Ozzy Osbourne News

Metal legends dismiss drummer’s complaints over ‘unsignable’ contract, saying their comeback will carry on without him

Black Sabbath’s comeback will take place without Bill Ward. The metal legends have announced they are moving on without their original drummer, dismissing his complaints about the terms of their reunion.

In a statement on their website, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi hardly seemed sympathetic to Ward’s grievances. “We were saddened to hear via Facebook that Bill declined publicly to participate in our current [plans],” they wrote. “We have no choice but to continue recording without him although our door is always open.”

Though the specifics of the dispute have not been revealed, Ward has emphasised his interest in and commitment to the group – he simply has issues with the contract. “My position is not greed-driven,” Ward wrote on Thursday. “I’m not holding out for a ‘big piece’ of the action (money) like some kind of blackmail deal … [just] a signable contract … that reflects some dignity and respect toward me as an original member of the band.”

Fans have been vocal in their respect for Ward’s decision. “Your support from across the world has given me further strength and hope for a positive resolve,” Ward wrote on Saturday . “I have been moved and overwhelmed by the thousands of messages. I love you all.”

Meanwhile, Osbourne, Butler and Iommi have begun writing and recording their first album in 34 years. They are currently based in England, where Iommi is receiving treatment for cancer. Black Sabbath still plan to launch a world tour in May, including an appearance at June’s Download festival. But it seems they will do so without Ward – who played on 10 of the band’s first 11 albums.

View full post on Music: Ozzy Osbourne | guardian.co.uk

In a week where crime and social dysfunction filled our screens, a close study of social workers provided a much-needed glimmer of light

Coppers (C4) | 4oD

Bouncers (C4) | 4oD

Party Paramedics (C4) | 4oD

My Child the Rioter (BBC2) | iPlayer

Protecting Our Children (BBC2) | iPlayer

God Bless Ozzy Osbourne (BBC2) | iPlayer

Perhaps it’s the dispiriting effects of midwinter and the economic gloom, but there does seem to be a lot of television at the moment devoted to crime and social dysfunction. Especially on Channel 4. Since offloading the burden of Big Brother, the broadcaster has taken on the onerous task of showing us that side of British life – punching, vomiting, urinating and flashing – that was once the preserve of Police Camera Action!.

Last week it was possible to watch drunk and abusive people in Tayside in Coppers and drunk and abusive people in Newport in Bouncers. There was not much to choose between them. They were all pink-faced, tattooed, bloated and violent – and, to resort to the old joke, that really was just the women.

With due respect to the Scots offender who relieved himself in the back of a police van, it was the Welsh who edged this unofficial UK gross-out competition. A Newport doorman recalled the time he had kicked his way into a male lavatory to find a woman in mid-bowel movement simultaneously performing a sex act on her boyfriend or, at least, the man she happened to be sharing the cubicle with.

I’m not sure that I needed to hear that anecdote. Still, I feel critically obliged to share it, not because that’s what passes for entertainment in the pubs and clubs of Great Britain, but because that’s what passes for entertainment on British TV.

“Drunk Camera Action!” has become the rallying cry of countless observational documentaries, all put together with the same dramatic division between the forces of chaos and order, the same half-ironic narration, and the same gloating appetite for corporeal excess.

Coppers is the best of the bunch, because it’s the least exploitative and the most informative. But it’s undermined by the ubiquity of its techniques. The almost identical approach was adopted by yet another Channel 4 offering, Party Paramedics, which, for variation’s sake, showed us drunk and abusive people in Kavos.

Never heard of Kavos? It’s a hangout in Corfu for British youngsters who want to screw each other, and, as such, should not be confused with Davos, the global gathering in Switzerland for oldsters who have screwed us all.

This time the head-shaking guardians of society were not Scottish cops or Welsh bouncers but Greek physicians manning a clinic in the middle of Kavos’s nightclub strip, like some outpost of civilisation in the darkest heart of debauchery. Say what you like about the Greeks’ inability to control their spending (and who are we to speak?), but at least they can control their drinking.

“I wanna get wankered,” spluttered one Englishman, already making a good fist of the job. Others professed a more traditional desire to get “paralytic every night”.

Good on us, it might be said, for bringing Greek tourism and medicine such lucrative business in their hour of need. But, really, what is it with Britons? Why are we on such intimate terms with alcoholic oblivion? And whatever happened to embarrassment?

Drunkenness may be as old as history, but its brazen parade for the camera is a much more recent phenomenon. It’s also one that Channel 4 appears dedicated not just to enabling but celebrating.

