The only musician Ozzy Osbourne didn’t want to join Black Sabbath: “Worried how the fans would react”
Any band always relies on some sort of chemistry to get them to where they are. Even if they aren’t the most skilled musicians in the world, there’s normally that sixth sense that separates them from the pack and makes them inseparable from each other. Although Ozzy Osbourne eventually figured that he could build up his own heavy metal empire outside of Black Sabbath, he wasn’t always comfortable with the people who were itching to join the group while he was in their ranks.
Then again, the thought of replacing ‘The Prince of Darkness’ was never going to be an overnight decision. The band may have relied on Tony Iommi’s thundering riffs, but the main appeal was seeing the rock and roll equivalent of a madman beating let out of his cage and fronting the group whenever he got up to sing ‘Paranoid.’
However, Sabbath was already changing well before Osbourne was out the door. As far back as Master of Reality, they had already begun working around different guitar tunings, and even when adopting some of their slower material, Osbourne proved that he was willing to grow as much as his colleagues when working on tracks like ‘Solitude.’ For a lot of fans, though, things started to take a strange turn once they broke out the keyboards.
Much like Van Halen would run into later, most fans aren’t always that thrilled when the one responsible for the riffs ends up tickling the ivories, and Iommi’s turn on ‘Changes’ wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms. If Iommi couldn’t make the piano snarl the same way he could make a guitar, he knew the next best person who could make the band sound sinister without guitars.
When putting together the basis of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Iommi ran into Rick Wakeman of Yes in a pub and suggested that he put on the keyboard parts for the album. And despite his organ sounding like it was coming from the depths of Hell when working on ‘Sabbra Cadabra,’ Wakeman remembered getting some severe pushback from the frontman when they started getting along a little too well.
According to Wakeman, he was set to join the group up until Osbourne started sticking his nose into things, saying, “Tony Iommi, who I have remained great friends with over the years, once told me the band were seriously considering asking me to join them at one point, because we got on so well and they were looking to expand their sound. But Ozzy was worried, probably quite rightly, about how the metal fans would react.”
As it turned out, Osbourne didn’t need to worry about a damn thing by the time Wakeman got behind the keyboard. He did have the reputation of being the cosmic wizard of progressive rock, but let’s not forget that he could be as much of a musical chameleon as anyone else, eventually scoring hits with David Bowie and his son eventually touring with Sabbath in their later years.
For all of the naysayers who felt that keyboards didn’t belong in metal, Wakeman has joined the club that includes artists like Jon Lord who proved that a piano can sound ferocious in the right context. The guitar will always be heavy metal’s weapon of choice, but the right person behind the keys can always get the most demented sounds out of it.
