News Segment

NEW OZZY OSBOURNE SET A GO, BLACK SABBATH ALBUM A NO:

March 16, 2005

NASHVILLE/NEW YORK (Billboard) – Ozzy Osbourne has re-signed with Epic Records and is working on material for his next studio release.

“Ozzy’s writing now, and there’ll be something out at the beginning of next year,” his wife/manager, Sharon Osbourne, told Billboard.

Epic will release the four-disc Osbourne boxed set, “Prince of Darkness,” on Tuesday (March 22).

One item not likely to see the light of day, however, is a new Black Sabbath studio disc, which would be the band’s first with Osbourne since 1978’s “Never Say Die!”

“I could go in the studio and write a bunch of stuff, but why do an album just for the sake of (drummer) Bill (Ward), (guitarist) Tony (Iommi), me and bassist (Geezer) Butler together playing if it’s not up to the Black Sabbath standard that I left?,” Ozzy told Billboard. “It would f— it up, you know? It’s so sad when you hear these monumental bands do these piece-of-s–t records just because they want the money.”

But Osbourne still revels in playing live with Black Sabbath, which will anchor this summer’s 10th anniversary edition of the Ozzfest tour.

“There is no one (else) on the face of the Earth that can play these songs,” he said. “The fortunate thing about me is I have two vibes; I can do the Ozzy thing and the Sabbath thing. The Sabbath thing, when we were kids, we didn’t say ‘We’ll, write this song called ‘War Pigs’ and in f—ing 25 years we’ll be icons. We had no idea. We didn’t have any musical education.”

“The beauty of those days was, we would end the song when we wanted to f—ing stop playing,” he continued. “I can honestly say that (with) Black Sabbath, nobody ever told us what to play or how to play. It was our gig.”

So how much longer will Ozzy keep mounting major tours? “I don’t know,” he said. “I retired about 15 years ago and that lasted a f—ing year. What I learned from that retirement thing was you have to retire to something else. If you sit on your arse watching TV, you’re gonna drop dead.”

Plus, traditional retirement activities don’t appeal to Ozzy. “I fish with f—ing dynamite and I f—ing hate golf,” he said.

In related news, Butler will on May 10 release a new album from his band Geezer, “Ohmwork,” via Sanctuary. The group, which also features vocalist Clark Brown, guitarist Pedro Howse and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, plans to tour in the fall.

Courtesy of www.billboard.com