Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

‘D’you want to shag his girlfriend?’ I said, pointing at the troll in question.

‘What?’

‘His bird. D’you think she’s a bit of a slag, or would you give it a go?’

‘Ozzy, are you fucking insa—’

That was when the bloke went fucking stage-five apeshit. He roared, threw down his pint—beer and shards of glass went everywhere—then he lunged towards me, but I ducked out of the way. Uh-oh, I thought. This could get nasty. Then he tried to take a swing at Bill, who had a look on his face like he was tied to a railway track and the Flying Scotsman was coming down the line. At this point I was sure that one or both of us would be spending the next month in hospital, but I hadn’t counted on what Tony would do next. He saw what was going on, ran over to the giant redhead, gave him a shove, and told him to fuck off out of it. Now Tony was smaller than the red-head, a lot smaller, but he was an incredible fighter. The redhead didn’t know that, of course, so he went for Tony’s throat. They wrestled for a bit, the redhead got some jabs in, but then Tony just cracked him full-on in the face and kept pounding away—bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!—until the bloke went down like the Titanic.

Crraaaassssshhhh!

I watched, mouth wide open, as Tony shook the pain out of his fist, wiped the blood off his face, then calmly carried on packing up his equipment. No one said a word.

Later, when we were in the van on the way to our next gig down the road in Workington, I thanked him for saving our arses. He just waved me away, told me not to mention it again.

Bill, on the other hand, didn’t speak to me for a week.

Can’t say I blame him.

When we got back to Aston, Tony said he wasn’t happy with Alan and Jimmy. Jimmy fucked around too much in rehearsals, he said, and there wasn’t any point in having a saxophone player if we didn’t have a full brass section. And no one wanted a full brass section—we’d need a double-decker tour bus, for starters, and we’d never make any dough after splitting the takings on the door with half a dozen trombonists and trumpeters.

So that was it: Alan and Jimmy were out, and the Polka Tulk Blues Band became a fourpiece. But Tony still wasn’t happy. ‘It’s the name,’ he said, during a rehearsal break. ‘It’s crap.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ I protested.

‘Every time I hear it, all I can picture is you, with your trousers round your ankles, taking a fucking dump.’

‘Well, you lot think of something then,’ I huffed.

‘Actually,’ announced Bill, ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about this and I’ve got an idea.’

‘Go on,’ said Tony.

‘You’ve got to imagine it written on a big poster. Like a bill-board or something.’

‘I’m imagining it,’ said Tony.

Bill took a deep breath. Then he said, ‘Earth.’

Tony and Geezer looked at each other and shrugged. I ignored them and pretended to look worried.

‘Are you OK, Bill?’ I said, narrowing my eyes.

‘I’m fine. What do you mean?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’

‘It’s just… I thought I heard you throw up just then.’

‘What?’

‘UUUUUURRRRRRRRFFFFFF!’

‘Fuck you, Ozzy.’

‘UUUUUURRRRRRRRFFFFFF!’

‘Just give it some fucking thought, will you? It’s simple, powerful, no bullshit, just five letters—E-A-R-T-H.’

‘Bill, honestly mate, I think you should go and see a doctor. I think you just threw up again.

UUUURRRRR—’

‘Ozzy, cut it out,’ snapped Tony. ‘It’s better than Polka fucking Tulk.’

‘I agree,’ said Geezer.

That was that.

Officially, we didn’t have a band leader. Unofficially, we all knew it was Tony. He was the oldest, the tallest, the best fighter, the best-looking, the most experienced, and the most obviously talented. He’d really started to look the part, too. He’d gone out and bought this black suede cowboy jacket with tassels on the arms, which the chicks loved. We all knew that Tony belonged right up there with the likes of Clapton and Hendrix. Pound for pound, he could match any of them. He was our ticket to the big time.

Maybe that’s why I felt so intimidated by him, even after we became friends. Or maybe it was just because he’s such a private and reserved person. You never really know what’s going on inside Tony Iommi’s head. He’s the total opposite of me, in other words: no one’s ever in any doubt about what’s going on in the pile of old jelly inside my thick skull.

I didn’t feel intimidated by Geezer, even though he’d been to a proper school and actually knew stuff. As for Bill, he was the fall-guy. We’d always be playing pranks on him. He’d get drunk and pass out and we’d leave him on a park bench somewhere with a newspaper over him, and we’d think it was the funniest thing that had ever happened in the world. He was such a nice guy, he just seemed to be asking for it.

Me? I was still the clown. The madman. The loudmouth who’d do anything for a dare. The others would always get me to do the stuff they didn’t want to do—like asking for directions when we were on the road and trying to find the way to some new venue. One time we were in Bournemouth and there was a guy walking across the road with a roll of carpet under his arm. They’re all shouting, ‘Go on, Ozzy, ask ’im, ask ’im.’ So I wind down the window of the van and go, ‘Oi! Mister! Can you tell us the way to the M1?’ He turns around and says, ‘No.

Fuck off, cunt.’ Another time we’re in London, and I shout out to this bloke, ‘Excuse me, chief, but d’you know the way to the Marquee?’ He says, ‘Chief? Chief? Do I look like a fucking Indian?’

Fucking priceless, man. We had such a laugh. And that was the thing with us: we always had a sense of humour. It’s what made us work together so well—at first, anyway. If you don’t have a sense of humour when you’re in a band, you end up like fucking Emerson, Lake and Palmer, making eight-disc LPs so you can all have your own three-hour fucking solos.

And who wants to listen to that bollocks?

If it hadn’t been for Tony’s parents, I’m not sure we’d have made it through the rest of 1968 without starving to death. We were so broke, we’d steal raw vegetables from allotment gardens in the middle of the night, just for something to eat. One time, me and Bill found ten pence, and it was like we’d won the fucking lottery. We couldn’t decide what to buy with it: four bags of chips, or ten fags and a box of matches.

We went for the fags in the end.

Tony’s mum and dad were our only safety net. They’d give us sandwiches from the shop, tins of beans, the odd pack of Player’s No. 6, even petrol money from the till. And it’s not like they were rich: they owned a corner shop in Aston, not Harrods of Knightsbridge. I loved Tony’s mum, Sylvie—she was a lovely lady. Tony’s old man was great, too. He was one of those guys who would buy old cars and do them up. That’s why we always had a van to get around in.

And we needed one, because we never turned down gigs—ever—not even when the pay was only a few quid for a two-hour set, split four ways, before costs. We needed everything we could get. Even Geezer had given up his day job by then, and Earth was the one shot we had at making sure we never had to go back to the factories. We had to make it work—there was no choice.

We were incredibly single-minded. The craziest thing we did—and this was Tony’s idea, I think—was to find out whenever a big-name band was coming into town, load up the van with all our stuff, and then just wait outside the venue on the off-chance they might not show up.

The odds weren’t worth thinking about, but if it ever happened, we reckoned we’d get a chance to show off in front of a few thousand punters… even if they were pissed off and throwing bottles because we weren’t the band they’d blown a couple of days’ wages to see.