My Child the Rioter was a superior but no more inspiring film. Several young people were interviewed, alongside their parents or parent, about why they took part in last summer’s riots. The reasons given were, with one exception, for fun, for free goods or because everyone else was doing it.

Those who insist on seeing the flame of political rebellion in England’s burning cities last year had their work cut out casting these dim-witted kids and their docile parents as the revolutionary vanguard. But Liam, the father of a student rioter called Ryan, was on hand to rouse disappointed sofa insurgents. “Robbing trainers isn’t political,” he explained. “The reasons for robbing trainers are political.”

His son, of whose actions he firmly approved, said that he “wanted to see policeman being attacked, being injured”. Ryan could have stayed in and watched Coppers, but then he wouldn’t have witnessed what he characterised as “a redistribution of wealth” and an attack on “government institutions”.

Liam also cited another motivation for the masses laying siege to Foot Locker – the £20,000 it costs to “get educated”. You could see his point. His son was studying culture, power and identity at Salford University. He certainly has a strong case for a refund.

The best documentary of the week was Protecting Our Children, a close study of the much maligned duties of social workers. The film followed a trainee social worker, Susanne, as she advised and evaluated a couple – Mike and Tiffany – with a three-year-old son, Toby, who couldn’t speak, was still wearing a nappy and had suspicious bruising on his body.

Mike was an aggressively defensive type who couldn’t see the need for his son to have a toothbrush as he himself never brushed his teeth as a child. All you need to know about Mike’s parenting skills and ability to make rational decisions is that he only had one front tooth remaining.

The family’s flat was covered in dog faeces and Toby didn’t have a mattress to sleep on. “Would you leave a dog there?” one senior social worker asked after a visit. “So why would you leave a child there?”

But removing a child from parental care is a complex moral and legal process. When to intervene? Can the parents be helped? Is the state too invasive? What complicates the issue further is that, to have a good chance of being able to recover from the effects of neglect and abuse, a child needs to be placed for adoption as young as possible.

Navigating this impossible path is an embattled group of professionals who know that with one false move they might be starring in a tabloid vilification campaign. There are plenty of strapping men who wouldn’t relish going up against the likes of Mike when, in his own words, he’s “irated”. Susanne kept her cool and was impressive throughout, although she could possibly have done without the face jewellery. Some parents might not appreciate being judged by someone with a ring in her lip and stud in her cheek.

Tiffany became pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Mike hit her, she said, and they split up. Then she decided to put both children up for adoption. In the circumstances, it was a happy end. Or what passes for it in social work.

According to God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, all the most unappealing behaviours discussed above, including the scatalogical indiscretions, were for 35 years part and parcel of the former Black Sabbath singer’s life. He was a mindless rebel, alcoholic, drug addict, wife abuser, neglectful parent and all-round obnoxious idiot. And a hero to millions.

Perhaps sensing that his drunken pranks, such as biting the heads off doves and smearing his excrement on hotel walls, had become the stuff of teenage holidays, Osbourne gave up booze several years ago. If only sobriety could do for his voice what it’s done for his liver. To hear him caterwauling during a sound check was to wonder at the meaning of his claim that he suffered from “terminal perfectionism”. Had the perfectionism reached its end?

Much of the documentary was spent recalling his wild years when he looked like Gazza in a fright wig and platform heels, a riot of mad mugging and destructive compulsions. Osbourne earned his reputation. He put the hours in drinking vodka and snorting coke. He never shirked responsibility when it came to being irresponsible. And, let it be said, he’s not without a certain inarticulate Brummy charm.

But the whole genre of rock reminiscences is inescapably self-parodic. Not for the first time, as the battle stories of vomit-choking, guitar solos and tour deaths were retold, the ghost of Spinal Tap hovered mockingly over the proceedings. What’s sometimes forgotten is that the joke in that masterpiece wasn’t just on heavy-rock musicians but the very idea of rockumentaries.

If this film largely endorsed the Ozzy myth, it also left the impression that the only truly remarkable thing about Sharon Osbourne’s husband is that he’s not dead. So let that be a warning to the truculent hordes in Newport and Kavos. Carry on acting like you are and in 35 years, when you’re a multimillionaire, you might have to stop. That should give them pause for thought.

View full post on Music: Ozzy Osbourne | guardian.co.uk

Drummer says he will not continue with comeback album and tour unless he receives a ’signable’ contract

Bill Ward has threatened to pull out of the Black Sabbath reunion. In an open letter on his website, the drummer said he will not continue with the planned album and tour unless he receives a “signable contract … that reflects some dignity and respect toward me as an original member of the band”.

