Ozzy Osbourne, the co-founder of iconic metallic group Black Sabbath, has handed away.
Osbourne was a pioneer of the aggressive music fashion that morphed into heavy metallic with the discharge of Black Sabbath’s eponymous album in 1970 – although the style title wasn’t embraced by Black Sabbath and different bands till nearly a decade later. Even so, Black Sabbath’s first six albums are nonetheless hallmarks of the fashion. As a solo artist, Osbourne was equally profitable, recording three hit albums in a row that included onerous rock and metallic classics comparable to “Crazy Train,” “Flying High Again,” “Mr. Crowley,” and “Bark at The Moon,” In later years, Osbourne loved extra acclaim with extra melodic fare like “Perry Mason,” “Mama, I’m Coming Home” and “No More Tears.”
His accomplishments in leisure tower above these of different metallic icons: Thousands and thousands of albums offered, top-grossing excursions, three Grammy Awards (two with Black Sabbath, one solo), an Emmy (for the hit MTV actuality present The Osbournes), a spot within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, a touring metallic pageant named after him (Ozzfest). But whereas Osbourne was a gifted songwriter, commanding performer, and extensively emulated lyricist, he was nearly as well-known for being a unfastened cannon whose outrageous antics over the a long time earned him the nickname the Prince of Darkness.
All through Black Sabbath and far of his solo profession, Osbourne was each demonized and deified for his addictions to medication and alcohol and his wild conduct, which led to missed excursions, canceled exhibits, and a number of journeys to rehab.
Like members of Motley Crue, Metallica, and Van Halen (to call a couple of), Osbourne’s escapades included damaging and destroying lodge rooms, automobiles, and different property, however he was much more unhinged than most of his rock friends. In 1979, Osbourne was kicked out of the extremely unstable Black Sabbath for being too unpredictable. With the assistance of his supervisor Don Arden’s daughter, Sharon Arden, Osbourne cleaned up and returned to the stage. (Sharon and Ozzy would later wed.)
As a solo artist, he was musically reborn. Along with towering in reputation over the band that fired him, Osbourne scouted and groomed a sequence of guitar heroes, together with Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, Brad Gillis, Zakk Wylde, and Gus G.
Osbourne’s profession resurrection didn’t calm his wildman persona, nonetheless. It intensified it. The singer made headlines for biting the pinnacle off of a dove at a file signing social gathering for his first solo album, The Blizzard of Ozz; decapitating a bat together with his tooth whereas touring for his second album, Diary of a Madman; and getting arrested for urinating on the Alamo in San Antonio whereas sporting one among his spouse’s attire. He was subsequently banned from enjoying the town till 1992, when he apologized and donated $10,000 to the nationwide monument grounds. He was additionally institutionalized after making an attempt to strangle his spouse and supervisor, Sharon Osbourne, throughout an alcohol blackout.
“I was born with the attitude of all or nothing. For me, one is too many, and ten is not enough,” Osbourne instructed Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral Historical past of Metallic. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life and there’s one thing I’ve learned. A stupid thing has and always will have a stupid result. You cannot do a stupid thing and expect a different result. Sometimes I’ve jumped and I’ve gone, ‘That is stupid,’ and it’s too late. I’m already falling and I’ve got to crash and burn.”
Early years
Osbourne was born in Marston Inexperienced Maternity Hospital on December 3, 1948. One in every of John Thomas Osbourne and Lilian Osbourne’s six kids, Ozzy grew up poor in a small two-bedroom residence in post-war-shattered Birmingham. He attended major college with future Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who was a 12 months older than Ozzy and reportedly intimidated his youthful classmate. It could be shut to a different decade earlier than the 2 made a musical connection. At school, Ozzy was teased for sporting retro hand-me-downs and having hassle studying as a result of his undiagnosed dyslexia. Although he by no means excelled academically, he loved performing in and watching musical theater. However it was listening to the Beatles’ “She Loves You” on the radio that motivated him to need to be knowledgeable musician.
Osbourne dropped out of highschool when he was 15 and labored varied blue-collar jobs, together with in building, plumbing, toolmaking, and at a slaughterhouse, the place he killed cattle. He co-formed his first band Uncommon Breed with bassist Geezer Butler in 1967. When the band broke up, Osbourne positioned a flyer within the native music store: “Ozzy Zig requires gig.” Iommi, who had performed with drummer Invoice Ward within the bands The Relaxation and Mythology, responded to the advert.
