listen that he doesn’t particularly like jewellery, but take a look at him on any given day and he’s covered in the stuff. Rings, bracelets and always one, sometimes two or three, necklaces, usually involving crucifixes, skulls and diamonds. I don’t like jewellery, my arse. Anyway, he loved it. He also loved the whole birthday shebang. I mean, talk about doing it in style. Las Vegas for three days… ‘I don’t usually like surprises,’ he said, ‘but this one was different,’ adding, ‘besides, you don’t like surprises either.’
‘How the fuck would you know?’ I said. ‘You’ve never planned a surprise for me in your entire life.’ He has certainly given me plenty of surprises, but unfortunately not of the pleasant kind.
The milestone birthday over, Ozzy’s thoughts, and therefore mine, as his manager, turned to what the next decade would hold for him, work-wise.
Ozzfest, the annual heavy-metal festival we had established in 1996, was still going strong, but for Ozzy, Black Sabbath was never far from his mind. There’s an invisible thread that holds them together. Sabbath has been a huge part of Ozzy’s life.
He was at school with Tony Iommi, Sabbath’s guitar player. Right from the start they were chalk and cheese. Tony had much, much more confidence. His parents owned a grocery shop, while Ozzy’s parents were both factory workers. Tony – an only child – always had enough to eat. Ozzy was one of six, and the only way to be sure of getting fed was to get to the table first. A can of Campbell’s condensed soup and half a loaf of bread often had to make do for all the family.
After leaving school, Ozzy worked in a factory tuning car horns, and then in a slaughterhouse. But at the age of nineteen, he put an ad in the local music shop saying that his name was Ozzy Zigg, that he was a singer and was looking for a band. Tony and another local boy called Bill Ward turned up at Ozzy’s house and knocked at the door. Tony played lead guitar and Bill was the drummer. Ozzy didn’t play an instrument, but he had his own PA system bought on the never-never, his father acting as guarantor. Even owning your own microphone was rare – a whole system was magic, and this was why they’d come. When Ozzy opened the door, Tony said to Bill, ‘Oh shit. I was at school with him.’ Ozzy just said, ‘Oh, shit.’ Tony had been the school bully. Together with Terry Butler, always known as Geezer, this unlikely group of Brummie lads became pioneers in the genre of harder-edged music.
Ten years later, in 1979, Ozzy was fired and signed away his share of the name for a paltry $25,000. He was off his head with drink and drugs and couldn’t have read a bus ticket, let alone masterminded an exit deal from the band he’d been such an integral part of.
They were then based in LA, under contract to my father. I was doing the day-to-day and had rented them a house in Bel Air, where I’d turned the garage into a rehearsal room.
In those days you didn’t think about the implications of future earnings. Nobody thought two years ahead, let alone thirty or forty. At that time, no one had been in the rock ’n’ roll business for more than twenty years. Ozzy was flat broke and just wanted out, for whatever money he could get, and that’s what happened. Eventually, Geezer did the same thing and so did Bill. It all went to Tony. He ended up owning one hundred per cent of the Black Sabbath name.
Let’s not forget, these were four working-class lads from Birmingham, so they weren’t suddenly going to become business geniuses when it came to a severance deal. And besides, there was a period afterwards when Tony did so many reincarnations of the band with different people that the name wasn’t worth a great deal anyway. It became completely devalued.
Strangely, I was a friend of Tony Iommi’s long before I got to know Ozzy well when he produced an album for my father’s record label, Jet Records, by a band
‘How the fuck would you know?’ I said. ‘You’ve never planned a surprise for me in your entire life.’ He has certainly given me plenty of surprises, but unfortunately not of the pleasant kind.
The milestone birthday over, Ozzy’s thoughts, and therefore mine, as his manager, turned to what the next decade would hold for him, work-wise.
Ozzfest, the annual heavy-metal festival we had established in 1996, was still going strong, but for Ozzy, Black Sabbath was never far from his mind. There’s an invisible thread that holds them together. Sabbath has been a huge part of Ozzy’s life.
He was at school with Tony Iommi, Sabbath’s guitar player. Right from the start they were chalk and cheese. Tony had much, much more confidence. His parents owned a grocery shop, while Ozzy’s parents were both factory workers. Tony – an only child – always had enough to eat. Ozzy was one of six, and the only way to be sure of getting fed was to get to the table first. A can of Campbell’s condensed soup and half a loaf of bread often had to make do for all the family.
After leaving school, Ozzy worked in a factory tuning car horns, and then in a slaughterhouse. But at the age of nineteen, he put an ad in the local music shop saying that his name was Ozzy Zigg, that he was a singer and was looking for a band. Tony and another local boy called Bill Ward turned up at Ozzy’s house and knocked at the door. Tony played lead guitar and Bill was the drummer. Ozzy didn’t play an instrument, but he had his own PA system bought on the never-never, his father acting as guarantor. Even owning your own microphone was rare – a whole system was magic, and this was why they’d come. When Ozzy opened the door, Tony said to Bill, ‘Oh shit. I was at school with him.’ Ozzy just said, ‘Oh, shit.’ Tony had been the school bully. Together with Terry Butler, always known as Geezer, this unlikely group of Brummie lads became pioneers in the genre of harder-edged music.
Ten years later, in 1979, Ozzy was fired and signed away his share of the name for a paltry $25,000. He was off his head with drink and drugs and couldn’t have read a bus ticket, let alone masterminded an exit deal from the band he’d been such an integral part of.
They were then based in LA, under contract to my father. I was doing the day-to-day and had rented them a house in Bel Air, where I’d turned the garage into a rehearsal room.
In those days you didn’t think about the implications of future earnings. Nobody thought two years ahead, let alone thirty or forty. At that time, no one had been in the rock ’n’ roll business for more than twenty years. Ozzy was flat broke and just wanted out, for whatever money he could get, and that’s what happened. Eventually, Geezer did the same thing and so did Bill. It all went to Tony. He ended up owning one hundred per cent of the Black Sabbath name.
Let’s not forget, these were four working-class lads from Birmingham, so they weren’t suddenly going to become business geniuses when it came to a severance deal. And besides, there was a period afterwards when Tony did so many reincarnations of the band with different people that the name wasn’t worth a great deal anyway. It became completely devalued.
Strangely, I was a friend of Tony Iommi’s long before I got to know Ozzy well when he produced an album for my father’s record label, Jet Records, by a band
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