations nationwide have been playing the song backward since the ministers complained, and Livingston gets royalties for it.” – New Orleans Times-Picayune
“You can make whatever you want out of whatever you want. They’re trying to sue me in California about this kid who shot himself. It says in this one line, ‘Breaking laws, locking doors, but there’s no one at home/ Make your bed, rest your head, but you lie there and moan/ Where to hide? Suicide is the only way out,’ or something. But that’s one paragraph in the song, and the song is about alcoholism. The danger of alcohol. A certain percentage of alcoholics can’t stand it any more, and they jump off a fucking building. They can’t live with it any more. But the press picks up on one line in a song and keeps shoving it down people’s throats. They’re saying this fucking song forced this kid to shoot himself. The kid was fucking well sick in the mind long before he ever heard an Ozzy Osbourne record. Why are they trying to tag it on us guys? To be Ozzy Osbourne, you got to be somebody special. Because they hit you with so much shit… if you were soft anywhere, if you were susceptible, a magnet for emotion, you’d be dead. And I cannot no way take no responsibility for some guy who puts a gun to his head. A guy in New York a few months ago got a big tax demand, and he couldn’t pay it, and he jumped out the window of a 50-storey apartment. What does his wife do? Sue the government!”
“You see a perfectly normal kid there who doesn’t show any signs of depression at all – happy. Then six hours later, he’s dead. Nobody can explain it. The only thing we know is that he was listening to this music.” – Mr McCullum
“They knew this record was going to encourage or promote suicide … I think we have in this case opposing forces: Satan and God.” – the McCullums’ attorney
“The police photo shows the headphones were still on when he died.” – Mr McCullum
“It’s gettin’ crazy. It’s like watching the rise and fall of the Roman empire. Being an outsider … I mean, I spend a lot of time in America, but I am a foreign person … and I really do love this country … but watching the different political changes and fashions, I see it going from happy faces to anger. I don’t know why they’re angry. Whether they’re getting high on some weird shit or what, I don’t know. It’s kind of very radical.”
Are there songs you don’t do now because it’s a message you no longer want to project?
“No. I suddenly realised that when I was a drug addict, I used to write things like Flying High Again, Snowblind, all this shit. And the other night, I thought, “Fucking’ ’ell, I sing one song for it and then straight after I sing one song against it.” But the thing is, that’s OK. Because that was where I was when I wrote that, so why shouldn’t I do it? It’s part of my life. It’s a part of what I am and what I will be. I might start singing fucking religious songs. I don’t think so, but if I choose to, why not? To think that you can’t sing stuff from your last album because now you’re a different man is bullshit. If they’re good enough to write and good enough to hear and to buy, then they’re good enough to sing onstage, you know? I’m not ashamed of anything that I’ve done in the past.
“We all have a little bit of a skeleton in our cupboard that we think, fuck, I don’t want to talk about that again. But it don’t really bother me, if I can help it. It’s like saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t bought a red car.’ You bought it, so drive it.
“I’m a Christian. I was christened as a Christian. I used to go to Sunday school. I never took much interest in it because … I didn’t. My idea of heaven is feeling good. A place where people are alright to each other. This world scares the shit out of me. We’re all living on the tinderbox. It’s like there’s some maniac somewhere trying to devise a new means of destruction. It always amazes me that mankind always goes to find the biggest, powerfullest means of destruction before they find anything good. It’s always the negative things they find first. Since I’ve had kids I’ve thought, ‘What are we leaving these people? Nothing.’ What a future we’ve got for mankind.”
Andreas Vollenweider said: “I wouldn’t play on the same bill as Black Sabbath or any other group with such an obvious unconscious negative approach.” Do you think you have an unconscious negative approach?
“These people are so ignorant. They’ve never listened to the band. They look at the album cover and think it’s shit. They ought to stop and listen to the lyrics. I write so much positive stuff! Food for the thought. Like Killer of Giants, Revelation Mother Earth, War Pigs – I could go on for years. If anybody thinks for one minute that I am a negative person, then they’re fucked. Because I am not a negative person. I am a very truthful person, true to what I believe. I can only do what I believe in. If I was a fake at what I was doing, I couldn’t do it.
What does you audience get out of your music?
“Energy. OK, I mention the word ‘death.’ I mention the word ‘evil’, but in the context of the story, it’s like Mary Had a Little Lamb. They all think I’m singing, ‘Satan, Satan, Satan, Satan … death, murder, murder.’ They think that’s all that comes out of my mouth. They never stop to listen. They’ve already prejudged me and tried me, and I ain’t gonna sit there trying to defend myself. Anybody that knows Ozzy Osbourne and knows what I’m about knows me anyway. And if doing what I’m doing is wrong, I’m sorry.”
Are there negative groups?
“I don’t really know. I never judge anything. I always think if people like it, there’s got to be something good about it. I don’t like certain things – thrash metal is too intense for me, and punk’s even worse. But that’s what I don’t like.
“They’re telling me I’m putting ideas of people shooting themselves in their heads. I was watching MTV the other day, and there was a band come on called the Pet Shop Boys, and you want to hear the opening lyrics of that song? ‘There’s a madman in town/ Put a gun to your head/ Pull the trigger.’ Something like that. I thought, my god, that’s probably going right over their heads, but if it was Ozzy Osbourne singing that song, I’d have fuckin’ pilgrims down at the hotel in a minute.
“I’m not sober. I still drink. Not as heavily. When I was on drugs, I always tried never to go onstage stoned. I used to get my highs after the show. The reason I quit taking drugs was I was bored. I was bored of being bored, sick and tired of being sick and tired. I should try and quit the booze, but I got to have some release. I don’t drink as much hard liquor as I used to. I drink a bit of wine and a few beers. It’s not as bad as it was. I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be totally sober. I can’t get to grips with it. It’s a hard thing to do.”
“Osbourne was unhurt when, on March 19, 1982, near Orlando, Florida, his tour plane, which was buzzing his tour bus, hit a house. Osbourne and most of his band were in the bus; Osbourne’s guitarist Randy Rhoads, hairdresser Rachel Youngblood, and pilot/bus driver Andrew Aycock were all in the plane and were all killed.” – Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll
“If hell is worse than this place, then those of us going to hell are on a hard ride down, baby. Hell, to me, is nuclear holocaust. It’s the biggest fear I have as a man. It worries the pants off me that we’re all going to blow ourselves to shit. And it will happen, I believe. I can see it will happen. I asked my old drummer Tommy, ‘Do you think they’ll use the atom bomb?’ And he said, ‘Ozzy, they’ve never made a gun that hasn’t been fired in anger. ‘I thought, ‘Shit that’s right, man.’
“I’d rather have people get rid of their aggression at an Ozzy concert than by beating some old lady over the head and running off with her purse. It’s a release of aggression. It’s built-in aggression. Why do they get young people to join the army? Because an older guy thinks, ‘Fuck you! I’m not going over that hill. You think I’m crazy?’ And a young guy will go, ‘Yeah! Let’s go get ’em.’
© Glenn O’Brien, 1986
Black Sabbath to record new album and tour one more time
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