- Welcome
- Back to the Tapes Archive podcast,
where we release interviews
that have never been heard before.
- In this episode,
we are publishing the earliest known audio interview
with the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osborne.
It's also the only audio interview with Ozzy relating
to Black Sabbath, Sabbath, bloody Sabbath album,
unearthing a rarity like this is the whole reason
I started this podcast.
At the time of the interview.
In 1974, Ozzy was 26 years old
and was promoting Black Sabbath, Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath album and tour.
The interview is conducted by Steve Rosen, one
of the true legends in rock journalism.
Rosen has a career spanning 50 years, thousands of articles
and several high profile books
with artists like Black Sabbath Prince,
Randy Rhoads, and many others.
But his most notable work is his recent Eddie Van Halen
book Tonechaser.
Tonechaser is considered a must have book
for Eddie Van Halen fans and any music fan.
No other book has uncovered
so many untold stories about King Edward.
Please go to the link in the description
and go to Rosen's website to learn more.
This is not a paid endorsement.
I truly believe Rosen's book is a must read
and happily promote it and endorse it.
A note of caution, Ozzy's accent is very thick here,
and with a tape being almost 50 years old, it can be hard
to understand what's being said at times.
If you're listening on a podcast platform,
then I highly suggest you watch this on our YouTube
channel with captions.
Please let me know in the comments if you think I got any
of the captions wrong.
I did my best, but it was difficult.
One last thing about this rare interview.
In the description, you will find a link to an article
that Rosen wrote about the day he met Ozzie
and Sabbath in 1974 and did this interview.
The article is funny, insightful,
and a good companion to this interview.
Thanks again so much to Steve Rosen for allowing me
to share this with all of you and not.
- [Interviewer] How did the whole,
I mean the concept of "Black Sabbath"
derive out of jazz-blues band?
- [Ozzy] You know, it just sort of, you know, just,
I used to go to school with Tony, and I used to,
I was working in a semi- professional group with Geezer.
and we just sort of met and formed, and
we chose Black Sabbath as a name, and that was it, you know.
- [Interviewer] How long had you been playing
in the jazz and blues 'cause the
first album was certainly not jazz and blues?
- [Ozzy] About a year.
- [Interviewer] But how'd the first album
evolve out of that?
- [Ozzy} Well, we just thought that,
We tried to put music over in a different angle,
and the music sounded, you know,
it sort of like it's an evilly sound, you know?
It's a
heavy doomy sound.
- [Interviewer] Why do you think people latched onto that?
- [Ozzy] I haven't got a clue.
- [Interviewer] An antagonistic type music.
- [Ozzy] I really haven't got,
I haven't got a clue, no.
- [Interviewer] You just don't know.
- [Ozzy] I don't really know because I'm in it, you know?
I can't see to say what it's like to,
as the people because I play it.
I don't listen to it as such,
I make the music, I don't listen to it. They do.
They either get off or don't get off.
- [Interviewer] Do you think, I mean when you first started
do you think that people thought offstage you were...
- [Ozzy] Oh yeah we used to all
this bullshit thrown. - [Interviewer] Right.
It's about witches and freaks phoning us
asking us to play at Black Masses.
- [Interviewer] ( chuckles) That one's clear.
You're probably one of the few bands that stayed together.
I mean, for over two or three years.
- [Ozzy] Yeah, well we started as we are now.
We still carry on with us
As long as we playing together,
we haven't never had any sort of
ego battles in the band, you know?
Nobody's sort of down on anybody else.
Sort of band of guys together.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, that's what's causing the
bands to break up?
- [Ozzy] I think that's a lot of it,
and a lot of it's over work as well.
Like, we've just come back now after
laying up for almost over a year.
But the reason why we needing laying up
is because we needed a rest.
We've never had time to sit back
at home and think about things.
- [Interviewer] You find yourself playing any kind of
a Pied piper on stage?
When I first started working,
I think a lot of people were really turned
onto Ozzy Osborne
once you said and what you did.
- [ Ozzy] I don't really know. All I go at
these days, I, I
I go and I like to feel that people, I like to try and put
over. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm playing an honest gig, you know?
I like people, I like people to get loose.
I like to see people enjoying themselves
and I don't like to see people get hurt.
I, I like people to, it turns me on, you know?
And the more they go, the more I feel.
I'm like, I'm like, it builds and builds, you know
just carry them, you know, going and going.
