It was a sweltering London day in August 2022 when I met Ozzy Osbourne in person for the last time at a posh hotel near Hyde Park. I took a seat, but the Prince of Darkness had to lay down since he was exhausted from his triumphant comeback performance in his hometown of Birmingham the night before, when he performed “Iron Man” and “Paranoid” with his Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi. He’d made the decision to get onstage as a headliner for the first time in four years at the last minute since he was battling several health setbacks. But he was in good spirits.
“Is it hot in here or am I … fucking hell,” he sputtered. “We haven’t quite reached America yet with the air conditioning [in England].” Nevertheless, here he was, glistening sweat and all, undeniably “Ozzy” in spite of his pain and the uncomfortable heat. He wanted to discuss how reinvigorated he felt after getting onstage again, as well as his recent close calls with fate (he held out his hands to show me that his Parkinson’s meds were keeping him stable) and how even he couldn’t believe that he was still alive. He’d grown up living on the poverty line, but now he could afford the same hotel Winston Churchill stayed at.
We spoke for about four hours that day, and he gamely answered every question I threw at him — topics my Rolling Stone editors wanted me to ask for a profile tied to his latest (and now last) studio album, Patient Number 9, and my own inquiries about everything I’ve ever wanted to know about his storied career. I’ve been an Ozzy fan since age 12, when I bought a double-cassette of Live & Loud based on how much I loved his “Mr. Tinkertrain” and “Road to Nowhere” videos on MTV.
“I think you’re not writing an article,” he teased me when we reached the three-and-a-half hour mark, “you’re writing a fucking encyclopedia.” We both laughed because that wasn’t the first time he felt that way speaking with me.
Ozzy and me: Backstage at the Prince of Darkness’ Allentown, Pennsylvania concert in 2018
Courtesy of Kory Grow
Over the past 15 years, I took advantage of every opportunity to interview Ozzy since he was my favorite artist when I was growing up, and, well, because he was always fun to talk to. My records tell me I conducted 20 interviews with the Prince of Darkness about music new and old, his travel TV series with his son Jack (the only time he really saw the world, since he was often cloistered in hotel rooms on tour), and the birth of heavy metal (not to mention liner notes for Black Sabbath’s Paranoid box set and The End concert film). Across all those interviews I was able to build what I felt was a special rapport with him. I think he felt the same way since he always ended our interviews by saying, “If you need anything else, just call the office,” which is something few artists of his stature ever offer.
Today, as I process the news of his death, I’m making sense of not only Ozzy Osbourne’s impact on music and pop culture but the immense impact he had on my life. I remember listening to that Live & Loud tape in the back seat of a car with another 12-year-old friend who was listening to Sabbath’s Paranoid, and our moms telling us we were listening to the same singer. I remember attending his incredible Retirement Sucks concert in Denver in 1996 as well as Ozzfest there in 1997 (with a lineup that pound-for-pound bests any Coachella in my book, because not only did you see Black Sabbath and Ozzy solo but you also got Pantera, Type O Negative, Fear Factory, Machine Head, and Neurosis). I saw Ozzy solo or with Black Sabbath at least 25 times live and can recall each show if I think hard enough.
Initially, as a preteen, I was attracted to the danger of his music, the way he stared down and embraced darkness and how he was a self-proclaimed “rock & roll rebel.” But as I learned more about him, reading interviews in fanzines, I came to appreciate another side of him. I came to look up to Ozzy as a brilliant and innovative musician as well as a flawed human who spoke openly about his struggles with alcoholism and how he wanted to better himself. For as controversial as his legacy was, beheading winged animals and urinating on American landmarks, he seemed like a role model to me since he always strived for something more. He could be down but he was never out.
Life changing: A 2005 meet and greet at Tower Records
Courtesy of Kory Grow
The first time I met Ozzy was in 2005, as a 24-year-old at a Tower Records cattle call meet and greet with hundreds of other fans. I told him then how his music had changed my life, and he immediately quipped back, “It changed mine, too” — the sort of dry-yet-honest wit that made him so endearing to the mainstream on The Osbournes. It was a reminder that Ozzy was famous because of his great music, but he was a legend because he was also relatable.
His response also made me feel better about being shuffled off for the next fan, because I’d have something unique that he told me to remember in case I’d never have the opportunity to speak with him again. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.
The first time I spoke with Ozzy as a professional was when I was an editor at Revolver magazine. It was in Sony Music’s New York office, and I was nervous, but Ozzy put me at ease, answering questions about his new album, 2010’s Scream, and my own questions about Randy Rhoads, the late guitarist who co-wrote two of Ozzy’s best albums, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, with him. We spoke for maybe 45 minutes, but it seemed to fly by. I’d compartmentalized any fandom and it was about half an hour afterwards that it hit me, “I just interviewed Ozzy Osbourne!“
The real work began when I played my cassette back and had to decipher Ozzy’s famously incoherent mumbling. But when I did, I discovered he’d made little jokes and callbacks to jokes that I hadn’t picked up on in person, and it was even funnier and more fun to read. It gave me a better sense of his personality and it primed me to listen even closer to what he said the next time I spoke to him.
