Before Black Sabbath, metal was barely a thing.
After Sabbath, metal was a lifestyle.
But all those sinister lyrics and all that heavy riffing came from a dark place.
This is the tragic real-life story of Black Sabbath.
Original and current Black Sabbath frontman John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is known as much
today for his unintelligibility, drug-addled debauchery, and bat-biting as for his asteroid-strike
impact on popular music.
"You can do it Ozzy!
Bite his frickin' head off!"
But the megastar did not have the easiest upbringing.
He once told London's Daily Mirror:
"Everything when you are a kid affects you in later life...If you build a wall with rocky
foundations you are going to have a pretty unstable wall when it's finished."
Not only was he born to a severely impoverished family in Birmingham, England, but he struggled
in school due to dyslexia, according to CNN, and was routinely bullied and abused by neighborhood
kids.
Without a friend to properly confide in, Ozzy turned to a life of petty crime and even attempted
suicide to ease his pain, according to Sue Crawford in her biography, Ozzy Unauthorized.
Fortunately, he has since gotten professional help to deal with the trauma.
To this day, he attributes much of his ongoing struggles to the events of his childhood.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.
Today, Sabbath axeman Tony Iommi is known as one of the godfathers of heavy metal, and
he was the only consistent member throughout his band's numerous lineups.
However, he almost lost his chance at a career playing guitar.
He told Loudwire about an accident he endured when he was 17, and working in welding.
He explains that when another employee didn't show, he was put on a, quote, "giant...guillotine-
type press."
He told Loudwire
"I don't know what happened, I must have pushed my hand in.
And of course, bang!
It came down.
And it just took the ends off … it actually pulled them off."
Doctors told Iommi to forget about guitar, but — fortunately — he ignored them.
Today, he wears convincing prosthetics, but he started by making his own using random
household materials, eventually settling on leather from an old coat.
It worked, but the pain forced him to tune down his guitar strings, adding a distinctive
heaviness to Sabbath's sound.
In his 2008 book, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Joel Mclver writes that there's some debate
over whether or not Black Sabbath's original name was taken from a brand of talcum powder
or a clothing shop.
It doesn't particularly matter.
All we know is that the "Polka Tulk Blues Band" doesn't exactly inspire dread.
Yes, that was the band's original name.
At the time, drummer Bill Ward, slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips, saxophonist Alan "Aker" Clarke,
and guitarist Tony Iommi recruited bassist Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne for vocals.
Interestingly, Guitar World reports that Iommi, who knew and disliked Ozzy from school, was
initially opposed to his inclusion.
However, unconvinced of Phillips' and Clarke's dedication to the project, the group disbanded
and then quietly reformed as a four-piece called Earth.
Although Iommi briefly left to (unsuccessfully) play with Jethro Tull, he quickly returned,
and the band soldiered on.
One night, after seeing a 1963 film called Black Sabbath, Butler had a nightmare that
ultimately inspired a song of the same name.
He later told Rolling Stone:
"I woke up in a dream world and there was this black thing, staring at me [...] It just
lasted a second, but it freaked me out."
Not only did the group then rename itself after the same song, but the scary lyrics
and sinister sound pushed them permanently in a heavier, darker direction.
Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album was released on February 13, 1970, in the UK and
June first of the same year in the States.
It's now considered the first true heavy metal record, but at the time, critics didn't know
what to do with it.
How could they?
People had heard hard riffs and questionable lyrics before — from The Who, Led Zeppelin,
Steppenwolf, and even some Beatles songs — but the dark heaviness featured on Black Sabbath
was in a league of its own.
There was no precedent for it at all.
For Rolling Stone, critic Lester Bangs wrote in September of that year, quote, "Just like
Cream!
But worse."
Bangs continued to rant against the LP, writing that it has:
" [...] inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister
Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much
except stiff recitations of Cream clichés."
Still, the people loved it: Black Sabbath peaked at #6 in the UK and #23 in the US,
where it was later certified platinum.
Debauchery is almost as integral to heavy metal as guitars and drums.