Black Sabbath
After a fast jam session, Osbourne, Butler, Iommi, and Ward fashioned The Polka Tulk Blues Band with a slide guitarist and a saxophone participant. Choosing a leaner lineup and a much less disjointed sound, they broke up the band and reformed because the quartet Earth. Whereas they had been initially a progressive blues band, one among their songs, “Wicked World,” sounded extra gloomy and ominous than their different tunes. From that time on, Earth determined to discover a heavier fashion of rock rooted in plodding beats, overdriven energy chord guitar riffs, minor-key hooks, and Ozzy’s sneering nasal melodies. Earth gigged repeatedly, however when a reserving agent confused them with one other band of the identical identify – a lot to the chagrin of a membership filled with well-dressed patrons seeking to let off steam and dance – Osbourne and Co. modified their identify to Black Sabbath, the title of a 1963 Mario Bava horror film starring Boris Karloff.
Black Sabbath’s self-titled 1970 album was recorded in two days and remains to be well known as a groundbreaking heavy metallic album. Black Sabbath, which started with the sound of rain and a tolling bell, was a haunted fortress of sound imbued with crunching, distorted riffs, lumbering beats, occult-based lyrics, and flattened fifths, dissonant, unnatural-sounding notes that gave the music a distinctly sinister really feel.
Capitalizing on their quickly rising reputation, Black Sabbath launched their second album, Paranoid, in September of the identical 12 months. The album mixed materials they composed on the highway with passages they got here up with within the studio. Though shortly assembled, it yielded among the band’s greatest hits, together with the title monitor, “Iron Man,” and “War Pigs.”
In 1971, Osbourne met Thelma Riley at a nightclub in Birmingham, and the 2 shortly acquired married. The couple had two kids, Jessica and Louis (who appeared within the paintings of Ozzy’s second solo album Diary of a Madman), however the marriage didn’t final as a result of Ozzy’s full-time dedication to Black Sabbath. A lot of his revenue subsequently went to little one assist. Whereas touring America, the place Black Sabbath’s debut reached quantity 12, the members had been uncovered to the excesses and indulgences of the rock world – cocaine, LSD, tablets, groupies, and oceans of alcohol – and for years, they consumed like gluttons, particularly Osbourne. But for about 5 years, vice didn’t gradual the barrelling machine, and Black Sabbath continued to evolve as songwriters and gamers, churning out 4 extra metallic classics years whereas sustaining heavy tour schedules.
Nonetheless, by 1976, it grew to become unattainable for the band to maintain up the hectic tempo and by the point they launched their seventh and extensively panned album Technical Ecstasy, it was clear Black Sabbath had been unfocused and unhinged. Having been fleeced by their former administration, and discovering themselves in an period typified by industrial music and punk rock, Black Sabbath took a stab at mainstream songwriting, fueling their compositions with jaunty keyboards, power-rock riffs, and softer melodic tones that didn’t join with their followers.
The ironically-titled By no means Say Die! was the top of the road for Ozzy-Sabbath for a few years. Once they wrote the 1978 album, the band was so disoriented, they had been unable to inform if what they had been doing was any good. So that they threw some bluesy licks and jazzy frills right into a batch of workmanlike songs and referred to as it a day. By no means Say Die! was neither memorable nor compelling and was shortly forgotten. After a disastrous tour, Black Sabbath fired Osbourne, citing his unwillingness to indicate as much as observe and his incapability to carry out as a result of binges that left him practically incoherent. Black Sabbath changed Osbourne with former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who would enter and exit the Sabbath fold a number of instances over the following 30 years.
Solo years
Recognizing that Osbourne nonetheless had public attraction, songwriting chops, and showmanship expertise, Sharon Arden, daughter of Sabbath supervisor Don Arden, befriended and supported Ozzy. She was particularly touched by his self-deprecating humorousness, and inspired him to taper his excesses and return to the stage. He took her recommendation and she or he labored to place collectively an all-star lineup. Quickly after, Osborne entered the studio with guitar virtuoso Randy Rhoads (ex-Quiet Riot) and recorded his debut solo album, The Blizzard of Ozz, which was launched within the U.S. in March 1981 (six months after its UK launch). The album included the hits “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley,” “I Don’t Know,” and “Suicide Solution,” and peaked at #21 on the Billboard charts. A staple of metallic by means of the a long time, the album finally offered greater than 5 million copies within the U.S.
With fame, got here controversy. After reluctantly agreeing to attend a promotional occasion at his new file label, Jet, Osbourne strengthened his wildman repute. “I entered the building, and I was very drunk, very stoned,” he instructed Louder Than Hell. “Sharon said to me there was this guy in the room that would throw these two fucking doves up in the air as a peace offering. I threw one in the air and bit the other one’s head off and threw it on the table. And they just fucking freaked. And, before the day was out, it was all over the press, flying all over the world and I was the bad man and the asshole of the fucking year. They banned us from the building – from my own record company.”