Ward’s announcement throws the reunion into question. Despite Black Sabbath’s confidence in November, with the promise of a world tour and their first album in 33 years, doubts emerged last month after Tony Iommi was diagnosed with early-stage lymphoma. “[Tony is] determined to make a full and successful recovery,” the band said at the time, explaining they would continue recording in England, where Iommi is receiving treatment.

“Since the news of Tony’s illness, and the understanding that the band would move production to the UK, I’ve spent every day getting to or living in a place of readiness to leave,” Ward wrote on on Thursday. “As I’ve tried to find out what’s going on with the UK sessions, I’ve realised that I’ve been getting ‘the cold shoulder’ (and, I might add, not for the first time).”

The problem, Ward said, is he has not signed Black Sabbath’s new contract. While he doesn’t detail the issues, the current terms are “unsignable”: “I stand to lose my rights, dignity and respectability as a rock musician,” he wrote. “My position is not greed-driven. I’m not holding out for a ‘big piece’ of the action (money) like some kind of blackmail deal … I want a contract that shows some respect to me and my family, a contract that will honour all that I’ve brought to Black Sabbath since its beginning.”

Meanwhile, the rest of Black Sabbath are continuing with new material. According to an official update on 24 January, writing sessions are underway in Birmingham. “It’s just been amazing,” they said.

Ward said he is prepared to be replaced. “I hope you will not hold me responsible for the failure of an original Black Sabbath lineup as promoted,” he wrote. And yet if a suitable contract is put before him, the 63-year-old says he is “good to go”. “I grew up in a hard rock/metal band,” he explained. “We stood for something then, and we played from the heart with honesty and sincerity. I am in the spirit of integrity, far from the corporate malady.”

For the moment, Black Sabbath’s comeback tour is scheduled to begin on 18 May in Moscow. Their only UK date so far is the Download festival in June.

View full post on Music: Ozzy Osbourne | guardian.co.uk

Guitarist reveals he has early-stage lymphoma but intends to proceed with band’s long-awaited comeback

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has cancer. The 63-year-old musician is “upbeat and determined” after being diagnosed with early-stage lymphoma, and intends to proceed with his band’s comeback album and tour.

Black Sabbath announced Iommi’s illness on Facebook, explaining he is “working with his doctors to establish the best treatment plan”. “[Tony's] bandmates would like everyone to send positive vibes to the guitarist at this time,” they wrote. “[He is] determined to make a full and successful recovery.”

The lymphoma diagnosis comes about two months after Black Sabbath announced the reformation of their original lineup, featuring Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. The heavy-metal legends still plan to complete a new album – their first in 33 years – with producer Rick Rubin. But they will relocate recording sessions from Los Angeles to England, allowing Iommi to participate while he undergoes medical treatment.

There remains the question of Black Sabbath’s forthcoming tour, which begins in May. For now, the gigs are still on, although Iommi may not be well enough to perform. “Further information will be released as it becomes available,” the band said.

Many of Iommi’s fans and friends offered support over Twitter. “Best wishes for a full recovery,” wrote Slash. “FUCK YOU, cancer!” declared Sebastian Bach. Or as Anthrax put it: “This really does suck. GET WELL SOON TONY!”

View full post on Music: Ozzy Osbourne | guardian.co.uk

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Y el otro es nada más y nada menos que el hijo predilecto de las tinieblas, el padre de familia más revoltoso de los últimos años. ¿Adivinaron? Mmm…otra pista: padre de Jack y Kelly y esposo de Shannon. Sí, el irrompible Ozzy será parte del nuevo trabajo del ex guitarrista de Guns n’ Roses.

Esto fue confirmado por la esposa de Slash (Perla Hudson), quien confirmó a la bomba de Fergie y a Osbourne para el nuevo trabajo de su marido. Ya hay muchos demos de las canciones, serían unos 15, que formarían parte del primer disco solista del hombre de la galera.

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Former Black Sabbath frontman will be given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the heavy-metal award show.

By James Montgomery

Photo: Frazer Harrison/ Getty Images

Ozzy Osbourne will be given the Lifetime Achievement Award at Epiphone’s Revolver Golden Gods Awards, the country’s first-ever hard-rock and heavy-metal awards show.

The Golden Gods, presented by metal mag Revolver, will be handed out Tuesday, April 7 at the Club Nokia in Los Angeles. MTV2 and “Headbangers Ball” will offer exclusive coverage of the awards, both on air and online.

