Were you ever a religious person, were you ever someone that
No
..believed in God or anything like that?
Today I believe in a higher power or, call it God if you like but I don't believe he was a guy on a fucking
cloud, getting blowjobs off chicks with wings...
You've always been like a miner for finding amazing talent as far as guitarists go.
Talk a little bit about your relationship with Randy Rhoads. You guys met through an audition essentially.
No, I had a guy helping me out called Dana Strum,
he was my original choice for a bass player but it didn't work out.
Because, I'd auditioned him.. I was drinking heavily.. I was just, you know, fucking out of it all the time.
And then this Dana comes in and he goes "I got this ONE guitar player you've gotta...."
I said "You know Dana..FUCK OFF with your guitar player" and "I just wanna to go home!"
I'm fucking sozzled sitting on a chair, you know, eating a pizza or something, I don't remember.. and this little guy comes in with blond hair and I say
"Is that a chick?"
He spoke very well, wow. Suddenly, with my ears pinned back he said "what do you want me to play?" I said "Play anything."
So he starts playing and I'm like (Even in my drunken and stoned out stupor) "either this is fucking one of the best things I've ever heard in my life
or these drugs are really good!"
I truly believe, if he hadn't have gotten killed when he did he would be up there with the fuckin big guys. He was fucking phenomenal
Now, your relationship with Zakk..?
I was looking for a new guitar player and I put the word out.
There's two or three big bins of tapes and your Mum says to me
"You gotta start looking at these fucking tapes... touching them"
I picked up one and I go
.. and it was a picture, the only one that I picked up, and it turned out to be the guy that I picked, Zakk.
So you found Zakk from picking up a cassette with a picture on it?
No, I picked up this cassette, and I put it back, and I remember reading.. whatever..
I get back to LA and I start auditioning..
and I'm going to this Zakk and I said
"I know you from somewhere!"
and I just looked at him and he went like
"Oh, we've never met" and I go "I KNOW I know you from somewhere"
When I got back to England it was him on the fucking [tape]...
Out of THOUSANDS of tapes, the only one I picked up.
It was weird. I think it was The Force!
Right. Talk a little bit about the No More Tears tour No More Tours.
You were going to retire...
I decided, you know, "I don't wanna die on a stage" at that point.
I mean I was very influenced with alcohol and very influenced with drugs
and I think really it was me saying to me "get it together" you know.
That year I remember [thinking] "Yeah, you're retired.. Now what"
"What do you do?"
I had no reason to get up in the morning
That's why people die young
They got no room to..
I can remember you obviously being away, very active and then, from like 1992 to 1994 I just remember you being..
Fucked up
No, you weren't necessarily fucked up but you were - well that - but you were constantly looking for something.
You bought the dirt bikes, you bought the air rifles, we got all the dogs, it was this thing where I just felt like you were bored.
Yeah.
I mean, I've got a concentration span about that much bigger than a fly you know.
I'm like "Now what can I do, I've gotta..."
I mean, Rock and Roll was made for me, (being in a band).
I often think, "what would I have been doing if it hadn't been for music?"
I think I would've fucking killed myself or something.
I mean, when I got success I could afford my own cigarettes
grab a beer, beer and dope,
and a house, a car.
I would never, ever have got anything like that.
And music has been the savior of my life. I mean look at where we live.
Somebody said to me recently
"Coming from Lodge Rd to living in Beverly Hills, did you ever dream you would do that?"
I had no idea
And then when we made it with the TV show The Osbournes.
That was another thing that was like "F..."
What did you think about the show when it happened?
Well, for the first year I suppose, it was FUN.
but then the cracks started to appear in the family and the pressure... YOU know,
you couldn't go down the fucking street round here.
I know that being famous and doing what you do comes at a prickly price.
Having no anonymity, does that bum you out sometimes?
Well the truth of the matter is this,
if I walk down the street and 200 people recognize me I get pissed off
but the same thing if they don't recognize me then I get pissed off as well.
So it's my ego you know.
When people do recognize you, what is it that frustrates you?
If I'm in a hurry and have got to go to a doctor or see somebody in a hospital
people don't consider that you have a life.
I expect the one place that really gets me crazy
Is when I'm having a meal in some restaurant and somebody comes up and asks me "Can you sign this?"
Cos that's my time.
I'm pretty okay with people most other times.
Your mum says to me, "The time you've got to worry is when people don't ask you for either oo [autograph/anything?]"
and I suppose there's some truth in that.
But saying that, if I saw someone I really admired in a restaurant I would never ever dream of going
"Hey sir, will you sign my?.."
NEVER
In the media when anyone ever seems to write anything about you
It's always prefaced with
"Ozzy Osbourne, the man that bit a dove's head off, a bat, pissed on the Alamo,
all that shit.
Does that annoy you?
It doesn't annoy me but I think that one of the first questions [they ask] is, "and I've gotta ask is question",
"What do bats taste like?"
and I feel like sometimes going
"Why don't you fuck off."
Because if that's all you've got to ask me there's something wrong.
Every now and again somebody surprises me and gives me a really good question and I go
"Well, that's really cool"