Barney Hoskyns - Into the Void: Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath

Copyright 2004 Omnibus Press
This edition 2009 Omnibus Press
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ISBN: 978-0-85712-106-6

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I actually found you to be a rather shy and diffident character when sober, who was more interested in music than mayhem.

Keith Altham, No More Mr Nice Guy (1999)

I discovered that, once youd got past the sad clown facade, Ozzy was one of the very few rock stars who always told you exactly what he thought.

Mick Wall, Paranoid: Black Days with Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (1999)

Ozzy Osbournes some kind of mythical bird, this ungodly gargoyle, this saint

Chuck Eddy, Stairway to Hell (rev. edn, 1998)

By Barney Hoskyns

2003 note: In the summer of 2000, long before The Osbournes made Ozzy Osbourne even more of a household name than he already was, I got a call from a New York literary agent informing me that my name was at the top of a list of writers being considered for the job of assisting the singer with his autobiography. I suspect that several other people were probably told the same thing.

Why my name should have been on the list at all I have no idea. I had interviewed Ozzy once, back in the Bark At The Moon days, but none of my published books would have suggested I was an ideal candidate for the job. Still, I couldnt resist the invitation to spend a weekend with and around Brit Family Osbourne, midway through Ozzfest 2000.

Thus I found myself checking into a swanky suite at Chicagos Ritz-Carlton hotel. A little later I was summoned down to the hotels restaurant for a family lunch. Sharon Osbourne and her brood Aimee, Kelly and Jack were already at the table, squabbling and vying for their mothers attention. Impossible and spoiled as they were, I came to realise that all three of them were essentially secure in their mums love, and nothing Ive seen on The Osbournes has convinced me that that isnt still the case. I liked Sharon immensely, and she made me howl with laughter.

After a little while, Father Osbourne joined us. I was shocked by just how shaky he seemed, and how clearly he was just another of Sharons children. My journal entry for this first encounter reads as follows: The guy is very fragile, badly damaged, with just enough mischief left in him a mix of latterday/lobotomised Brian Wilson and daft-as-a-brush Paul Gascoigne.

Next day I wrote: Can I get a book out of Ozzy? Im encouraged by the fact that he called me this morning to suggest we breakfast together and that he opened up the more he began to trust me. Ozzy told me he wanted to call the book John his real name.

The following spring, in Johannesburg, I wrote this proposal for the Ozztome that never was or, perhaps, the book that became superfluous once The Osbournes had taken over the world of light entertainment.

If much of it is speculative what I hoped I might get out of him the piece still answers to my idea of what Ozzy Osbourne is about.

* * *

IM BACKSTAGE IN Chicago at Ozzfest 2000, soaking up the sheer scale of the event. In the midst of the madness stands Sharon Osbourne, Queen Bee of Monster Rock.

Tommy Lee rushes up and coils himself around Sharon like a tattooed snake in headscarf and nipple rings. Tommy introduces his new squeeze, and Sharon gives the girl a friendly hug. After theyve gone Sharon whispers, She wont last the tits arent big enough.

I follow Sharon into the Ozzfest nerve centre inside the complex, past Panteras dressing room and into a windowless interior where tour manager Nick Cua sits surrounded by phones and laptops, numbers and schedules plastered across the walls.

I note the sharp contrast between the diabolical imagery of Ozzfest and the sleek efficiency of Sharons operation. We watch her dealing with the days inevitable hassles: an old friend whos threatened Ozzys life; Metallica scheduling a free show in Cincinnati on the same day Ozzfest hits town.

Thats just so fucking cheap! Sharon snorts.

In the Ozzfest canteen, grizzly Texan roadies swap war stories of road life. The roaring stop-start redneck metal of Pantera thunders in the background.

I stand back from all this and reflect on the phenomenon of Ozzfest and what it represents: the endurance of hard rock, the evolution and mutation of nu metal, the alternative to alternative and the codified hipness of Generation Y. And all of it starting with a working-class boy from Birmingham heavy metals sad madman, the godfather of the tattooed tribes.

* * *

OZZY OSBOURNE MUMBLES about what its like for him to arrive at the gig, being led to his dressing room: how he experiences it, what hes aware of, what he chooses not to take in. What goes through his mind as he prepares for a big show: the little details about riders, set lists, costumes (Im 51, I dont want to look like an old queen up there); about the people around him, his warm-up rituals, the 5000 dumps he takes before hitting the stage. The fact that he listens to Paul McCartney and Annie Lennox before he goes on.

Sharon pops in to check on him.

Ozzy pauses to consider the paradox of how hes managed to keep doing this for over 30 years whilst suffering from a drastic lack of self-belief. He reflects on the split personality of the larger-than-life performer, and what OZZY OSBOURNE has come to represent in the eyes of the world.

Ozzy talks about how few people really know him, and how the world only sees his clowning, outrageous exterior. He reflects that long before he became Ozzy he was plain John Osbourne, a boy from Birmingham with little belief and even less hope. He looks in the mirror in his dressing room and wonders how many Ozzfests he has left in him.

Ozzy tells me he wants to tell the real story of his life and who he is. How he wants to get past the bat-eating clichs and reveal the truth about what goes on inside him: the comedy and the tragedy, the madness and the sadness, the four nervous breakdowns. How he wants to do something different from all the other rock autobiographies and really open up.

* * *

IM WATCHING THE hilarious video sequence that precedes Ozzys headlining set: Ozzy with Britney Spears, Ozzy fighting Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, Ozzy as Austin Powers, Ozzy with an outsized Afro shouting Whassup?!

Then I see Ozzy on his throne as it swivels round. He jumps down and starts pogoing to Evil. I watch Ozzy struggling to get into the show the reality of having to perform when you feel like shit. COME ON, YOU MUTHAFUCKERS!! He runs to the side of the stage, gulps from a big cup and sprays his throat