The most significant moments of Ozzy Osbourne’s life
Ozzy Osbourne is genuinely one of a kind. The ‘Prince of Darkness’ has that unique Midlands humour to him that allowed him to never take himself too seriously despite the crazy amount of success he enjoyed both with Black Sabbath and in his own brilliant solo career.
Osbourne’s career was also highlighted by a number of erratic incidents, including eating bats and doves, killing cats, trashing a hotel room with a dismembered shark (why so many animals?), poisoning his bandmate Tony Iommi and even drugging a vicar.
He was also known not just to dabble in illicit drug use but absolutely go at them with full force. Ozzy Osbourne is a rockstar in every sense of the word; in fact, he is beyond that term; he is the ‘Godfather of Metal’.
To celebrate Ozzy’s birthday today, let’s take a look at some of the most significant moments of his life, from his early working days right up to playing shows this year. Here we go.
The most significant moments of Ozzy Osbourne’s life:
Working in the slaughterhouse
From humble roots in Birmingham, Ozzy had a normal job, just like everyone else. Well, I guess Ozzy’s particular job wasn’t so “normal”… He worked in a slaughterhouse before forming Black Sabbath, where he had a talent for gouging the eyes out of cattle and removing their feet. Fitting stuff for his future career.
Discussing his first profession, Ozzy said, “It wasn’t because I was killing animals. It was because when you’d finished the kill, you could go home. You’d get there at six in the morning and, depending on how many cattle you had to kill, sometimes you’d be back home three or four hours later. So you had the rest of the day off. That was better than working nine to five in an office.”
Forming Black Sabbath
However, Ozzy was always destined for great things. Following the breakup of two Birmingham bands, he got together with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward to form arguably the most influential metal band to ever grace the earth. They originally went by the name of the Polka Tulk Blues Band, but after seeing how popular the horror genre had become, they decided to name themselves after a horror flick that was showing in a cinema over the road one night after a gig.
Black Sabbath was born, and the four Brummie boys never looked back. The band released their self-titled debut album on Friday, 13th November 1970, and it set the tone for the rest of their career: dark down-shifted guitar riffs with evil, haunting and occasionally political lyrics. The record set Sabbath apart from their contemporaries, and the genre of metal took its roots.
Getting fired from Sabbath, starting a solo career
Several excellent albums followed Sabbath’s debut in the form of Paranoid, Master of Reality, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Vol. 4. However, Ozzy’s position as the band’s frontman was called into question in the late 1970s. The band’s alcohol and drug use had always been on the border of destructive, but Ozzy’s, in particular, was beyond excessive.
Tony Iommi later said, “At that time, Ozzy had come to an end. We were all doing a lot of drugs, a lot of coke, a lot of everything, and Ozzy was getting drunk so much at the time. We were supposed to be rehearsing, and nothing was happening.” When Ozzy left the band in 1979, Ronnie James Dio replaced him, and Ozzy launched his own solo career a year later.
Marrying Sharon Arden
Ozzy met Sharon Arden in 1970, but their relationship was not romantic until Ozzy left Sabbath in 1979 and Sharon started managing his solo career. They married in 1982 and had three children, Aimee, Kelly and Jack, over the next few years. However, Ozzy and Sharon’s relationship was often marred by Ozzy’s drug use and erratic behaviour.
In fact, Ozzy had been sent to a medical detention centre when he allegedly tried to kill his wife. “I had no idea who was sat across from me on the sofa, but it wasn’t my husband,” Sharon said of the incident. However, despite such difficulties, Sharon stood by her husband, and she was to play a vital part in his life.
Biting the head off a bat
Ozzy’s solo career proved to be a success, and some of his best vocal work came on ‘Crazy Train’ and Blizzard of Oz. America took Ozzy into their open arms for his wild behaviour and killer tunes. One of the most infamous events of Ozzy’s life came in 1982 when he bit the head off a bat during a show in Iowa.
However, Ozzy had mistakenly thought the bat was a rubber toy. He later said, “Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin”. It was Ozzy at his most ubiquitous.
Being stoned out of his mind on The Osbournes
In 2002, a new reality TV show aired on MTV entitled The Osbournes. It detailed the life of Ozzy, Sharon and their children (although Aimee declined to be involved) in their home in Los Angeles. The programme showed Ozzy being completely stoned out of his mind while the rest of the family got all to all manner of things.
Ozzy can barely remember filming any of the show, and Jack Osbourne once explained that his dad had, in fact, hated being part of it. He said, “My dad did not really like doing The Osbournes because he was coming off the heels of musicians who didn’t do that. Musicians always had this air of mystery about them, you know, and there was this very public persona, and it was calculated, and this, kind of, pulled that back.”
Playing the final tour
Sabbath reformed with Ozzy in the late 1990s and continued to record and tour together over the next few years. Between 2016 and 2017, the band embarked on their final tour together, although Bill Ward was replaced by session drummer Tommy Clufetos. Ozzy said of the tour, “This is it; it’s definitely run its course.”
Fittingly, the final show came in February 2017 in Birmingham. Ozzy had said that his emotions would probably have him cry at the conclusion of the show. He simply said at the end, “Thank you, goodnight, thank you so much.” Tony Iommi had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2012, which put an end to his touring schedule, although he said he would be keen to play a one-off show in the future.
Playing the Commonwealth Games
That one-off show did come earlier this year when Sabbath got back together to play the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, which was being hosted in the band’s hometown. It was only Ozzy and Iommi who played the show due to the ill health of Ward and Butler, but they treated the crowd to perfect renditions of ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Paranoid’.
The duo were joined by Clufetos on drums once again and Adam Wakeman on bass. It was a complete surprise performance and even disrupted the ten o’clock news on BBC, but no one seemed to mind as it was the most influential metal band of all time back where they belonged in celebration.
Announcing to the public his Parkinson’s diagnosis
Ozzy had first been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease back in 2003, but he had kept it private from his fans since then. Recently, however, the legendary singer has opened up on his experience with the disease. “You think you’re lifting your feet, but your foot doesn’t move. I feel like I’m walking around in lead boots. I reached a plateau that was lower than I wanted it to be. Nothing really felt great. Nothing.”
He added, “So I went on these antidepressants, and they work OK. You learn to live in the moment because you don’t know [what’s going to happen]. You don’t know when you’re gonna wake up, and you ain’t gonna be able to get out of bed. But you just don’t think about it. Without my Sharon, I’d be fucking gone. We have a little row now and then, but otherwise, we just get on with it.” It was a feat of bravery for Ozzy to share his diagnosis publicly; he truly is a hero of his generation.
