If you could give your younger self some advice
what would you, what would you give your, the 21-year-old Ozzy, what advice would you give you?
Don't do drugs
[Music plays]
What about a 30-year-old Ozzy, what advice would you give him?
Take more drugs. [Laughs]
I, I did what I did [mumbles] when I was 21, and I did what I did when I was 30.
But now, I feel better today than I have done in a long time - I'm 66 this December.
What do you, what's the secret, how are you still...rocking and rolling as hard as you are?
I honestly, I work out - I exercise a lot.
I go for regular physicals. Call me a hypochondriac, I don't care.
I don't smoke anymore. I don't do drugs any more. I don't drink booze anymore.
And I, I'm, and I think, I think that says a lot for what I, why I'm here.
There's no mysterious fucking...you know, hex from [mumble] Satan [mumble].
And to be honest with you, I really like being sober 'cause it's like,
people who never take smoke pot in their lives think, you know at my age, "oh a joint wouldn't hurt".
But it's the other way round for me, I've been doing dope and booze since I was about 14.
And, you know, I [mumble] to be clear-headed and...be OK with being OK.
Yeah.
When you left Sabbath and you, and you went on to go and, and do your own, uh, solo career, and release Blizzard of Oz,
were you scared that people a) weren't gonna like it and
: b) you couldn't do it by yourself? : Oh absolutely! I mean.
But the [mumble], I've said this before; the earliest days of any...band thing that I've ever been in,
are the best 'cause you've got everything to gain and nothing to lose, and you've got time to make a good album.
Yeah.
Whereas when you get the success you've got like, you got 4 weeks to get an album, get an album [mumble], so
you kind of get. But you know and people ask me what advice I could give anybody.
If you're in, and all I'd say is, "if you're absolutely serious about what you're doing
write as much stuff as you can", because you, 'cause once you start going on the road, you never have enough time to do anything, you know.
Do you ever regret being a musician?
No, not at all. It's been the best thing that's ever happened to me.
You know I, when I, when I was young I never, I never thought, I, I, I often would think, what do I want to be? Do I want to be a fireman, a bricklayer? I don't know.
And then, I, when I heard the Beatles it changed everything 'cause I wanted to be a Beatle.
This Black Sabbath thing [mumble] that's you've gotta consider, that's 45 years old.
We just did a sell-out tour, we had a first number one ever in the United States, and a, and 12 other countries, and it was just, I mean, wow!
Do you like any new music?
I like Bruno Mars, I like, uh, Snow Patrol. I like a couple of them.
Yeah.
But it's like, the thing with new, new stuff.
If I like it too much it gets in there then so when I'm doing some work on, doing some new music for me,
it ultimately indirectly comes out.
To me, at my age, there ain't that much new music - it's all [mumbles] old ideas rehashed.
Yeah.
But you know, it's, it's another phase, you know, you know.
Some of it I like.
The 70s was great because there wasn't no MTV and there wasn't that many bands around
then in the 80s it was like a, it just went. I mean they said to me,
"What do you think of the state of heavy metal?"
Well from 70s, 80s, 90s and now the new millennium, it's completely different every, every decade.
Yeah.
Completely. I think the computer age is taking over and there's a lot of cheat, lot of trickery you can do, do now.
Yeah.
I mean you, I've actually had people, I saw guys in bands where they go, they go, "do you wanna jam?", and they go " 'jam', what's that?"
I go, "just, just play anything, together."
They can't do it, it's like, "oh I'll have to consult my computer first."
"I can, uh, programme a jam, uh, sequence on my computer and hit 'play'."
But, it's like, it's like, that's what's happen-, the art of being in a band is dying.
Yeah.
I had people coming to OzzFest and go, "man, if it wasn't for Sabbath. We owe you so much."
And I've heard 'em and I thought, "what part of that is influenced by Sabbath?"
But then a lot of other music, I thought, "ah I get it where they're coming from."
But some of it, I'm like, "what!?"
But the thing about it, it's not the music, it's the what it says to the people, it's like
metal, metal, or whatever you want to call it, has never had any rules.
We were, from, I mean consider when we first started in, in about '69.
It was all Flower Power, and, you know, if you go to San Francisco, wear a flower in your hair, and all that.
But we come from Birmingham - Aston in Birmingham where there's this pollution and rain and miserable [mumble], and we were like, "fuck off with this fucking bullshit!"
So we, we started to write scary music, and that took on, thank God.
So what I'm kinda hearing you saying is, is that...
metal is more of kind of an attitude and a message you're trying to get across than necessarily the, the riffs and what-have-you.
Well it's got, it's got the riffs - you've gotta have something to play.
But it's like, you tell me to not, if you want something to do, what, if you want me to do something, tell me not to 'cause
I've never played by any rules. I have, ah, my, my sole concern is to get on that stage and give that audience as, a great day out.
That's [mumbles], all I am.
I don't wanna go down fucking "ban the bomb".
That's been done. You know, that's for other people.
But for me, when I hit the stage, I wanna give them my heart on a plate, and that God's honest truth.