Hosted by stand-up comedian and avowed metalhead Brian Posehn, the awards will honor Osbourne’s contributions to hard rock (something the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame forgot to do until 2006, when he got in as a member of Black Sabbath), and will feature performances by Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Suicide Silence and a special guest to be announced shortly. Icons like Glenn Danzig and Tool’s Maynard James Keenan are also scheduled to appear, along with Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson of Testament, Protest The Hero, Marta Peterson from Bleeding Through, Isis, Brendon Small from Dethklok, WWE Wrestler CM Punk, plus many more.

Starting on the week of April 20, fans will be able to check out behind-the-scenes info on the awards at the Headbangers Ball blog and MTV2.com. On April 25, MTV2 will air a one-hour Revolver Golden Gods Awards nominee special and on Saturday, May 2, the channel will broadcast the ceremony.

For more information on the awards — including nominees and how you can score tickets to the show at Club Nokia — check out GoldenGodsAwards.com.

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Rob Halford, DevilDriver and Nonpoint fill out mainstage lineup.

By MTV News staff

Photo: Sergio Dionisio/ Getty Images

Ozzfest will return as a touring festival this summer, it was announced on Friday (April 30), with Ozzy Osbourne and Mötley Crüe headlining, according to a statement on the festival’s official site. The tour will mark the first time the two bands have toured together since 1984, during the Crüe’s breakthrough appearance as Ozzy’s opening act on a major U.S. tour.

Ozzfest, which took a year off in 2009 and was a one-day event headlined by Ozzy and Metallica in 2008, will kick off August 14 in San Bernardino, California (the birthplace of the first Ozzfest in 1996), and then make stops in Chicago; Hartford, Connecticut; Camden, New Jersey; Pittsburgh; and Boston. Live Nation will promote the tour nationally.

The main stage will feature full sets from Ozzy, the Crüe and Rob Halford, the latter performing songs from his solo career along with material from Judas Priest and Fight. DevilDriver and Nonpoint will fill out the main stage lineup. Second-stage headliners and six-time Ozzfest veterans Black Label Society will be joined by Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours and Kataklysm.

Each date on the tour will include 13 bands on two stages with music beginning at 1:00 p.m., according to the statement. There will also be a “Village of the Damned,” featuring interactive activities, shopping and entertainment throughout the venue concourses.

Ozzy will release a new album, Scream, on June 15.

Tickets for the shows will go on sale May 22 at OZZfest.com and LiveNation.com.

Ozzfest 2010 dates, according to the festival’s website:

8/14 – San Bernardino, California @ San Manuel Amphitheater
8/17 – Chicago @ First Midwest Bank Amphitheater
8/19 – Pittsburgh @ First Niagara Pavilion
8/21 – Hartford, Connecticut @ Comcast Theater
8/22 – Camden, New Jersey @ Susquehanna Bank Center
8/24 – Boston @ Comcast Center

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Ozzy mourns the passing of fellow Black Sabbath frontman, who died on Sunday.

By James Montgomery

Photo: Paul Natkin/WireImage

On Monday, Ozzy Osbourne released a statement praising the talents of the late Ronnie James Dio, who died on Sunday of stomach cancer at the age of 67.

“I was very saddened to hear of the passing of Ronnie James Dio,” Osbourne said in the statement. “Metal has truly lost one of its greatest voices. My heart goes out to his family and to his many fans. … Love and respect.”

Dio, who possessed one of the most formidable voices in hard rock, replaced Osbourne in Black Sabbath at the end of the 1970s (after rising to fame with acts like Elf and Rainbow) and led the band through a career resurgence, thanks to albums like Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. Dio would leave Sabbath to start his own band in late 1982, briefly rejoined in 1990, left again, then joined a final time in 2006, when he fronted the band under the moniker of Heaven and Hell.

Osbourne’s statement is just the latest in a series of tributes to Dio’s talent, generosity and kindness that have been pouring in since he died. Slayer’s Kerry King said he was lucky to have known him, and called Dio “one of the nicest guys in the business, without a doubt.” Anthrax’s Scott Ian echoed those sentiments, saying, “Every day on tour, he’d have a kind word, a smile and a clap on the back. I feel honored and privileged to even have shaken hands with Ronnie, let alone be able to say we were friends.”

A whole new generation of hard-rock acts also remembered Dio, with the likes of Killswitch Engage (who covered his classic “Holy Diver”) and Mastodon releasing statements about his death.

Share your own memories of Ronnie James Dio and his music in the comments.

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‘I cannot do it,’ he tells Inked magazine about watching the reality talent competition.

