Ozzy Osbourne has opened up about his relationship with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, explaining that their professional relationship was less than stellar.
Late last month, Ozzy Osbourne discussed Black Sabbath’s final tour between 2016 and 2017, noting he wasn’t “allowed to have fucking fun” while out on the road.
“It’s too serious,” he explained to Rolling Stone. “Tony [Iommi] was trying to have a go at me, saying, ‘Don’t fucking talk over my solos.’ I go, ‘OK, are you sure? ‘Cause most of the fucking song is solos. The intro to the song is fuckin’ five minutes and then I sing for about two seconds and then it’s another one.’”
“With my own thing, I’m looking to have fun, and that’s what music’s about for me. I’m not a serious fucking singer. I’m just a frontman who’s trying to get the crowd going in front.”
The iconic rocker had also touched on the subject a few months earlier, explaining that he was “getting bad vibes from them for being Ozzy”. Now, Osbourne has opened up about his professional relationship with Tony Iommi.
Speaking to The Times, Ozzy Osbourne explained that despite being seen as the group’s de facto leader, he was always playing second fiddle to Iommi.
“Do I like working with him? Not really,” Osbourne mused. “Do I like him as a person? Yeah, I love him as a person.”
“But if people was to say to me, ‘Was there a leader of Black Sabbath?’ I’d have to say it was Tony Iommi because without his guitar riffs we’d be still sitting in fucking rehearsal with our thumbs up our arses going, ‘What do we do now?’”
“I’ve moved on,” Osbourne continued, noting he felt like “a hired gun” in the band. “I’ll tell you what it was like. It’s like when you’re younger and you met a girl, Susie, and you break up and you don’t see her for 30 years.”
“Then she’s in town and you go, ‘Oh, I’ll give Susie a call,’ because your memory only remembers the good parts and you can narrow it then to a week and you go, ‘I remember that week and it was lovely.’ But then you go back and you go, ‘I forgot the fucking four and three-quarter years I was fucking miserable.’”
While Ozzy Osbourne is currently out on his final world tour (which includes a stopover in Australia for the Download Festival), he also explains that he’s much more fond of performing as a solo artist these days.
“Now I’m in control and it’s so much better,” he explained. “I get more pleasure out of doing the gigs now.”
Check out Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Crazy Train’:
Download Festival 2019 Lineup
Sum 41 (Only Aus Shows)
Pennywise (Only Aus Shows)
Thy Art Is Murder
Polaris
Twelve Foot Ninja
Slaves
Voyager
Joining…
Ozzy Osbourne (Only Aus Shows)
Slayer (Final World Tour)
Judas Priest (Only Aus Shows)
Alice In Chains
Ghost
Rise Against (Only Aus Shows)
The Amity Affliction (Only Aus Shows)
Anthrax
Halestorm (Only Aus Shows)
Behemoth
Me First And The Gimme Gimmes
I Prevail
Converge
Frenzal Rhomb
Luca Brasi
Code Orange
Andy Black
The Fever 333
War On Women
High Tension
Outright
Ruins
Alien Weaponry
Download Festival Australia 2019
Saturday, March 9th, 2019
Parramatta Park, Sydney, NSW
Monday, March 11th, 2019 (Long weekend)
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, VIC
