The moment Frank Zappa met Ozzy Osbourne
Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne has more than his fair share of tales to tell. From biting the head off a live bat to being arrested for urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph, the Brummie metal legend is more than deserving of his tag ‘The Prince of Darkness’.
A walking, talking embodiment of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, Osbourne’s life has seen him embark on many adventures, with a cast of prominent faces cropping up regularly in his story. He confirmed this in his 2009 autobiography, I Am Ozzy. Detailing his life, from his childhood in Birmingham to the heights of Black Sabbath and the crushing lows of his drug and alcohol abuse, in what is an undeniably compelling read.
One of the most entertaining anecdotes Osbourne provides in the book is the moment he met Frank Zappa, the avant-garde pioneer, who, like Sabbath, was ardently against the era’s prevalent hippie culture. In an intriguing trip down memory lane, Osbourne revealed that this convergence occurred in the mid-1970s when both acts stayed at the same hotel in Chicago. Excited to be in the same establishment as one of their heroes, Sabbath were invited to Zappa’s Independence Day party. Unsurprisingly, this tale is brimming with laughs.
Osbourne starts: “Another crazy thing that happened around that time was getting to know Frank Zappa in Chicago. We were doing a gig there, and it turned out that he was staying at our hotel. All of us looked up to Zappa – especially Geezer – because he seemed like he was from another planet. At the time he’d just released this quadraphonic album called Apostrophe (*), which had a track on it called ‘Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow’. Fucking classic. Anyway, so there we were at this hotel, and we ended up hanging out with his band in the bar. Then the next day we got word that Frank wanted us to come to his Independence Day party, which was going to be held that night at a restaurant around the corner.”
He continued: “We could hardly wait. So come eight o’clock, off we went to meet Frank. When we arrived at the restaurant, there he was, sitting at this massive table, surrounded by his band. We introduced ourselves, then we all started to get pissed. But it was really weird, because the guys in his band kept coming up to me and saying, ‘You got any blow? Don’t tell Frank I asked you. He’s straight. Hates that stuff. But have you got any? Just a toot, to keep me going! I didn’t want to get involved, so I just went, ‘Nah,’ even though I had a big bag of the stuff in my pocket. Later, after we’d finished eating, I was sitting next to Frank when two waiters burst out of the kitchen, wheeling a massive cake in front of them. The whole restaurant went quiet.”
The Black Sabbath vocalist proceeded to describe how eye-catching the cake was. It was made in the shape of a naked woman, with a lewd main exhibit, in a reflection of the culture of the time. He recalled: “You should have seen that cake, man. It was made into the shape of a naked chick with two big, icing-covered tits – and her legs were spread wide apart. But the craziest thing about it was that they’d rigged up a little pump, so champagne was squirting out of her vagina. You could have heard a pin drop in that place until the band finally started to sing ‘America the Beautiful’.”
Adding: “Then everyone had to have a ceremonial drink of the champagne, starting with Frank. When it was my turn, I took a long gulp, screwed up my face, and said, ‘Ugh, tastes like piss.’ Everyone thought that was hilarious. Then Frank leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘Got any blow? It’s not for me – it’s for my bodyguard!'”
He added: “‘Are you serious?’ I asked him. ‘Sure. But don’t tell the band. They’re straight.'”
This was not the first time that Osbourne and Zappa crossed paths. The next time they connected would be somewhere much closer to home for the former, in his hometown of Birmingham. It was late at night, after Zappa had played a show in the city, and he required some good food, as what they served at his Holiday Inn was “terrible”. However, due to it being so late, there wasn’t anywhere open apart from a curry house that Osbourne was reluctant to take his peer to.
Osbourne remembered: “I saw Frank again a few years later, after he’d done a gig at the Birmingham Odeon. When the show was over, he asked me, ‘Is there anywhere we can get something to eat in this town? I’m staying at the Holiday Inn, and the food’s terrible!’ I told him, ‘At this time of night, there’s only the curry house on Bristol Street, but I don’t recommend it.'”
Reflecting the dry humour that Zappa was famous for, Osbourne concluded his humorous tale: “Frank just shrugged and said, ‘Oh, that’ll do, I’ll have a go.’ So we all went to this dodgy Indian joint – me, Frank, Thelma and some Japanese chick that Frank was hanging out with at the time. I told Frank that the only thing on the menu he shouldn’t order, under any circumstances, was the steak. He nodded, looked at the menu for a while, then ordered the steak. When it arrived, I just sat there and watched him try to eat it ‘Like old boots, is it?’ I said. ‘No, actually,’ replied Frank, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. ‘More like new ones.'”