- [Interviewer] I heard you talking like last night
and you were talking about the money aspects of it.
I mean, you said you really don't care about the money.
- [Ozzy] I, I do and I don't because like, I don't, I never
I never go out and think about the bread we're making
all I wanna see is that all I wanna go
and see is the kids there
and enjoying what I'm playing to them.
I don't
I don't go on stage thinking, my, I earned $5, $10
you can't count them as you go along.
I don't wanna know, man.
It's, it's not, I'm not in it for that.
I'm init to turn people on, you know
and I'll do as best, best way I can.
You know?
for years I was bumming around for fucking nothing man.
I got screwed out of a lot
of money from time to time
in previous other ventures
I've done before the band, I'd always been ripped off
by people in the past and, and I think well fucking hell
if that's where it's at then I don't want
I don't want know it.
All I wanna do is be able to have a comfortable life
feed my kids, feed my wife, and put a roof over their heads
and make sure my kids have a good, good upbringing.
You know, a good upbringing.
Whereas like my parents give me as best one as I could
but like I can just give them that a bit more, you know?
- [Interviewer] Do you think of new album that
that Sabbath is going in really different direction?
- [Ozzy] I think.
Well what you mean in what way?
- [Interviewer] I mean, yeah, I think
- [Ozzy] I think it's going in a better direction.
Yeah. It's definitely going to a better direction.
You never sort of, when you, when you start to record
and writing album, you never sort of sit down and say
well we'll put it in this way
or we just sort of sit down and sort of, it just happens.
It's just born, you know
you never know what it's gonna turn out like.
It's just, it's just something.
It's born and it's there, you know?
I think this last album
well is the best one we've ever done.
If this is anything to go by, I'm, I'm
I can't wait to the next album or the next one
or the next one, but one, you know, it's just incredible.
I couldn't, I can't believe it, man.
- [Interviewer] It's almost like,
it's almost like (unintelligible)
the Black Sabbath album, but yet it is.
- [Ozzy] Yeah, I think it's, it shocked a lot of people.
It shocked me. Shocked the shit outta me.
Didn't it.
- [Interviewer] Was there something that
I mean that just, that caused it?
- [Ozzy] I just don't know.
I haven't got a clue.
(unintelligible)
- [Interviewer] That's what I was gonna ask you about that.
What happened?
- [Ozzy] We just got stoned all the time
(unintelligible), just sort of out of it.
We couldn't sort of, we couldn't think
'cause we'd got Vol.4 together out
in LA and we thought that, but being away
from home made us work more and get into it more
but it was just like a party each time.
It kept getting harder, just crazy all the time.
- [Interviewer] Whose idea was to, I mean,
to add the strings and bagpipes?
- [Ozzy] Well, we just, we just try, try.
Well fuck it.
I'm gonna try everything.
We, we try anything and everything.
If it's good, it's good.
If it's not good, it's bad.
You won't use it.
Try try anything once because not with a record.
I'll believe that you're putting out a product.
A product, you know.
- [Interviewer] Was any of the band, I mean, did they, any
of them ever study or read about Black Magic that at all?
- [Ozzy] No. No.
- [Interviewer] I mean it was just, it was just a concept.
- [Ozzy] Yeah. That it's like anything.
It's like we got sick and tired of hearing all the bullshit
you love your brother and flower power forever
and mating with a chick on the corner you're hung
up on it all which is all a fallacy in a dream
We, we brought things down to reality, you know
we brought our songs real, a real
a real thing behind it, you know, which I think people want
at the time people must have been wanting to
hear something real for a change.
A lot of people were probably said
our music's probably the most easiest music
in the world to understand.
But we don't, we don't go
out to say that we're the best musical or you know
technical band in the world. You know?
Just sort of ordinary backstreet guys
who learn to play couple
learn to play guitars and sung them and drums
and we're just making a, a sound, which, which is just free
sort of suburban rock if you like, slum Rock, you know
I dunno what you can call it.
There's been so many different bags
of been put into, you know, and instead like
parts of our environment evolved,
our minds, you know?
It was always sort of beg and borrow,
sort of trip all your life, you know, always, you know
you always wanted something fulfillment.
You always really wanted something badly.
You always was in need of something you feel
- [Interviewer] Do you feel fulfilled with
Black Sabbath at this point?
- [Ozzy] I think it's tremendous right now.
I love this, I know I've got no desires.
There's a rumor going on that the band was splitting.
