Ozzy, See You On The Other Side

I am a child of the 80s and a teen of the 90s. Gen X to the core. I lived in both the cassette and cd generations, simultaneously. As a kid, metal music was ubiquitous. The hair metal kind. The heavy thrash kind. And the horror kind with satanic imagery. The last one definitely wasn’t approved of at our house. But, thanks to the magic of MTV, an older sister and some really cool friends I became immersed in it all.

There was a palpable scare in the 80s that devil worshippers walked among us. The hysteria would have you believing that Iron Maiden encouraged the drinking of goat’s blood. The Metallica video for “One” definitely gave a young me nightmares. And the evening news had lots of stories about some guy named Ozzy Osbourne whose song “Suicide Solution” was causing fans to kill themselves. The alleged message was hidden and if you played track backward he gave you devious instructions.

You grow into a skeptical teenager in the world of grunge and learn none of that was true. Even if Ozzy did bite the head off a bat, pee on the Alamo and manage to snort some ants to one up a young Motley Crue.

Then you come to love the music.

The first Ozzy song I was exposed to was “Iron Man” via Sir Mix Alot’s sample on the Swass album. Something one of my aforementioned cool friends got me on a bootleg tape.

Soon the dots would connect. “Crazy Train” and “Flying High Again”. On down the line. As a music connoisseur, I quickly learned this crazy man had actually helped invent a genre and revolutionize the music business as a whole.

I’ve been a fan ever since.

But, now Ozzy’s gone.

And even though he wasn’t Texas Country or Red Dirt, his fingerprints are all over the sonic DNA of anyone who ever turned a guitar up loud and let it rip. From Amarillo to Beaumont, you’ll find plenty of guitar pickers who cut their teeth on “Crazy Train” long before they ever covered “Carney Man.” For reference, see the video of Austin Gilliam we’ve shared on our social channels.

Ozzy Osbourne wasn’t just a rock star. He was a myth come to life. The voice of Black Sabbath. The man who bit the head off a bat. The drug addled whirlwind who somehow kept surviving the chaos around him.

Randy Rhoads gave Ozzy wings. Those first solo albums they made together are a defining testament of an era, genre and man. Rhoads played with a classical heart inside a metal beast. After Randy’s tragic death, Ozzy just kept going. First with Jake E Lee and then along came Zakk Wylde. A bullseye axe wielding Viking with a distinct tone that could punch holes in steel.

The songs were massive. “No More Tears”. “Mama I’m Coming Home”.

But, the stories were bigger. Texas sized even.

The Alamo incident? Only Ozzy. Drunk and wearing one of Sharon’s dresses (she had hid his clothes and locked him in the hotel going to keep him dry) peeing on a sacred Texas monument and getting banned from San Antonio for a decade. You can’t make that up!

Ozzy, despite all the crazy wreckage, always owned his mistakes and stumbled forward with a frenetic grace. A trail of broken TVs, empty bottles and platinum records in his wake.

And then, the TV show happened. The Osbournes on MTV turned the Prince of Darkness into your favorite mumbling TV dad. As much Homer Simpson as Glenn Danzig. We watched him shuffle through his Beverly Hills mansion while trying to figure out how the remote worked. It was hilarious. It was bizarre. It was peak Ozzy. America soon discovered that The Prince of Darkness is actually a sweetheart.

Through it all, he stayed a trailblazer. He created Ozzfest, giving young bands a spotlight when the industry wouldn’t. He never stopped taking chances. Never stopped being Ozzy. It’s something the trailblazers in our scene like Cody Canada learned from and emulated.

Any artist that has ever battled their demons, pushed through the wreckage and found their saving grace in music…Ozzy paved that road.

Thanks for all of it Ozzy. The songs, the stories and the legend will live forever. We’ll see you on the other side.