Executives at his new label had been afraid to be wherever close to Ozzy, however they realized he was an untapped goldmine – a performer with a definite voice, large stage presence, and a present for melodies. In November 1981, Jet launched Ozzy’s second album Diary of a Madman, which reached #16 on the Billboard 200 and included the hits “Flying High Again,” “Over the Mountain,” and “Tonight.” Whereas touring for the album, Osbourne garnered extra headlines after the bat incident, which occurred on January 20, 1982, in Des Moines, Iowa.
“When we were on tour, people would bring meat and fucking bits of shit and throw it onstage,” he instructed Rolling Stone. “As the tour progressed, it jumped from meat to dead animals and cats. And on top of it, I had these Halloween rubber bat things on the stage. Unbeknownst to me, I picked [the bat] up and I put it in my mouth and bit down on the fucking thing and it crunched. It turned out to be a real bat. I had to go to the fucking hospital and get precautionary rabies shots. If you’re gonna do something as stupid as me, be warned that these rabies shots are not fucking worth it. It fucking hurts like a son of a bitch. It feels like someone’s injected 60 fucking golf balls in your ass. It was nothing short of agony. I made the front page everywhere and I couldn’t even get out of the fucking bed to read it.”
The cringe-inducing episode paled compared to the life-changing tragedy that derailed Osbourne two months later. The band was driving from Knoxville, Tennessee to Orlando, Florida in the course of the night time when the bus driver pulled over close to Leesburg, Florida. The bus driver, Andrew Aycock, was additionally a pilot, and was seeking to fly the band in his airplane at a close-by airfield. Osbourne and Arden had been deep in slumber when Ozzy’s tour supervisor and one different passenger took a flight with the pilot and landed safely. Then, Rhoads and Osbourne’s seamstress and make-up designer, Rachael Youngblood, hopped onboard with Aycock. The pilot circled the bus 3 times however on the fourth go, the left wing of the airplane clipped the roof of the bus and the airplane careened into the storage of a home, killing everybody on board. Osbourne was devasted and sunk right into a despair. The tour was postponed whereas Osbourne mourned and administration looked for a alternative for Rhoads, who remains to be considered one of many best neo-classical metallic guitarists of all time.
“Randy would have gone on to do such great things,” Osbourne instructed Penthouse. “Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t go on the plane, too. Had I been awake, I definitely would have been there.”
Osbourne and his bandmates returned to the highway for a handful of exhibits with bluesy ex-Gillan guitarist Bernie Tormé, however he didn’t gel musically, so Evening Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis stuffed in for the remainder of the tour, which yielded the 1982 reside album Communicate of the Satan, which featured all Sabbath covers and was spitefully launched the identical 12 months as Black Sabbath’s reside album with Dio, Reside Evil.
Ozzy and Sharon married on July 4, 1982, in Maui, Hawaii. He selected the date partially so he would always remember their anniversary. For an extended whereas, their relationship was tempestuous – stuffed with equal elements chaos and affection. “Our fights are legendary to people in this business,” she instructed Penthouse. “We’d hurt each other a lot. We had a great fight once at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York. We beat the shit out of each other. And then the next day we’d be loving and kissing. I could give him as good as he gave me. I was never one of those women who go, ‘Oh, god, he slapped me, I’m going to call a policeman.’ If somebody slapped me, I’d slap them back, but three times. And if Ozzy would throw something at me, then I would destroy the fucking room.”
Upon his return to the studio, Osbourne recruited guitar whizz Jake E. Lee, who performed on 1983’s Bark on the Moon and 1985’s The Final Sin, each of which fared properly. Sad together with his monetary association with the band, Lee give up and the Osbournes recruited younger and gifted guitarist and songwriter Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society), who grew to become Osbourne’s go-to man, having performed 4 multi-year stints with Ozzy between hiatuses, Black Sabbath reunions, and Black Label Society albums.
Whereas Osbourne’s love affair with medication and alcohol lasted on and off for many years, he was usually a functioning abuser, in a position to write, tour, and file with some enabling from his handlers and bandmates and occasional return journeys to rehab. Offstage, he was an impish troublemaker and referred to himself as extra Dennis the Menace than Beelzebub. However on September 2, 1989, after touring for the tremendously profitable No Relaxation for the Depraved, Ozzy was drunk in mattress in his underpants when he felt the urge to go downstairs and strangle Sharon, which resulted in a short spell in jail, then obligatory rehab.
