The musician Ozzy Osbourne called the “most important” in any rock band
Each member of a traditional band has a persona. The frontman, like Ozzy Osbourne, for instance, will naturally be the most charismatic by default and bear the entire performance on his/her shoulders.
The guitarist and the drummers follow after, with music credibility to go along with performance charisma, but it has been the bass player’s responsibility to be the one to do it.
While all remaining members of the band are running wild, causing chaos and taking the glory, they stand there holding the fort and proving the root notes that allow the song to remain on its intended course. Bill Wyman, John Entwistle and Geezer Butler are perhaps some of the finest examples of this quality.
The latter in particular was the beating heart of this new aggressive brand of rock that Black Sabbath was championing. In Ozzy, they had a charismatic and unpredictable leader whom they needed to give creative license. But he had a knack for delivering vocal melodies that paired so well with Tony Iommi, showcased best perhaps on the seminal Sabbath track ‘Paranoid’. Osbourne’s vocals painted in between the lines, Iommi’s guitar painted, and together, the pair made a formidable duo.
Naturally, Osbourne always leaned more towards melody than rhythm. As much as he loved Butler, he’d be the first to admit he never really gave much thought to the role of a bassist in a band. That all changed fairly recently, though – in 2022, while working with producer Andrew Watt.
While working on his two solo albums, Ordinary Man from 2020 and Patient Number 9 from 2022, Watt said, “Osbourne toned down and highlighted the integral role of a bass player.”
“He would always say to me, ‘Listen to Led Zeppelin and tell me what the loudest thing is,'” Osbourne recalled. Naturally, he fell into the trap most of us Zeppelin fans do when listening to their discography. “And me, having my confidence, I’d be like, ‘It’s the drums. John Bonham.’ He said, ‘Nope, not the drums. It’s the bass.’”
Ozzy continued, “He pointed out the bass is the most important thing in a rock song. You have to make sure the bass is there and pumping and cutting through and providing that sense of rhythm, because it’s the bridge between the drums and the guitars.”
John Paul Jones is perhaps the greatest example of this idea, for he played the grounding role in a band who were hellbent on exploring the musical stratospheres. As Robert Plant’s vocals soared high into the sky, Jimmy Page’s guitar lines spiralled, and John Bonham’s drums provided the unbridled power, Jones kept it tight and on course.
But no one could blame Ozzy for slightly overlooking this part of songwriting. While in Black Sabbath, and to some extent during his solo career, his role was nothing more than injecting the song with wild charisma and energy. The result of freeing him up this way? Well, just some of the most iconic vocal performances of all time that did justice to the basslines and took the songs into stratospheric new heights.
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