I don't know anything about that rumor,
but it's, it's a fraud,
because the band nows stronger and more together than ever.
You know?
I love the guys, you know, I'd do anything for them.
- [Interviewer] you're making your own solo album?
- [Ozzy] I I'm, I'm not, it's not definite.
I I I have it in mind.
I wrote a few things.
I, I wrote the basis to track of "Who are you"
on this synthesizer (unintelligible)
on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
and, it was a heavy trip and
and we decided to put it on the album.
But it is gonna be similar to that trip. You know?
(unintelligible)
- [Interviewer] Rick Wakeman kind of?
No, no, I just did that myself.
He didn't, it didn't do that.
"Who are you" he did "Sabbra Cadabra"
We did it on
"Who are you?"
I I think that's in the album also.
the fact like you (unintelligible) produce yourself
and I guess, well, recording quality of it.
- [Ozzy] We, we never, we never had,
we never had the chance to get
into the technical side of it before, you know
because we were working all the time.
- [Interviewer] Are you, are you satisfied
with the result? It is a long process when
you produce your own album.
- [Ozzy] Oh, it's a drag, it is
at the end of it, you're thinking,
fuck it man, let's go home.
- [Interviewer] Is it hard?
- [Ozzy] Oh, it's really hard.
- [Interviewer] Why not just bring in a producer?
- [Ozzy] I don't see how anyone can listen
to my music and put it down.
Tell me how my music should sound
or our music should sound when he
hasn't been with the band for more than a day or so.
- [Interviewer] Do you think there's a new emphasis
on lyrics in the band or in the vocals?
- [Ozzy] What you mean?
- [Interviewer] I mean, the words are now as
important as the music.
- [Ozzy] They always have been.
Always have been.
And the words, and even right back
to the beginning were really heavy words
and they were very intense words, very personal words.
- [Interviewer] Have you found that
during certain times that
the band is more popular than others.
Like if there's, if if if the, if the
if the country itself is kind of down
I mean you kind the music, I mean to
- [Ozzy] I mean to be honest with you, I
I mean people are always asking me sort of really
deep questions like what you're just asking me.
I honestly don't know
because I don't sort of read the newspaper.
I don't sort of watch the news and sum
up the way of the big depression cloud that's hanging
over the world today and write to it.
It happens, just comes out.
What can say, I don't know.
- [Interviewer] Is the correct concern
that that Sabbath has been kind of slagged by the press.
- [Ozzy] Oh, you bet.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- [Ozzy] That's understatement
of the year there.
Fucking hell
When have you guys ever said any good about us?
- [Interviewer] Why is that?
- [Ozzy] I have, well, everybody's got
everybody's got a scapegoat haven't they?
- [Interviewer] Are are you working on new album?
- [Ozzy] Oh yeah, we got a dynamite album at
the end of the year.
I, I tell you it's a good time.
It's a really like to do a lot more mellower stuff
on record,
but I, I dig rockin' on stage.
I get bored on stage singing a ballad.
(unintelligible)
"Fluff"
(unintelligible)
And people going...
Play "Iron Man"
fucking hell, play Iron Man
That's all they wanna hear
"Iron Man","Paranoid", "War Pigs".
"Snowblind" "Sweet Leaf" and that's it,
unless they don't.
- [Interviewer] That one album
seems to have all those songs on it.
- [Ozzy] I listen to that album for the first time in
in a long time in the week.
I thought fucking hell mate it wasn't
half bad. Was it?
- [Interviewer] You said that you'd like to get
into like that, you know, mellower, stuff like that
- [Ozzy] but I'm do the on my own, no, sorry, I'm do that
on my own because I dig singing
spacey thing, with electronics.
I like to,
I think it's emptiness thing.
Synthesizers, get
empty, empty feeling out of it.
Depth, and distance.
Its like forever.
You know what I mean?
It's like looking into the void
and then I hear that, um,
mean like that "Who are you"
I wrote that in the kitchen
fucking wife cooking some food,
with the synthesizer on the table.
(unintelligible) it just came out.
first thing I've ever written on my own.
I never played an instrument.
I don't even know what the fuck
I've played (unintelligible) you know
Really don't know what, what
what key or chord or what
what notes I've played a sound
that's the best of it.
That's the best of where I get it.
(unintelligible)
I can sort of make a sound
something other people will like, without
getting into musical bits,
(unintelligible) teenager
(unintelligible)
Then they start talking about we'll
play this one in F sharp or
(unintelligible)
What the fuck does that mean?