“He was on an unbelievable roll of drug-taking, drinking, making drug concoctions that were hidden all over the house,” she instructed Penthouse. “All these different drugs. And he would go through these times where he would make concoctions of everything and take it with the booze, and he was on an outrageous roll for a week. On the seventh day, he tried to kill me. He tried to strangle me, but seriously. I got to the panic button for the alarm, and the alarm system went off, and the cops came within a few minutes, and that was it.”
“When you drink, that’s when you become Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because I honestly didn’t know [what I was doing], and that was the biggest fear I had because I had become a blackout drinker,” he instructed the journal throughout one among his clear and sober intervals. “It was horrendous. I was just waking up and thinking, ‘What the fuck have I done now?’ You wake up covered in blood and you don’t know where the blood’s come from?”
The Nineteen Nineties
For his album No Extra Tears, Ozzy sought writing assist from Wylde and Lemmy Kilmister (who penned 4 songs). The album got here out in September 1991, the identical 12 months Nirvana turned the rock world upside-down with Nevermind. Regardless of the general public’s waning curiosity in metallic, No Extra Tears offered 4 million copies (second solely to the 5 million-seller Blizzard of Ozz) and featured the singles “No More Tears” and “Mama I’m Coming Home.” Exhausted from a long time of touring, Osbourne introduced the No Extra Excursions tour, which was meant to be his farewell from the highway. Unable to acclimate to a stay-at-home life-style, Osbourne returned to the studio a pair years later and launch Ozzmosis in 1995, which was supported by the Retirement Sucks tour.
Viewing an open window to capitalize on the success of main bundle excursions together with Lollapalooza, Sharon and Ozzy’s son Jack Osbourne assembled Ozzfest, which launched in 1996 with a two-city occasion headlined by Osbourne and that includes Slayer, Danzig, Sepultura, and others. On the finish of 1997, Osbourne reunited with Black Sabbath for 2 hometown exhibits on the Birmingham NEC Enviornment. The gigs had been recorded and launched in 1998 as Reunion together with two new studio tracks, “Psycho Man” and “Selling My Soul,” written by Osbourne and Iommi.
The following 12 months, Ozzfest expanded to 21 U.S dates and featured units by the reunited Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne solo, Pantera, Sort O Adverse and plenty of extra. Black Sabbath and Osbourne alternated pageant years and Black Sabbath performed a solo tour after Ozzfest in 1999. The band’s final 12 months on the pageant tour was in 2001, nonetheless, whether or not Sabbath and even Ozzy was on the invoice, Ozzfest remained a multi-city monetary success till 2006 and expanded all through North America, Europe, And the Far East.
The 2000s
Ozzy and Sabbath break up up once more in 2006 and Ozzy labored on his solo album Black Rain. Across the identical time, Black Sabbath sans Ozzy reunited with vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who performed on three profitable post-Ozzy Sabbath albums. The band referred to as itself Heaven and Hell after their 1980 album of the identical identify. Along with touring, Heaven and Hell launched the album The Satan You Know in 2009 after which hit the highway onerous. Nonetheless, Dio was identified with aggressive abdomen most cancers on the finish of 2009 and died in 2010. The surviving band members had been devastated and mourned for his or her good friend and vocalist. Then, they began talking with Ozzy and Sharon once more and agreed to reconnect with producer Rick Rubin, with whom they’d made some unfinished demos in 2001, shortly earlier than Ozzy break up to complete vocals for his solo album All the way down to Earth.
The Osbourne songwriting hit machine slowed down within the aughts; he launched three solo albums between 2001 and 2010, however that didn’t sign any lack of public publicity. Certainly, Osbourne was in every single place in 2002 when his warts-and-all actuality present, The Osbournes, debuted on MTV and everybody in his household instantly grew to become a family identify. The Emmy Award-winning program adopted the foul-mouthed, argumentative, and offbeat household by means of their each day lives and was embraced by critics, followers, and curiosity-seekers alike. Success was adopted by misfortune; Sharon was identified with colorectal most cancers, which unfold, necessitating chemotherapy. She suffered an extended sickness, however survived, then opted for a double mastectomy. And Osbourne’s son Jack, sideswiped by sudden notoriety and nervousness about Sharon’s sickness, grew to become hooked on OxyContin.
Then, in 2003, although clear and sober, Osbourne suffered a life-threatening harm whereas driving an ATV by means of uneven terrain on his 150-acre property in Buckinghamshire. He hit a bump and the car began to flip ahead. As he instructed Dianne Sawyer, “I got on the bike and the last thing I remember, something in my mind went, ‘bad move. Something really bad is gonna happen.’ And I go, ‘Oohuh-oh.’”
