OZZY OSBOURNE On The End Of BLACK SABBATH: “I’m not going to stop entirely,” I’m not going to sit with my slippers on and going, ‘I’m retired.’ We’re just going to go in different directions.”
BLACK SABBATH singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler spoke to AZCentral.com about the band’s decision to call it quits after completing “The End” tour in early 2017.
“We just all decided that we wanted to do one last tour,” Butler said. “We’re all getting up there in age, and while we’re still at the top of our profession, both musically and aesthetically, we wanted to go out on the top and we feel that this is the right time to do it. So the natural thing to do is to all agree on one last tour. And once we agreed on one last tour, that was it. We just set it up. And we all agreed that there won’t be any more Sabbath after this. It’s like a natural progression kind of thing; a natural end to the band.”
Ozzy, who said that there was no possibility of SABBATH changing their minds, once again made it clear that he has no intention of retiring from the business.
“I’m not going to stop entirely,” he said. “I’m not going to sit with my slippers on and going, ‘I’m retired.’ We’re just going to go in different directions.”
He continued: “BLACK SABBATH, it’s been up and down. And it’s good that we’ve come back together at the end, more or less, to finish on a high note. It’s a good way to do it. To come back and be friends with my buddies who I started up with all those years ago, it’s a closure for me to have a chapter of my life which I can say, ‘Well we came, we saw, we had a good time, and now it’s over.’ And so it’s like any relationship. I’m glad we ended up having more or less whatever has gone on between us over the years. We’ve got rid of all that. And we are friends again. So, I mean, it’s good that, at the end of my days on this planet, I can say, ‘Well, we ended okay,’ you know?”
Asked how it feels to be pulling the plug as such a huge part of his life in music, Osbournesaid: “I mean, you can’t do it forever. If you’re not careful, you’d become, ‘Oh, it’s them again,’ you know? It just felt right for me.”
SABBATH will bring its storied career to a close in the band’s native England, with seven shows booked there in January and February. The last two, on February 2 and February 4, will take place in SABBATH‘s hometown of Birmingham and will likely be their final shows.
The original lineup of SABBATH came together in 1969 with Osbourne on vocals, Tony Iommion guitar, Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums. That lineup recorded and toured through 1978, and periodically reformed through the ’90s and 2000s for live work.
They regrouped again in late 2011 for a new album and tour, although Ward dropped out after just a few months. The remaining trio issued the “13” album in 2013 and backed it with a successful world tour — despite Iommi being treated for lymphoma since 2012.
It’s the end of a very heavy era, as Black Sabbath brings the End Tour to its final resting place in Phoenix Sept. 21 before jumping on one final Ozzfest date in California three days later.
As founding bassist Geezer Butler explains the decision, “We just all decided that we wanted to do one last tour. We’re all getting up there in age, and while we’re still at the top of our profession, both musically and aesthetically, we wanted to go out on the top and we feel that this is the right time to do it.”
Asked if there’s a possibility that they could maybe change their minds if things are going really well, lead singer Ozzy Osbourne shuts it down with an emphatic, “No.”
Inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 (but only after years of snubbing by the metal-wary rock hall), Black Sabbath are often credited with giving birth to heavy metal with their classic 1970 debut and the quadruple-platinum followup, “Paranoid.” MTV once declared them the greatest metal band of all time, which seems about right.
Founding drummer Bill Ward left the fold in 2012, saying he wouldn’t return until he was given a “signable contract.” But Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler carried on, releasing “13” in 2013, and embarking on a world tour.
One reason they decided not to do a final album, Osbourne says, is that “13” became their first chart-topping effort in the States and what if this one only got to No. 2? It just felt wrong, aside from it would have taken several years to make another record. And as Osbourne says, it “couldn’t wait another few years. Enough, you know.”
Osbourne himself has no intention to retire from the business.
“I’m not going to stop entirely,” he says. “I’m not going to sit with my slippers on and going, ‘I’m retired.’ We’re just going to go in different directions.”
