The one band Ozzy Osbourne was told was always out of reach
The media never liked to paint Ozzy Osbourne as someone burdened with intelligence.
While he was one of the most sinister figures in all of rock and roll back in the day, the more bumbling persona that he had in his later years was a lot more charming than what people might have expected out of the same guy who bit heads off bats and sang the scariest Black Sabbath songs of all time. But even during his prime with his old band, ‘The Prince of Darkness’ had to face the reality that people were keeping them at bay from the biggest rock stars on the planet.
Granted, it’s not like Sabbath were exactly in the same league as The Beatles or anything. Osbourne idolised the Fab Four growing up from the first time he heard ‘She Loves You’, but when looking at his legacy in regards to influence, Osbourne may have been as important in the history of rock and roll as John Lennon and Paul McCartney through the sheer sound of his music.
Because if the core pieces of the British invasion were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, Sabbath were the heavier distant cousins as the 1960s came to a close. They were a lot more dangerous than what most people expected, but alongside Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, they were pointing the way towards an alternative for kids who wanted something heavier than what Keith Richards could deliver.
It’s not like Sabbath didn’t see it that way, either. A lot of the members of Zeppelin were friends with them, and even when working on some of their records, John Bonham had said that he wanted to play on ‘Supernaut’. They all got along well enough, but when counting out the stacks of cash at the end of every night, Osbourne said their management screwed them over so hard that they were convinced that they were out of Zeppelin’s league.
There was a definite hierarchy in the world of rock, and as far as Osbourne was concerned, Sabbath were lost in the lurch compared to Zeppelin, saying, “The management we had never made us realise how big we were. We always used to think we were lower than Zeppelin. We even used to share rooms for Christ’s sake for many years until we demanded to have our own rooms on their own. We were ripped off ruthlessly, and I said to my ex-manager, ‘I’d like to be kissed when I’m getting fucked.’”
It’s clear that Sabbath were influencing millions whenever they made records, but the idea of them being one rung lower than Zeppelin seemed believable enough back in the day. From a critical standpoint, Sabbath were practically the pariahs of the hard rock scene compared to Zeppelin and Purple, so it was easier for managers to spin some narrative about them being one notch below everybody else.
If they were being ripped off this much, though, they did have all that anger for where it mattered: the studio. As much as the band’s later records with Osbourne were tied up in legal battles, Sabotage was the result of them channelling all those years of getting ripped off into tier music, especially with Osbourne wailing away on songs like ‘Hole in the Sky’ or Tony Iommi really digging in on ‘Symptom of the Universe’.
Osbourne might have been the victim of a few snakes in the industry, but his story of rising from the ashes of Sabbath is a lesson in what happens when you apply yourself. Most people wouldn’t have wanted to enter the industry again after spending day after day in court, but Osbourne knew that the best revenge is getting a whole new career out of the deal.
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