Black Sabbath, who finally exploded onto the mainstream circuit with September 1970's landmark
Paranoid was no different.
As timeless metal classics like "War Pigs," "Iron Man," and the title track ruled the
radio, the band was blowing more money on, well, blow, than they had on the record itself.
"We took LSD, we took cocaine, we took vast amounts of marijuana.
It was fun at the time."
Live For Live Music reports that while the group had a $60,000 budget to record the album,
they had a $75,000 budget for cocaine.
In a 1998 interview with High Times, Ozzy shares how he once got caught at the airport
smuggling acid in a Bible, that album recordings took far longer than necessary because of
the various members' inebriation, and how bassist Geezer Butler's addictions got severe
enough to scare him sober for good.
It's a wonder any of the guys are still with us, but we're glad they are.
"So you have a more stable life now?"
"No!"
Their early to mid 70s albums, Master of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage,
and Technical Ecstasy, had all been successful enough to keep Black Sabbath relevant.
By the end of the 1970s, though, a nonstop touring and recording schedule, worsening
substance abuse issues, infighting, and creative exhaustion had begun to take their toll.
Ozzy even briefly left the band during this period due to all this.
Said Iommi to Guitar World in 1992:
"We never wanted him to leave, and I think he wanted to come back — but no one would
tell the other how they felt.
So we had to bring in another singer and write all new material."
Ozzy later returned, but mixed reviews and sales for 1978's Never Say Die! say everything
you need to know about the band's condition at the time.
According to the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy said of the record in
1981:
"The last album I did with Sabbath was Never Say Die! and it was the worst piece of work
that I've ever had anything to do with.
I'm ashamed of that album.
I think it's disgusting."
Sabbath had given birth to heavy metal music, and such acts as Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron
Maiden, and Motörhead carried on their dark, heavy legacy even as Sabbath itself began
to lose steam.
Other bands, however, took heavy music and decided to have fun with it.
Perhaps no act exemplified the idea of playing metal with a smile in the late '70s than California
party rockers Van Halen, who opened for Sabbath on the headliner's Never Say Die! tour in
1978.
Throughout the tour, Sabbath played lumbering, frustrated sets indicative of their unraveling.
Van Halen, just beginning to take off, preceded those with performances of their own that
were packed with energy and face-melting musicianship, according to PJ Media.
Although Sabbath's experience helped offset their exhaustion and delivered just enough
bang for the fans' buck, the contrast was immense and impossible to ignore.
Eddie Van Halen's lightning-fast, revolutionary finger tapping threatened to send Iommi's
slow, heavy riffing the way of the dinosaurs, and David Lee Roth's manic, comical, doing-the-splits-in-midair
fronting style made Ozzy, then only 30, look twice his age.
Even Ozzy said during the tour, to Circus Magazine:
"Van Halen are so good they ought to be headlining the tour."
Fronting one of the biggest bands had given a young Ozzy a sense of purpose for the first
time in his life.
But by the time the band began to fall apart, he found himself questioning his self-worth
again.
The resulting despair led him further into an abyss of drug abuse, which began to impact
his performances.
Ozzy also began missing rehearsals regularly, at one point disappearing for six weeks, and
making excuses for why he couldn't record the next record.
The band ultimately fired Ozzy on April 27, 1979.
Iommi recalled:
"We just couldn't continue with Ozzy.
[...] Nothing was happening and it would have meant the end of the band.
We didn't want to fire him but we had to if we wanted to continue."
Perhaps understandably, Ozzy was hurt by the decision for years.
He wrote in his 2010 autobiography, I Am Ozzy, that he felt betrayed.
"We were four blokes who'd grown up together a few streets apart.
We were like family, like brothers.
[...] If you're stoned and I'm stoned and you're telling me that I'm fired because I'm
stoned how can that be?
Because I'm slightly more stoned than you are?"
Black Sabbath soldiered on into the '80s without their longtime frontman.
Ozzy was replaced by the legendary Ronnie James Dio.
