You met Ozzy when and how?
I met Ozzy when I was around 18 and he came into my father's
office for management with Black Sabbath. So I was 18 when I first met him.
Love at first sight?
No, no, not at all. I was like, Oh Lord, look at them and they
were all odd and hairy and because I'd been used to dealing with artists that
were American and they were slick and they were really put together and
they smelt nice and you know suddenly these guys come in and they're hairy and
they're very you know from the north of England. And they don't look or dress
like anything I've ever seen. And so I was very nervous of them.
Well given that
first impression, how in the world did anything ever develop?
I went to see
their show that night with my father. They performed at this club in London
and I was so in awe of what I was seeing. Again, I hadn't seen anything like that
because all the artists that we had dealt with were very slick and a
different category of music, different genre of music, just totally different.
And then when I saw how electric it was and how different, I was like blown away.
I was like, whoa! So that's when I became interested in
Black Sabbath.
Well, when did you and Ozzy begin to get serious? You say it
definitely was not love at first sight...
In '79 we were working together and it
was '80, in 1980, that we started. We were working together and it just became
something else.
What is it you think first attracted you
to him and has kept you attracted to him? Now we all know nobody gets through
marriage unscathed but let's face it, you've had some really difficult and
tumultuous times but what is it that kept you so attached to him?
He was so funny, so
funny and quick-witted and yet very vulnerable and
I I just thought he was the funniest, sweetest guy I'd ever met because he was
so vulnerable about everything and that just attracted me to him.
So you get
married, things got off to a pretty good start or
a pretty rocky start?
It was tough because Ozzy was married and had two
children so after the divorce his wife divorced him so I would have done the
same thing at that time. Everything he had he just left with her,
which was the right thing to do.
Excuse me and I don't want to be too
intrusive...
Go on.
But she divorced him because of you?
No, because of the drink.
She couldn't take it anymore and I get it. I had detached from my father,
business-wise, so I was in a real pickle with my father because he used me as the
beard for business. Everything was in my name, everything, tax
returns, companies' management contracts with record companies and he had done
this so he could be this free guy that went around the world.
He put all in your name?
All in my name so when he didn't pay a bill, they would sue me or when he
didn't pay taxes, they would come for me. When he first did it, I'm like oh god
he really trusts me, this is fantastic. But when the tax man is following you
around for payment and they come and they take the house from you and they
put all the yellow tape around the house, it's like, oh no, me... So yeah,
my father was free and clear so when Ozzy and I got together,
my father wasn't doing good in business so the world was after me and was Ozzy had
nothing. We both started with nothing.
It was a tough time but you were very
close during that period...
Extremely close, we only had each other because he'd lost
his family and I'd lost mine because my mother wasn't going to have any of me or
I didn't get on with my brother and so it was just us fighting the
world so that's what we did. We won and literally we started with nothing.
I had two suitcases.
But you begin to build Ozzy back up?
Yes.
Not to take anything away from him.
No, together we worked well.
Together we worked well, he had the talent, I had the brain and we just went for it.
And you got it.
Yep, we did.