When Iron Maiden crossed a line with Ozzy Osbourne: “That wasn’t fair”
Black Sabbath recently announced that they would be playing their final show in July 2025. Joining them are a range of other heavy metal bands such as Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Slayer; however, one of the most prominent metal bands in the world is missing from the line-up: Iron Maiden. Why is this? Probably scheduling; however, for the sake of gossip and speculation, let’s look into the friction between Bruce Dickinson and Ozzy Osbourne that could contribute towards Iron Maiden opting out of the Sabbath show.
When you think about heavy metal bands with big fan bases, big sounds and an iconic look, it’s hard to think of anyone other than Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. The two are giants of the industry, responsible for shaping music as we know it, and generally being titans of the industry. What they’ve done for hard rock is truly staggering, and so when it was announced they would be touring together, the musical world lost its mind.
When it comes to doing outlandish things on stage, there are few people who can rival Ozzy Osbourne. His screeching vocals are one thing, but the way in which he delivers them is another thing entirely. He would run around the stage like a man possessed, work with props, and even once famously bit the head of a bat.
A lot of people weren’t happy with this behaviour. For instance, John Lydon said he gave the working class a bad name with his onstage antics. “But since then, the rumours of biting heads really, really haven’t impressed me,” he said, “Ozzy now acting like a senile delinquent is equally unimpressive. The sly innuendo of promoting drug abuse and catatonic stupidity offends me […] By acting like he does all the time, he implies that we’re all stupid, the working classes. But we’re not, you know. We’re not! We’re the proper Britain, us lot.”
While some people might not have liked Osbourne’s stage presence, the metal world was obsessed with it. He became one of the biggest names in the genre, and people would turn up to shows simply to see what he might do next. Surely, after such an outrageous act, there was nothing anyone could do on stage that would offend Osbourne? Well, enter Bruce Dickinson on the Ozzfest Tour.
A lot of people were excited when Iron Maiden were added to the bill for Ozzfest, and Bruce Dickinson wishes he could have shared their enthusiasm, but he wasn’t a fan of the festival the moment he joined the team. The reason was simple: he didn’t think it was very rock ‘n’ roll because it was so commercialised. He never explicitly said anything to Osbourne, but rumours were circulating that Dickinson had been criticising the tour both on and off stage at every chance he got.
While this might not be as outrageous as biting the head off a bat, Osbourne thought that it was very poor form for Dickinson to take to the stage every night and criticise the man who was putting him on it. Some of the comments made by the Iron Maiden lead singer about how “We don’t need a reality show to be legit” rubbed Osbourne the wrong way, and the two ended up falling out over it.
“Unbeknown to me, every night he was going on stage slagging me off,” said Osbourne, “That wasn’t fair. If he didn’t like the fuckin’ tour, he should have said, ‘I’m jumping [off] the fuckin’ tour’, but to go on stage and fuckin’ slag me off for no reason… I’d never said a fuckin’ bad thing to him.”