With time, I learned it was best to ask Ozzy questions as clearly and concisely as possible and to just let him talk. He often surprised me with his wit (such as when I played to his interests as a World War II buff with my question about Adolf Hitler’s alleged micropenis, which he turned into a deeper rumination on the Fuhrer’s failed sex life), and he wasn’t shy about telling me if he didn’t like one of my questions (he swore Black Sabbath weren’t a heavy metal band, because that tag included bands like Poison) or if he simply didn’t have an answer for me. For instance, I’ve asked all four Sabbath members at one point or another what inspired my favorite song of theirs, the opening cut of their masterpiece Vol. 4 album, “Wheels of Confusion,” but none of them, including Ozzy, had any particular memories of it. It’s nevertheless one of the most moving pieces of crushing heavy metal I’ve ever heard. (They all did remember the drug escapades that surrounded the time though in vivid and hilarious detail.)
No matter the situation, Ozzy was always earnest and gracious every time we spoke. In 2016, his manager and wife, Sharon, cordially invited my wife and me backstage to say hello to them before Black Sabbath performed a tremendous concert in Chicago on their The End tour. We saw Ozzy warm up his voice, he showed me a Lemmy Kilmister poker chip that he carried around with him to remind him of the late Motörhead frontman and his dear friend, and he recommended a serum he used to keep his vocal cords fresh to my wife, who sings opera.
The beginning of ‘The End’: Backstage at Black Sabbath’s 2016 concert in Chicago
Courtesy of Kory Grow
When I interviewed him backstage at a concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania two years later, when he was kicking off his farewell tour as a solo artist, he showed me a picture of his beloved pet dog, Rocky, who was too scared to travel with him, as well as the doodles of skulls he made to keep his own nerves at bay. At the time, he was adamant that he’d still do gigs here and there after the tour, but a staph infection and a middle-of-the-night fall ended his performing career early. He told me about the staph infection with his typical candor (his thumb was swollen to “the size of a fuckin’ lightbulb”) and later described to me in vivid detail how awful the tumble had been. Then he revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
It was hard for me to hear how broken he sounded when we’d do phone interviews after that, especially since I could hear how “with it” he was mentally and how excited he was to record new music, like his excellent Ordinary Man and Patient Number 9 albums, even if his body was rebelling against him. But once he worked through his frustrations (I always expressed compassion for his state), he’d warm up and he could still vividly describe photo shoots he did for his album sleeves and he sounded excited about a new song he recorded with one of his best friends, Billy Morrison.
So it was incredible to see how rejuvenated he felt in 2022 after singing a single song with Iommi, more than half a century after they’d formed Black Sabbath. “I never think I’m going to win,” he told me then. But for that one night, he felt like a winner. That’s when it dawned on me that what made Osbourne truly special was his underdog spirit. He told me a long story about how he regretted acting like a jackass around Eric Clapton once, so he was honored that Clapton would perform on his album; he didn’t think he was in the same league, even though he was. That humility is the what made me and everyone want to root for him, whether as an artist or as a befuddled reality TV dad, for more than half a century. But for as much as he wanted to get onstage again, he’d play only one more one-off appearance and his Back to the Beginning farewell concert after that gig.
A few weeks ago, I watched the whole Back to the Beginning livestream. For as much as I would have loved to travel to Birmingham to see the concert live, the event was scheduled to take place a day after the due date of my baby daughter. Luckily, my she arrived a little early, so we were able to watch the whole 10-hour livestream as a family, marking her first “concert.”
Seeing Ozzy on his throne, looking frail but sounding strong, was emotional for me. There was something revealing about how he sang “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” with his broken voice that touched me deeply. It was a soul-baring display of his humanity, pure Ozzy, fighting to succeed just like he had the last time I’d met with him. He was determined to win. I watched that performance again and again on my iPad during late-night bottle feedings over the past few weeks (I kept the stream active by rewinding every day), and seeing it repeatedly was moving for me each time because I knew from talking to Ozzy just how much it meant to him to say goodbye the right way.
In the music industry, you often hear the adage, “Never meet your heroes,” because they’ll disappoint you. But Ozzy never let me down, mostly because I was able to see firsthand how hard he strived to succeed. In the end, he was incapable of being anyone other than Ozzy Osbourne. “My life has just been unbelievable,” he once told me. “You couldn’t write my story; you couldn’t invent me.” He was right, too. I just felt lucky he wanted to spend hours of his life telling me his stories.