This is just the end of Sabbath, which he feels has run its course.
“Black Sabbath, it’s been up and down,” he says. “And it’s good that we’ve come back together at the end, more or less, to finish on a high note. It’s a good way to do it.”
Black Sabbath has been “through the mill” he says, “over the years.”
Osbourne was famously fired by his bandmates in 1979 after touring on “Never Say Die!” because, as Iommi was quoted as saying in Steven Rosen’s “The Story of Black Sabbath: Wheels of Confusion,” “We were all doing a lot of drugs, a lot of coke, a lot of everything, and Ozzy was getting drunk so much at the time. We were supposed to be rehearsing and nothing was happening.”
With Ronnie James Dio in for Osbourne, Black Sabbath regained the momentum they’d lost with the 1980 release of “Heaven and Hell,” their first platinum effort since “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” in 1973.
That same year, Osbourne went solo with “Blizzard of Ozz,” his first of seven multiplatinum albums.
After reuniting for a one-off set in 1985 at Live Aid and again, in 1992, for the last two nights of Osbourne’s intended retirement tour, the original Sabbath lineup reconvened in 1997 for the Ozzfest tour. Those shows resulted in the live “Reunion” album.
Produced by Rick Rubin, whose goal was to get the musicians to channel the essence of their own debut, “13” was Black Sabbath’s first album with Osbourne on vocals since “Never Say Die.” And it achieved what it set out to do.
It also offered Osbourne something even he calls closure.
“To come back and be friends with my buddies who I started up with all those years ago,” he says, “it’s a closure for me to have a chapter of my life which I can say, ‘Well we came, we saw, we had a good time, and now it’s over.’ And so it’s like any relationship. I’m glad we ended up having more or less whatever has gone on between us over the years. We’ve got rid of all that. And we are friends again. So, I mean, it’s good that, at the end of my days on this planet, I can say, ‘Well we ended okay,’ you know?”
Butler says he realized on the “13” tour that he and his bandmates couldn’t do this for much longer.
“So the natural thing to do is to all agree on one last tour,” he recalls. “And once we agreed on one last tour, that was it. We just set it up. And we all agreed that there won’t be any more Sabbath after this. It’s like a natural progression kind of thing; a natural end to the band.”
Asked how it feels to be pulling the plug as such a huge part of his life in music, Osbourne doesn’t break out any crying towels.
“I mean you can’t do it forever,” he says. “If you’re not careful, you’d become, ‘Oh, it’s them again,’ you know? It just felt right for me.”
Touring with Sabbath is not what it was in the early days, of course. At least not in terms of the way they spend their hours offstage.
“We sometimes grab meals together,” Osbourne says. “But we don’t go and do bags of powder and f–king alcohol anymore and smoke our brains out. We’ve gotten better. I’ve gone past it, whatever everybody else says. I mean people like my friend Lemmy Kilmister with the lifestyle. I mean he died. You know, if you want to carry on, you’ve got to take care of yourself or you won’t. You know, it was great but it’s over for me now.”
When Butler adds, “We have nice cups of tea together now,” Osbourne quickly interjects, “And cookies.”
In the spirit of giving the group a proper burial, they’re playing fewer songs from “13” on this tour.
“What people really wanted,” Osbourne says, “is the old classics. It takes them back down memory lane.”
And although Osbourne says, “I don’t go back down memory lane,” he doesn’t mind giving the fans what they want.
“When I first went solo,” he says, “I thought, ‘Well I’m not going to do any of that,’ but then the audience was starting to say, ‘Well why don’t you play the Sabbath songs, it’s what you sang anyway?’ So I did. And ‘Paranoid’ never gets old. ‘Iron Man’ never gets old. You would think after 40 years, I would be say saying, ‘Oh no, not “Iron Man” again.’ But it’s not. So every time I play, I play it like it’s a first time.”
And as Butler adds, “The response from the audience that we get always keeps them fresh anyway.”
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