Ozzy Osbourne’s issues with Van Halen: “It was really upsetting”
The touring lifestyle isn’t usually the best for morale in a hard rock band. The idea of going to one city after the next and being expected to be at 100% every single day is bound to wear on any musician, let alone someone who earns their living off of playing the most intense music that they can possibly give. Although no one could really touch what Black Sabbath was doing in the 1970s, Ozzy Osbourne remembered feeling a bit agitated once Van Halen were opening for them.
But before Sabbath reached those heights, their peers were already looking at them in the exact same way. Even though most artists welcomed acts with a darker edge to their sound, Osbourne’s yelps behind Tony Iommi’s guitars were considered a major turnoff at the time, with most people thinking that they were just a watered-down blues outfit out to scare people.
Yes, they did have blues in their veins, but this was no gimmick. Iommi was on the verge of creating an entirely new genre, and Eddie Van Halen was paying attention from half a world away. As much as Van Halen liked to strut their stuff in the early days, Eddie was the one bringing heavy riffs into the equation, including playing tunes like ‘Lord of This World’ live in between their original material.
Once Van Halen got the chance to go on the road with Sabbath, though, bassist Geezer Butler remembered ‘The Prince of Darkness’ keeping a close eye on David Lee Roth, saying, “As the tour went on, Dave Lee Roth started copying, became like an Ozzy clone. It was really upsetting Ozzy at the time, because, whatever Ozzy did one night, Dave Lee Roth had said the same thing the next night. It was upsetting Ozzy. Then, Eddie was doing these extended solos, so Tony had to have a word of him about that.”
At the same time, telling Eddie that he couldn’t carve out a spot in the set to solo is like telling The Beatles that they would have to play their entire show with Ringo Starr singing every song. The guitar feature is a part of their DNA, and no amount of snooty headliners was going to stop Eddie from becoming one of the most sought-after guitarists in the world.
And considering how foreboding Osbourne looked in the beginning, the idea of Roth trying to mimic him is laughable. While the Sabbath frontman could entertain a crowd in any situation, Roth struck a balance between being a frontman and the MC of one of the greatest parties that the world had ever seen whenever he got onstage.
If Osbourne did harbour any resentment, though, it was water under the bridge as far as his bandmates were concerned, with Iommi becoming fast friends with Eddie and the pair continuing to check in on each other throughout their careers. Osbourne may have felt cheated, but anyone who was looking to pull the plug on Van Halen was already fighting a losing battle before they even got started.
