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- Hi, how are you?
- I'm fine.
- Good, well first thing,
thanks for talking to me,
it's been a long time.
And I also wanna say, every
time I've seen you perform
over the last five, six years or so
you seem genuinely surprised and pleases
by the fan adoration, they just love you.
Pleased I can understand,
but why are you surprised?
- Well, every time I go out, I mean
I've been doing it a long time, you know.
And I've lasted a hell of a long run.
I mean, I'm just absolutely thrilled
just to be on stage and playing for people
that wanna see me, because
I've never really rated myself
as a great singer, but I've got
such a love for them people.
It's like a love affair,
it's like when you wait
for a girlfriend, and you're all bubbly
and all excited to see her,
and then when you see her
you get all that nice feeling inside,
when you see the person
you really want to be with
and that's how I feel about my audience.
I really, genuinely do have a
love affair with my audience.
It's really amazing for you,
it's better than any drug,
anything I've ever had,
the audience feeling I get.
- So that's why retirement sucked.
- Absolutely, I missed my girlfriend.
- (laughing) This tour,
I mean it seems to me,
and I don't know if you
have the same success
in other cities that
you do in Indianapolis
but every time you come here
there's 15,000 or so people
and this tour seems like,
man, really piling it on.
You could go out solo and get
the same number of people.
Why are you doing this whole huge tour?
- Well the reason why
is because eventually
the inevitable thing is going to happen
whereas I do retire, eventually
everything comes to an end.
But I'd like to leave my
mark, and I'd like the Ozzfest
to go on with or without
me, as long as I'm involved
to some capacity, to be
there for a long time.
I mean, I wanna be
involved to some capacity
whether I'm playing or
not, so it's my way to say,
"I'm still here, I
haven't quite gone away."
I'm figuring the long-term thing.
- You're not going away
any time soon, are you>
I mean, you're not stopping, are you?
- No way.
- No, okay, I didn't think so.
- The reason why the, sorry?
Excuse me one second.
- Okay, sure,
- Four number fours.
What was I saying?
- You were just saying
that you were gonna be
sticking with the tour a while, I think.
- As Murphy's law goes,
anything can happen
at any given moment, so when my wife
came up with the suggestion
in the middle of last year,
it's about the Ozzfest, I
said, "Do you think we're gonna
"bite off more than we can chew?"
And I know I could do it on my own.
I could sell these places
around, but I've always been
a kind of a pioneer throughout my career
and I love to give people
the benefit of the doubt.
I love the shock value like
Marilyn Manson, it's great.
- Okay, I was gonna ask
you about that later
but do you have a sense of
why people have stuck with you
over the years, I mean aside from the fact
that they like your music,
is there something about you?
- I don't know, and I
don't really wanna know.
I mean, I'm one of these
people that if I'm not
for you, I'll fall to pieces.
- (laughing) Yeah, how did the Sabbath
reunion idea come to pass?
- Well I've been asked time and time,
and every time I walk out my
bloody door somebody's saying,
"Will there every be a
chance of seeing you?"
Unfortunately it's not quite Black Sabbath
because Billy's not there.
He's the best part, he's a
good part of Black Sabbath
and we'll be able to play
the old stuff with the guitar
but Michael Bordin, my drummer
is gonna be playing drums
it looks like, but we're just gonna play
the best we can, and the the rest of it
nobody plays guitar like
Iommi in the Sabbath songs.
Geezer's a great, great
bass player, and so is
Mike Bordin a good drummer, you know.
But I'm rehearsing, I
haven't played with them
for a long, long time, and I know
everybody calls it rehearsing
but we just played.
- And how does it sound?
Is it like you never left,
or is it a whole different feeling?
- Well it's not like I never left
because clearly I've been
solo longer than I ever was
in Sabbath, but we grew up together.
We went to the same village,
we were in a two-mile radius of each other
and it's like going
back to see your family,
it's like a family
reunion, so we just talked
about how each other's moms and dads were
and unfortunately Tony's
mother just passed away
last year, which is very sad.