That means nothing to me.
(unintelligible)
- [Interviewer] Do you think that's too much
(unintelligible) whole band?
- [Ozzy] Man was born and the first thing (unintelligible)
make a sound out of something.
And he liked that sound
and he thought that he was good.
All the rest of us went out from there.
(unintelligible)
And then he started to put numbers to (unintelligible)
and that was a bit of a freak on me.
So like, I need to stone wall.
If I come rough, we just go make, (unintelligible)
Then you go into the jungle
and hear some incredible sounds. You know?
Gorillas eating people.
Now seriously though you know
they don't even know what the fuck they're saying
some of the rhythms they come out with
your mind's blown
Would you like to play, like, any synthesizer on stage?
I do occasionally.
(unintelligible)
I do occasionally. (unintelligible)
I don't, I don't profess to be
a musician you know?
I don't know what the fuck I'm playing
when I'm playing it.
I, I can't, I can't play a piano.
You only use one finger on a synthesizer.
That's my (unintelligible), that's my fucking
Put it on that way. One finger fucking (unintelligible)
Liberace one finger
The album.
If I do record an album
I'm gonna call it "Am I going Insane."
I've written a track called
"Am I going Insane".
And I, they're always
I'm always questioning me.
(crosstalk)
Fucking hell man.
(crosstalk)
They're gonna lock you up one day
- [Interviewer] What is is the reason for making your album
because stuff not suitable for the band?
Yes. No,
Really?
- [Ozzy] I'm into electronics.
(unintelligible) to the electronic sound.
I, you know, we, we discovered that.
I like the heavy stuff.
Tony loves mellow stuff.
Personally playing.
Geezer loves heavy but mellow combined.
And Bill loves lonely stuff.
He loves playing very lonely and
and very sort of sad stuff, you know?
And combined
it must fucking clash
fucking weird freak thing, you know,
really heavy. I mean,
it's a really fucking weird, weird, stuff to be in, you know
(unintelligible)
Tony (unintelligible)
(Fucking hell Ozzy. We wish we could understand you.)
Piano and a Mellotron
It sounded like a fucking symphony.
I said "fucking hell man, what's this?"
(unintelligible)
- [Ozzy] I believe like this Volume, Vol.4 was
like the beginning of a new trip for us.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is like say stage two init.
and we got stage three and four to work with.
Vol.4 really opened their eyes you know.
What, what, what, what what, what we can do
what we can sort of venture into. Right.
It's like opening another door.
I I could say to myself one day we're gonna make
written make the brick wall
and, and like the last album
I think fucking hell.
The next album is going to be that much harder
to find some people.
It just happens if
you're writing a song there iting it
- [Interviewer] How come there aren't
I mean like more vocal with the band.
Like I heard like Geezer
and Bill kind of singing, you know
around the table today
and it sounded like they can both sing.
- [Ozzy] Yeah. But you know, it's vocal and melody
inspired inspired all things like that.
I'd love to play guitar.
- [Interviewer] You would?
- [Ozzy] I'd love to play the guitar.
- [Interviewer] Have you, you taken any lessons or anything?
- [Ozzy] Oh yeah, I ended up fucking
busting the guy over the head with the fucking guitar.
but that guy was crippled when I left you know.
(unintelligible)
Put your right finger on the, you know.
I had this one guy teaching me, he's very good at.
He told me (unintelligible)
I wonder how I can pick up the guitar and play
but don't have to go through the bullshit of learning it.
You know, I, I, I want
I I'm a run before I can walk, you know?
Like I'm Eric Clapton before
around guitar up, you know, and I'm, and I'm disappointed
Rick Wakeman is, he's incredible man, as a guy.
I love that guy.
I love him. I really do.
Any other guy in a world.
And and it would never happen.
That I hope the band never splits.
But if the band ever did split.
And it's very, very fucking remote.
Very remote.
It never will be, you know?
And it did.
And I choose another guy to work with.
I think I'd choose Rick.
Really?
He can blow anyone off the fucking stage.
I think he'd wipe the floor with Keith Emerson
as far as I think.
Really? You think so?
Oh right man.
you know, he's good naturally
but he doesn't go around broadcasting everything, you know
I don't, I mean, Keith Emerson, is a good keyboard player.
I'm not disputing that fact,
They're both...