Dio, known for his gorgeous, operatic vocals, was a breath of creative fresh air for the
band and has since gone on to become one of the most beloved and celebrated vocalists
in metal history.
He might be just as famous for his popularization of the "devil horns,"
"The devil horns; Black Sabbath, yeah!"
However, his initial stint with the group was tense.
A miscommunication led Butler and Iommi to accuse Dio of sneaking into the studio to
mix his vocals at the expense of the other member's tracks.
Hurt by the apparently untrue accusation and feeling frustrated by what he felt was a lack
of creative freedom, Dio left and, along with drummer Vinny Appice, formed a new act called
Dio.
The remaining group hired Deep Purple's Ian Gillan to sing on 1983's Born Again, which
saw some success, but received mixed reviews, according to UltimateClassicRock.com.
Ozzy's new guitarist was killed
Like Ronnie James Dio, Ozzy Osbourne also started his own new project in the early 1980s.
And unlike most solo careers launched by bitter former lead singers, his was instantly and
enduringly successful.
His first two records, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, were packed with hit singles
like "Crazy Train," "Mr. Crowley," "Flying High Again," and "Over the Mountain."
The records completely revolutionized his career and helped define the sound of '80s
metal.
Ozzy also began his long and storied history of collaborating with some of the era's most
lethally talented guitarists, a list which now includes master shredders like Jake E.
Lee and Zakk Wylde.
Perhaps his most notable right-hand man on the ax, though, was beloved, classically trained
legend and Quiet Riot founder Randy Rhoads, who penned some of classic metal's greatest
riffs and solos and rapidly rose to prominence.
Sadly, as Ultimate Classic Rock reports, he was killed, along with three others, in a
freak 1982 plane crash.
Some months later, Ozzy told Guitar Player:
"We had a great rapport together [...] We loved each other very dearly.
I swear to God, the tragedy of my life is the day he died."
Rhoads, all of 25 when he passed and barely having started his career, has since gone
on to become one of the most celebrated guitarists in rock history.
By the 2000s, Ozzy, who had reunited with Black Sabbath at 1997's Ozzfest, had become
legendary for his outrageous rock star antics and out-of-control, hard-partying debauchery.
So it was surprising to hear, in December 2003, that it was an ATV accident, of all
things, that nearly killed the Prince of Darkness.
As Ultimate Classic Rock reports, Osbourne was simply taking a joyride across his London
estate when he crashed the vehicle.
His son Jack told reporters that night that Osbourne had suffered, quote, "a broken collarbone,
eight fractured ribs that were pinching crucial blood vessels, and a damaged vertebrae in
his neck."
Thankfully, Ozzy's life was saved in the emergency room.
On top of that, the incident helped Ozzy and his family to realize that the gargantuan
number of prescriptions he was on was a large contributing factor to Ozzy's bizarre, confused
stupor he could be found in throughout much of his family's reality TV show, The Osbournes.
Those drugs probably had a hand in his ATV crash, as well.
With Ozzy back in full swing as Sabbath's frontman by the mid-2000s, some fans began
yearning for the Dio years.
Iommi, Butler, Dio, and Appice recorded some material for a limited release celebrating
their work together in the early '80s, called Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, which was released
in 2007.
The quartet then embarked on a tour.
To avoid confusion with the ongoing Black Sabbath, and to prevent fans from expecting
to hear Ozzy-fronted classics at the shows, Iommi changed the band's name to Heaven & Hell,
named after their first album together.
Sadly, the celebrated reunion project was short-lived: According to Loudwire, Ronnie
James Dio was diagnosed with inoperable stage IV stomach cancer.
All further band activity was suspended, and Dio passed away on May 16, 2010.
Iommi wrote in a public tribute:
"Ronnie loved what he did, making music and performing onstage.
He loved his fans so much.
He was a kind man and would put himself out to help others."
Iommi went on to emphasize the importance of Dio's musical contributions, writing:
"I can honestly say it's truly been an honor to play at his side for all these years.
His music will live on forever.
The man with the magic voice is a star amongst stars, a true professional.
I'll miss you so much, my dear friend."