We've spent most of the
time just reflecting
on the old times, and when
we did this crazy stunt
and I did that crazy
stunt, and the first time
we'd come to the States,
and it was just great
to talk our war stories and remember when
we did this, and I did
that, and you did this.
- Have there been any
great memories unearthed?
I mean, can you tell me
one story of the old days
that you've been talking about?
- I remember when we
first came to the States
and we all got on the
plane from Heathrow airport
and we were freaked out
that the fucking plane
was in the air for seven hours
without stopping for gas.
We we fucking freaked
over it, and we thought,
this fucker is the size of a house,
it's gotta stop for petrol somewhere.
- (laughing) Yeah, no
place to stop, really.
- The length of the
flight was seven hours.
It was like forever.
- Why isn't Bill Ward with you?
- Oh to be honest, it's not my decision.
I just, Sharon said to
me, "What do you think
"about getting back to Sabbath?"
I said, "Well, it's family,
I've always been game."
It's the old story, we've
all got individual managers.
It wasn't so much the band,
but the band managers.
I'm not saying my wife, but
my wife's always the only one
that's up to par with
the present situation
where I'm not putting anybody down here,
but there's a communication
breakdown that was going on
in the bus, and I said to Sharon,
"If you can pull it off, pull it off,"
and I said, "I'm here, and I'm
willing to give it a shot."
And I spoke to Tony and Billy and I said,
"Well after the last time, they went out
"with Billy and it just
didn't work because,"
I said, "it's nothing personal
I have against Bill Ward,
"it's that when I go onstage,
no matter what I'm feeling
"I have to give the best show I've got
"and leave my petty," or
whatever, I call them petty,
but it might be pretty serious
to the people who are involved.
I said, "Leave all your
problems in the dressing room
"and pick them up when you off stage
"and start going crazy, but
you don't take your problems
"on stage with you,"
but it's professionally
not acceptable in my
opinion, because the audience
don't want to know what
you do with your life.
All they wanna do is bang their heads
and reflect on the past.
- Can you, are are you
willing to elaborate
on what Bill Ward's problems are?
- I don't really know, but I don't know,
it's Tony and Geezer, they
have to play the music.
I mean, it would've
been great for me to go
with Bill and everybody,
but it's unfortunate.
I'm not gonna start slugging Bill,
and I don't have anything
bad to say about the man
but Tony and Geezer had played with him
as soon as I'd left, and they said
some things about why wouldn't it work
and I said, "Why wouldn't it work?"
and they're telling me why
and I don't wanna repeat
what they said to me
because it's not my place
to, just to be real.
I'm not being sarcastic here,
but if you really wanna find out
I suggest you ask them about it, because
I just can't be bothered
to take any fucking body's
dirty laundry on here,
it's not fair on Bill
and it's not fair on me.
- Okay.
- And another thing, it's
certainly not fair on the people
that want to see it,
because all they wanna see
is see something on
stage and play the music.
So for such a long time I've been
not always been playing during that time.
All this personal shit, it's nothing to do
with anybody else, to be honest with you
but the four of us, and maybe one day.
One day it may happen, but
I've sort of been saying,
"Yes, it's gonna happen,"
and then at the starting post
something happens and a firework goes up
and it all runs away again.
I said, "I'm willing, I'm here.
"You get it together one way or the other
"and just give me a call and tell me
"where and when you wanna
do it, and I'll be there."
The last time I ended
up in the lion's mouth
and I ended up with a
big tooth mark in my neck
and I didn't like it.
And now all of a sudden it
was all my fucking fault
and I said I didn't want
to get involved in that
so as far as the Bill Ward situation
I really don't have that
much to say to anybody
'cause I don't really know, but all I got
from Tony and Geezer was
it really wouldn't work
because they've tried it and
you guys deal with it then.
- Okay, fair enough.
It's been advertised that you're playing
a whole solo set and a whole
Sabbath set, is that correct?
- How long do you call a set?
