Ozzy Osbourne - I Am Ozzy

Thank God I never got into that shit.

Randy loved Britain.

Every weekend, he’d get in the van and drive somewhere, just to have a look around. He went to Wales, Scotland, the Lake District, you name it. He also collected toy trains, so wherever he went, he’d buy one. He was a quiet bloke, very dedicated, didn’t like showing off, but he could be a laugh, too. One time we were in this bar and there was a guy in the corner playing classical music on the piano, so Randy goes up to him and says, ‘D’you mind if I join you?’ The guy looks at Randy, looks around the bar, sees me, and goes, ‘Er, sure.’ So then Randy gets out his Gibson, hooks up his little practice amp, and starts playing along to this Beethoven piece or whatever it was. But as he goes along, he starts throwing in all these rock ’n’ roll moves, and by the end of it he’s on his knees, doing this wild solo with his tongue hanging out. It was fucking hilarious. The whole bar was in stitches.

The funny thing is, I don’t think Randy really ever liked Black Sabbath much. He was a proper musician. I mean, a lot of rock ’n’ roll guitarists are good, but they have just one trick, one gimmick, so even if you don’t know the song, you go, ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so.’ But Randy could play anything. His influences ranged from Leslie West to jazz greats like Charlie Christian and classical guys like John Williams. He didn’t understand why people were into ‘Iron Man’, ’cos he thought it was so simple a kid could play it.

We had arguments about that, actually. I’d say, ‘Look, if it works, who cares if it’s simple? I mean, you can’t get much easier than the riff to “You Really Got Me”—but it’s awesome.

When I first bought that single, I played it until the needle on my dad’s radiogram broke.’

Randy would just shrug and say, ‘I guess.’

One thing Sharon’s brother managed to get done when we were in England was find us a bass player—Bob Daisley, an Aussie bloke who’d been signed to Jet with a band called Widowmaker, which was how David knew him. I liked Bob immediately. He was a proper rock ’n’ roller—he wore denim jackets with cut-out sleeves and had his hair all blown out—and we’d go down the pub and do a bit of coke once in a while.

Another good thing about Bob was that he wasn’t just a bass player. He could chip in with songwriting, too.

And we had a laugh together—at first, anyway.

Getting a drummer wasn’t so easy.

We seemed to audition half of Britain before we finally came across Lee Kerslake, who’d played with Uriah Heep. He was all right, Lee—one of those big old pub blokes. Solid drummer, too. But the guy I’d really wanted—Tommy Aldridge, from the Pat Travers Band—wasn’t available.

Another early member of our line-up was a keyboard player from Ipswich called Lindsay Bridgewater. He was a very educated boy, was Lindsay, and he’d never met the likes of us before. I told him, ‘Lindsay, you look like a fucking school teacher. I want you to backcomb your hair, put on a white cape, get yourself some black lipstick and some black eyeliner. And while you’re playing, I want you to growl at the audience.’

The poor bloke didn’t last long.

I’d be talking out of my arse if I said I didn’t feel like I was in competition with Black Sabbath when we made Blizzard of Ozz. I wished them well, I suppose, but part of me was shitting myself that they were going to be more successful without me. And their first album with Dio was pretty good. I didn’t rush out and buy it, but I heard some tracks on the radio. It went to number nine in Britain and number twenty-eight in America. But by the time we’d got Blizzard in the can at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, I knew we had a cracking album of our own.

We had a couple of cracking albums, actually, because we had a lot of material left over when we were done.

And it was magic to be in control—like I’d finally pulled something off. Then again, even if you think something’s brilliant, you never know if the general public’s going to pick up on it.

But as soon as the radio stations got hold of ‘Crazy Train’, it was a done deal. The thing just exploded.

When the album came out in Britain in September 1980, it went to number seven in the album charts. When it came out in America six months later, it peaked at number twenty-one, but it eventually sold four million copies, making it one of Billboard’s Top 100 bestselling albums of the decade.

Reviews?

Didn’t read ’em.

A few nights before the tour started, I got Sharon in the sack for the first time. It had taken fucking long enough. We’d been at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, rehearsing for our first gig—which was going to be in Blackpool under the fake name of The Law—and we were all staying at the same hotel across the road. So I just followed Sharon back to her room. I think I might even have used my extra-special pick-up line: ‘Can I come back and watch your telly?’

The usual reply to this was, ‘Fuck off, I ain’t got one.’

But this time it worked.

I was shitfaced, obviously. So was Sharon—she must have been. All I remember is her deciding to take a bath, and me ripping off my clothes and jumping in with her. Then one thing led to another, as things tend to do when you jump in a bath with a chick.

I fell for Sharon so badly, man.

The thing is, before I met her, I’d never come across a girl who was like me. I mean, when me and Sharon went out, people used to think we were brother and sister, we were so similar.

Wherever we went, we were always the drunkest and the loudest.

We got up to some crazy shit in those early days.

One night in Germany, we went to a big dinner with the head of CBS Europe, who were releasing Blizzard of Ozz over there. He was a big, bearded, cigar-chomping bloke, and very straight. I was out of my fucking clock, of course. So we’re all sitting there at this huge table, and halfway through the meal I get the idea to climb on the table and start doing a striptease.

Everyone thinks it’s funny for a while. But I end up stark bollock naked, take a piss in the CBS guy’s carafe of wine, kneel down in front of him, and kiss him on the lips.

They didn’t think that was very funny.

We didn’t get a record played in Germany for years afterwards. I remember being on the plane, flying out of Berlin, with Sharon ripping up the contracts and saying, ‘Well, that’s another country gone.’

‘It was worth it for the striptease though, wasn’t it?’ I asked.

‘That wasn’t a striptease you were doing, Ozzy. It was a fucking Nazi goose-step. Up and down the table. That poor German bloke looked mortified. Then you put your balls in his fucking wine.’

‘I thought I pissed in his wine?’

‘That was before you pissed in his wine.’

Then we went to Paris, and I was still wasted from Berlin. I was crazy drunk, because people kept giving us all these free bottles of booze. By then, everyone had heard about what went on in Germany, so these very nervous record company people took us out for a drink at a nightclub. Everyone was talking about business, so to relieve the boredom I turned to the bloke next to me and said, ‘Hey, will you do me a favour?’

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘Punch me in the face.’

‘What?’

‘Punch me in the face.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Look, I asked you to do me a favour, and you said you would. You promised. So punch me in the fucking face.’

‘No!’

‘Just punch me.’

‘Mr Osbourne, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.’

‘Come on! YOU FUCKING PROMIS—’

BLAM!

The last thing I saw was Sharon’s fist approaching my face from across the table. Then I was flat out on the floor, my nose bleeding, feeling like half my teeth were gonna fall out.