Osbourne was thrown over the handlebars and landed onerous on the bottom. The 600-pound ATV flipped on prime of him, and the 2 continued to roll; Ozzy wasn’t sporting a helmet. A bodyguard was in a position to pry Osbourne from beneath the car and carried out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation twice earlier than Osbourne began respiration once more. Osbourne was rushed to the hospital the place he was identified with fractured neck vertebrae, eight rib fractures, {a partially} collapsed lung, and a shattered left collarbone. He additionally broken a blood vessel, and medical doctors needed to carry out emergency surgical procedure to revive blood movement. And, they inserted pins into his again and neck to stabilize the bones and allow Osbourne to maneuver round. A lot of the ordeal, in addition to Sharon’s chemo classes, had been captured by MTV digicam crews and had been broadcast on The Osbournes.
The later years
In 2006, after 11 years of eligibility, Black Sabbath had been lastly inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame (Ozzy has but to be nominated for the Corridor of Fame as a solo artist). In 2010, Ozzy launched his New York Instances bestselling autobiography I Am Ozzy, which he adopted a 12 months later with Belief Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy: Recommendation From Rock’s Final Survivor.
Then in 2012, the unique members of Black Sabbath – Osbourne, Iommi, Butler, and Ward – reconvened with Rubin to write down and file their closing album, the extremely praised 13, which got here out in 2013 and recaptured the band’s doom-laden glory years. In 2012, Iommi was identified with lymphoma however continued with plans to tour with Black Sabbath regardless of needing chemotherapy therapies between legs of the top-grossing tour. The exhibits ran from 2012 to 2014, and Iommi, although ailing, toughed it out. He obtained extra therapy for his sickness and introduced he was in full remission in 2016, simply in time for one final swing all over the world together with his legendary band.
Black Sabbath’s farewell tour, The Finish, ran from January 20, 2016, to February 4, 2017. For the tour, the band launched a titular EP that includes 4 unreleased songs from the 13 classes and 4 reside tracks recorded between 2013 and 2014. It was the ultimate official Black Sabbath providing to function unique studio materials with Osbourne.
The tour got here to an finish in Birmingham, England, and was commemorated with the live performance movie, Black Sabbath: The Finish of the Finish, which got here out in September. Two months later, Black Sabbath launched the ultimate live performance, The Finish: Reside in Birmingham.
Having accomplished his work with Black Sabbath, Ozzy returned to his solo profession. He booked the tongue-in-cheek tour No Extra Excursions II, however needed to cancel exhibits within the U.S. and Europe and delay studio classes for his subsequent album after he suffered the flu and bronchitis and was admitted to intensive care. Plans for future touring and recording had been additional jeopardized when Osbourne suffered a extreme fall in his home in early 2019, dislodging the pins that had been inserted in his neck and again when he flipped his ATV in 2003. “I went to the bathroom in the night, lost my balance, and landed flat on my face,” he instructed The Every day Mail.
The accident was one of many first indications that Osbourne was affected by Parkin 2, a uncommon type of Parkinson’s Illness. Osbourne revealed the prognosis in 2020 to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. “I got a numbness down [my] arm… My legs keep going cold,” he stated.
Decided to maintain working, Ozzy completed Peculiar Man, which got here out in 2020. The album featured an all-star lineup, together with Slash, Tom Morello, Chad Smith, Duff McKagan, Charlie Puth, and Kelly Osbourne. As well as, Put up Malone, Travis Scott, and Elton John guested on the file. Regardless of the celebration, Osbourne’s well being continued to say no.
In April 2022, Sharon introduced that Osbourne had COVID. Then, got here an much more disconcerting revelation. On the June 8 episode of her UK TV program The Speak, Sharon cryptically instructed the viewers that Osbourne “has a very major operation on Monday, [June 13], and I have to be there. It’s really going to determine the rest of his life.”
Throughout a prolonged surgical procedure, medical doctors eliminated and realigned the pins that had been damaged throughout Osbourne’s earlier fall. The process wasn’t a whole shock. Ozzy had beforehand instructed the journal Basic Rock that he wanted an operation as a result of he was too weak to carry out. “I’m just waiting on some more surgery on my neck,” he stated. “I can’t walk properly these days. I have physical therapy every morning. I am somewhat better, but nowhere near as much as I want to be to go back on the road. I don’t plan on going anywhere, but my time’s going to come.” Osbourne held on for a couple of years after the process, even headlining a memorable closing present referred to as Again to the Starting on July 5, 2025. It’s going to stand as a becoming goodbye to one of many legendary metallic musicians of the twentieth century.