- You usually play 90 minutes
to an hour and three-quarters, I think.
- It would be something like that, yeah.
- Okay, and Sabbath too?
- I don't really know.
I did do some rehearsals, but then
it went crazy, and I went all around
and around the world, a trip on my own
to get away from it,
so I did play, I did go
so I went to Europe for a while,
just trekked around Europe
for about a month or so,
so I'll let you know.
Do you wanna give me a
call back next Wednesday
I'll let you know more.
Well we try rehearsing,
'cause Sharon said,
"Well why don't you just
have a jam with them,
"see if you can still play together."
And I'm not being cocksure here,
but I smiled to myself, I said,
"We haven't gotta fucking rehearse.
"We just gotta see each other.
"Just turn around and fucking play."
So when we were around, we did maybe
before I went on this
European trek of mine.
We played a couple of
tunes, and it was all,
"How're you going Tony?
"What's going on with you?
"I haven't seen you for
so long, good to see you,"
and we just ended up sitting on the couch
talking about old days.
- Okay, so at this point
you don't even know
how deep into the catalog
you're gonna go, or what songs.
- We're gonna do, what
I did remember saying
we're gonna do the platinum songs
but I would like, because
there's some of the songs
that we've never really
played live on stage.
Songs, I'm not gonna tell
you what we're gonna play
because I want it to be a surprise.
There'll be the "Iron
Man" and the "War Pigs"
and the "Paranoid" but there's
gonna be some other stuff
that was so interesting to us to play,
that we've never really
played live on stage, ever.
- Oh, that'll be great, okay.
- What's that?
- That'll be great, that'll be incredible.
- We've managed to find the old stuff.
It's off the old albums.
When we wrote them songs
we used to play them live
on the stage before we recorded them
but when we used to record them
we virtually recorded them live anyway.
- There's an internet chat
that you participated in,
and you said, "So much of
what's out there these days
"I don't listen to, it's so angry."
- It's true, it's like,
when I say it's so angry,
nobody sings a song with
any kind of a melody.
I mean, everybody sounds pissed off
and I like to semi-understand
what I'm listening to,
there's somebody going (growling).
Somebody yelling down the fucking thing.
I mean, there's many ways to deliver
a hard line without screaming.
- Okay, so you weren't
necessarily talking about people
expressing painful thoughts.
- No, no, no, the approach
that these people have
but that's the next generation from me
so when we started, people
were saying the same about us.
They couldn't understand
what the fuck we were singing
because they were so used to
listening to lollipop music.
- How does Marilyn Manson fit into
that statement about angry?
- I like Marilyn Manson because
they've got a shock value
and I can't really speak on their music
because I haven't really,
I've heard the one song.
I saw the video, I
thought it was very dark.
It made me go, "Mmm,
this looks interesting."
I like them because you take
them or you fucking don't.
There's no bullshit about them.
They just are what they
are, and apparently
they wear their makeup
and stuff all the time.
So they can't say, well,
get into a three-piece suit
and get into a fucking
sports car and drive off
with a blonde chick with big tits
sitting by the side of them.
They're playing for real.
- And a few people have tried to ban you
and censor you over the years.
- It's like I'm passing the torch
and obviously I'll
probably pass the torch.
I mean, we started Black Sabbath
and then it went to KISS,
then it went to, it
still was with Sabbath,
and it's from that to this,
it's all the same fucking,
it's all the same jacket
with a different star.
- Is it amazing to you that 25 years later
they're still trying to
stop people like this?
- I mean, I was waiting for
somebody like Marilyn Manson
to come and wake these fucking
dormant punks up again.
- Okay, you're starting
your own record label?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- What is it called?
- Ozz Records.
- Ozz Records, and it's--
- And I'd have to say
that it's not primarily
a metal label, the mistake I made
was calling it Ozz Records,
because everybody thinks
it's a metal label, and it's not.
I mean, whatever we think's
suitable, we'll go for.
I mean, it's got a
crossover from jazz, rock,
blues, folk, all kinds of different stuff.
