Tony Iommi has opened up about the loss of his friend and Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, revealing that he spoke to him on the night before he died.
Just over two weeks earlier the pair had pulled off the dream send off at Villa Park, in Birmingham, where Back To The Beginning, the world’s biggest heavy metal all-dayer ever, took place with A-list rock and metal bands flying in to pay tribute to the band who created metal, playing one last hurrah in their home town in England’s Midlands.
Speaking to the Loudwire Nights podcast, Iommi is still in a sense of shock that Ozzy died so soon after the show.
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“He was really happy with it, that we could do it,” says Iommi. “In fact, I spoke to him the night before he passed, and he said to me, ‘I really feel tired and really worn out.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re bound to, really. It has been a lot of stress and pressure and stuff like that.’ And the next thing, the next day – gone.
“I still can’t get it in my head that he’s gone, because if I’m watching YouTube, something comes up and it’s Ozzy, and it still feels like he’s there”
Iommi and Ozzy’s conversation was not unusual for the pair. That was how these chats used to go; they would regale each other of their maladies and have a laugh about it.
Ozzy’s health issues in the months running up to Back To The Beginning had taken their toll. Iommi says he hadn’t seen Ozzy in a while. They had last performed together when they played Paranoid at the Commonwealth Games, but Ozzy’s physicians warned him against traveling.
“When he did come over, and I saw him, we were all shocked,” says Iommi. “It was such a shock for all of us.”
The rehearsals for Back To The Beginning were intense. Black Sabbath had not performed with their original drummer Bill Ward since the 2005 Ozzfest Tour. Sabbath knew that Ozzy would have to perform seated in a specially constructed throne, but even so, it threw Iommi for a loop.
He would be in everyone’s faces – the crowd’s, the band’s too – trying to get everyone going. There was a lot of material to go over. Ozzy was struggling but was game.
“I’d seen him in rehearsals, and he didn’t look well,” says Iommi. “But he was having a go. And I said to him in rehearsals, ‘Don’t come in tomorrow. Just stay at home, and we’ll run over the instrumental stuff.’”
But Ozzy would come into rehearsals all the same. He had one last show to play.
“It was a great moment, and I’m really glad we could get the opportunity to do it,” says Iommi. “Because, I mean, God, we didn’t know he was gonna go that quick. But he did.”
Iommi releases his new solo album, From the Dark, on October 23 via BMG, and today releases the first single from the album, World Alone, on 7” vinyl.
From the Dark was co-written with Swedish vocalist Jørn Lande, who fronted Heaven & Hell after the death of Ronnie James Dio for a string of dates that paid tribute to the former Black Sabbath and Rainbow frontman. Becky Baldwin plays bass guitars and Karl Brazil plays drums.
Oh, and there’s also a man by the name of Dr Brian Harold May who guests on guitar. He might have played a few more solos – Iommi told Loudwire that he asked him to.
“I said to him, ‘Play on some other tracks,’ but he went, ‘Oh no, it’s your album.’ That’s the relationship we’ve had with each other for all these years.”
