The “most dangerous” tour Ozzy Osbourne ever played: “A force to be reckoned with”
Anyone looking to join Ozzy Osbourne on the road really needed to know what they were getting into.
‘The Prince of Darkness’ was already one of the biggest names in music by the time he reached the early 1980s, and even though he was clawing his way back to heavy metal stardom all over again, his first two albums deserve to go down in legend as the greatest second act that any musician has ever taken. But Osbourne knew that he couldn’t manage to play the same kind of music all over again when he entered the era of MTV.
He was still being treated like a god among men every single time he walked out of his house and onto the stage, but there was a lot more that the world had to offer than singing a bunch of songs. The radio stations were quickly being taken over by everyone’s TV screens, and since Osbourne was looking to make music for all metal fans, it was much easier for him to make videos for songs like ‘Shot in the Dark’ than doing the average performance video.
It also helped that he had some of the greatest kids in metal out on tour with him. He already had the ingenious move on playing in small clubs as a headliner act before climbing up the ladder all over again, but even after the death of Randy Rhoads, every single musician that opened for them has endless stories of them having a ball every time that Osbourne hung out backstage.
Because at his core, Osbourne was always a softie when it came to people who loved metal. He just appreciated the idea that someone was willing to listen to his music, and it wasn’t that hard for him to get along with someone if they wanted to talk about old Beatles records. But back in the day, a lot of Osbourne’s favourite people were those that he liked to party with behind the scenes.
He tried everything to keep himself on the straight and narrow every time he played, but anyone looking to have a clean bill of health probably shouldn’t be hanging out with a band like Motley Crue every single night. They were still a bunch of nice kids when Osbourne first met them, but he felt that the chances of them going out on the road and no one getting seriously hurt was practically a pipe dream.
And after Razzle from Hanoi Rocks passed away in between legs of the tour at one of the Crue’s parties, Osbourne began to understand just how out of hand their partying had become, saying, “Mötley Crüe were a force to be reckoned with back then. They were the heavy version of the glam rock kind of deal. I was well established but Mötley Crüe were coming up fast. It was a good package. But it was one of the most dangerous tours I ever did. I said that to [manager] Doc [McGhee] one day, ‘It’s getting so crazy…’”
When they weren’t having real injuries, though, Osbourne’s competition with Nikki Sixx to see who could gross each other the most is the stuff of legend. No one would have guessed that Osbourne would meet his match in the unsavoury department, but the idea of him actually lapping up someone’s urine and snorting ants during the tour is the kind of lunatic behaviour that no one would ever want to witness.
For all we know, though, this whole thing could have just been a normal Tuesday for Osbourne. He already looked like one of the most insane madmen to have ever walked across the stage, so the idea of him getting onto one of the most dangerous tours of all time almost makes sense for the same guy that once bit the head off of a live bat.