So I mean, don't just think
it's a primarily metal label
because that's far from the truth, I mean
we just opened some new
offices in Los Angeles
and it's a really funky vibe there.
- And when's your first
release coming out?
- We're just gonna put the live album
from the last Ozzfest, it's
really good, it's very good.
- Oh okay, so that's
gonna be the first release
and have you signed acts?
Are you going out and doing the A&R?
- No.
- Oh, okay.
- I've enough with this Ozzfest now.
- (laughing) Okay.
So have you heard some of the young acts?
- It's really hard to imagine.
There's a lot of bands,
I just did a record
for the Howard Stern thing
with Type O Negative.
They're on the album,
and they're really good.
It's a very good album,
I'm really pleased with it.
- Okay, Best Buy is
sponsoring this tour, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Any feeling about that?
I mean, here's a company
where you can't buy
a stickered album if you're under 18.
- That's purely my wife, my wife runs
the business side of it, so I mean
finally I've got somebody
that's been interested
in the event, rather than any backlash.
Other than somewhat, I
mean I'm glad in one way
that we're the rock and roll tour
that everybody loves to hate,
because I like that kind
of a publicity angle on it.
People think it's nasty, but it's nice.
- But how about Best Buy?
Do you have a feeling about that?
I mean--
- I don't, actually.
Best Buy, my wife got this deal worked out
and I don't really know
what the implications are
with the deal, I mean-
- Okay.
- It's just all part and
parcel with the business.
I must confess, I'm not
a very good businessman.
I'm not business-minded at all.
I wanna give people a fair crack.
With Best Buy, they seemed
to have been okay with us.
They haven't put any
restrictions on us at all.
- Yeah, I know they're not
putting restrictions on you,
I just think it's ironic,
you've got Marilyn Manson
who have stickers on their album
and a kid who's under 18 can't--
- So there's a sticker on the album.
It flies out of the box quicker,
because anything with a sticker,
it's gotta have some controversies
so they wanna buy the controversy.
- Right. (laughing)
- That's why you've got an album
with a fucking sticker on it.
- Okay, one of the best
parts of your last tour
was the movies at the beginning
of the night was this movie.
- It's not the same video, we're gonna do,
I think my wife is working on a new one.
We're gonna put it all on video,
put it on a Ozz Records video thing.
It's really funny, it's a good spoof.
- Yeah, it was very, very funny, yeah.
It was a great opening.
- A lot of it never got played.
There's a shitload we're
going to be putting out
in the video, anytime now.
All the stuff we never
brought out in the show
is coming out, it's really
a fucking funny thing.
It's very funny.
- I'm looking forward to
that, that should be great.
Two quick other things
and I'll let you go.
One is, in the Howard Stern movie,
you're in the movie, but when
the actual event happened
were you actually
backstage at the MTV awards
when he did that thing?
- No, no, no, no.
- Okay.
So you just happened to be
in the movie, that's all.
- Yeah, I mean, Howard's
a very good friend.
He's a very good, close friend of mine.
He's another one that's
very misunderstood.
He's a very sweet man, very caring man.
- Okay, and finally the other
question I wanted to ask you
was for another story I'm working on.
I've been asking everybody I interview.
If you became the overlord of pop music
what would be the first
thing that you would change?
- Censorship.
- Yeah, there just wouldn't be any?
- Pardon?
- There wouldn't be any,
is that what you're saying?
- There wouldn't be any because
it's freedom of the arts.
I mean, because censorship is ludicrous
but when you've got censorship,
you got people for the shock value
write about killing
people and harming people.
I just want to ask you one other thing.
Do you think that, has
there ever been anything
to fear from rock and roll music?
- The only thing to fear is fear itself.
- Right, (laughing) okay.
All right, that's great.
Anything else you want
me to tell people, Ozzy?
- Just come to the show and
have the best time of your life.
- Okay, that's great,
I really appreciate it.
I'll talk to you again.
- All right, take care.
- Take care, bye bye.
- Bye.