It's beyond the keyboard player
Rick Wakeman the guy is just incredibly..
I, I, you know, I'm recording, he recording the same studio.
He just have a drink together, chat, and be social.
You forget what you, you know, he
you know what he is and you are what you are you down
to earth people drinking and chatting, playing darts
in a bar.
Love him, I do.
Really, really love him to death.
We did a gig in Birmingham.
And he was gonna come up and do a jam with us on the stage.
when we did "Sabbra Cadabra".
He'd been in Tommy in London and he
sent me a really nice telegram.
(unintelligible)
Look most guys wouldn't give you the time of fucking day
with this stuff.
- [Interviewer] Would you like to have him on
your album?
- [Ozzy] I really would, yeah.
I feel that it wouldn't be me.
You know?
Ozzy Osborne and Rick Wakeman
and it would probably go anyway
on the strength of Rick Wakeman's
success on his own anyway.
I digged to work with the guy
I really would.
(unintelligible)
But I can't see that's gonna happen
because we both could of
sort of committed
to our own record companies.
It's got a big bullshit to trip get it together.
[Interviewer] You mentioning down in the cafe that
I mean you were on the road for so long that, I mean
your little daughter didn't, didn't know you and stuff.
- [Ozzy] It's fucking terrible. I never
want to go through that shit again
- [Interviewer] It's not that bad now?
- [Ozzy] Oh no.
Me and my my kids are really together now.
- [Interviewer] and you'd never go through that again.
- [Ozzy] Well, if I, if I had to, I would.
I suppose I would, but I wouldn't like it.
You, you, you, you, you sort of lose complete
sort of communication with everybody.
You go home like a stranger.
It's like a a a distant uncle coming back
from Australia make every 10 years, you know, you know
what's something (unintelligible),
what's that over there? You know?
There's something there and built up around you. Like
while your eyes have been shut for six weeks.
- [Interviewer] Is it hard to tour the States
(unintelligible)
Aside from the fact that's its farther away
- [Ozzy] the states, you can't
when this is touring America
this is why I call it, the band on the road, you know?
'cause in England you can tour it
in two weeks, you know, and
and to do two weeks tour or three week tour in England.
Like you, you've done everywhere.
Absolutely everywhere.
There's nowhere else you can go back to.
- [Interviewer] I mean, and when you first started
I mean you didn't
it was the press and, and the media that
blew up Black Sabbath bigger than they were?
- [Ozzy] what you mean?
- [Interviewer] I mean now that, I mean I'm I'm with you.
I can see that, I mean, do this four musicians when
when Black Sabbath first started, I think that people felt
that Black Sabbath was something far greater than that.
That it was, that it was a whole aura.
- [Ozzy] I don't understand.
You mean like evil, black magic?
- [Interviewer] Yeah, I mean that, that it,
it saying that music
which is the vehicle of, of, of conveying all this
- [Ozzy] well all music's a vehicle to convey anything.
You know, we just conveyed a different sort of,
of a trip out to people.
which is happening, which has happening.
You know, like I would really have dug to
to do the soundtrack for The Exorcist, you know
I really would of got high on doing it.
If ever the chance comes again to do something like that.
I really would love to do it. You know?
When you're in yourself
you can't sort of, you can't relate to it yourself.
You can't sit down and say
well that's good, that's bad, that's good, that's bad.
Because like some
of the things I've thought were bad kids will go nuts over
and some of the things I thought was good kids
aren't really go after.
That's you just gonna wait.
You just make it, you produce it, you know
- [Interviewer] just to kind of sum it up.
The impressions that I get from you is that
that people have the wrong impression
of Black Sabbath then.
- [Ozzy] People are digging it, you know
it's getting people off,
Why condemn people's enjoyment?
If we weren't, if people weren't buying our records and
if people boo'ed us every night and if people just
didn't want know, man, then I could understand it.
You know, I really could understand it.
Well, eventually it might happen, you know
especially everybody has their day, you know
it might happen eventually.
But...
today now people are digging it.
In the past four years, they've been really getting
into it and it's been helping them.
I feel that I've helped them, somewhat,
by my music. You know?
If I die now...
I can say, well
for five years I turn people on and they enjoyed my music.
If it was one or a 1 million, 2 million, 5 million
I've made those people get enjoyment
and I've given them something to, to
to live for and get into. You know?
It sounds a bit philosophical I suppose
but this is the way I feel about it.