By MTV News staff

Photo: Getty Images

Ozzy Osbourne knows full well that his image as the deranged god of metal on a crazy train ride to oblivion has changed drastically over the past decade. While he was once known for (allegedly) biting the heads off of bats and (allegedly) snorting a line of ants, in these post-”The Osbournes” days he’s more likely to go off on young metal acts who have forgotten about melody as he looks for the legal drugs that help him overcome a nagging tremor.

The Blizzard of Ozz talks about all of that and more in a new interview with Inked magazine, where the 61-year-old hard-rock icon holds court on everything from “American Idol” to his first tattoos and what life is like sober.

“I wouldn’t have been speaking to Ozzy from 35 years ago because he would’ve been f—ed up and not having this conversation,” he said when asked what he might discuss with his younger self. “I never wanted to take the character of Ozzy off the stage, but it happened.” Now, with drugs and alcohol finally out of his life after decades of struggles, Ozzy, whose 10th studio album Scream will be released on June 22, said he only takes the medications he needs and that his life is not nearly as creepy and kooky as fans might imagine.

“I suppose there are people who imagine me going to my Bavarian castle and hanging upside down from the f—ing rafters every night,” he joked. “I’m just a guy, man — I’m just a crazy guy who started a merry-go-round ride many years ago, and I’m still here.” Ozzy has seen a lot changes over the years, but one of the biggest shifts in the music business — the emergence of reality singing shows like “American Idol” — is not something he cares to think about. “I cannot watch that sh–,” said Osbourne, whose wife, Sharon, is a judge on reality performance competition “America’s Got Talent.” “I cannot do it for the simple fact that for a person to come out of the working-class thing, pass the audition, go on the show and then have a panel of people tell them how f—ed up they are … I’m a 42-year veteran and I could not f—ing do it. My hat goes off to all of those kids on those shows.”

Because it’s a tat mag, Ozzy also runs down some of his most famous ink, beginning with his first piece — a dagger he got on his left arm when he was 15, complete with his name. “I don’t understand why, when I got tattoos all those years ago, everybody had daggers,” he said. “I don’t see what the f—ing point was now, but back then you would go for a dagger on the arm. But now it’s an art form.” He also confirms that the crude “OZZY” across his knuckles was a home job he did when he was stone-cold sober at age 16, one of the few he’s gotten while not in an altered state.

And even though he’s hitting the road this summer for a shortened version of the Ozzfest with his old pals in Mötley Crüe, Ozzy said he has no interest in revisiting the good/bad old days. “Now I just go and do my show,” he said, reminiscing about his fellow rockers who died as a result of drug and alcohol abuse. “In the old days, when we came offstage, I went to the bus to get more drugs and alcohol inside me. I don’t even know whether they still do that — if they want to do that, fine. I don’t have a problem with that. I’m not one of these holier-than-thou guys. Believe me, if I knew I could have a good time with it, I’d do it again. I’m not turning nerdy. I just never gave sobriety a chance before, really.”

There isn’t much he hasn’t done, but the one thing Osbourne does crave is a #1 album in America — but even if Scream doesn’t do it for him, don’t look for Ozzy to retire anytime soon.

“How can I retire from what I do? I’m the luckiest man in the f—ing world,” he said. “I have voice problems when I’m on the road from screaming every night. I’m not Pavarotti by any means, but if I was, he used to do one show every six months or so.”

Will you help Ozzy fulfill his dream of a #1 album? Let us know in the comments!

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Weezer, MGMT, Deadmau5 also among the performers at Halloween music fest in New Orleans.

By Josh Wigler

Photo: Getty Images

It’s not just ghosts, ghouls and goblins haunting New Orleans on Halloween weekend this year. The Big Easy’s music lovers can also look forward to seeing many of their favorite rappers, rock stars and more at the Voodoo Experience Festival 2010, set to take place at City Park in New Orleans from October 29-31 this year.

On Thursday (June 17) the festival announced that its lineup will include musicians such as Drake, Muse and Ozzy Osbourne among the high-profile performers. When the announcement was made at midnight, the fest’s official website crashed for several hours, according to Hit Fix, possibly indicating an unprecedented interest in this year’s show.

“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Halloween than with a performance in New Orleans,” Osbourne said in a press release. This year marks the Prince of Darkness’ first appearance at the Voodoo Experience Festival, now coming up on its 12th year.

Other Voodoo performers include Weezer, MGMT, Metric, Hot Chip, Interpol, Florence and the Machine, Paul Van Dyk and deadmau5. Several local New Orleans acts will also be on hand, including Leo Jackson and the Melody Clouds, the Rebirth Brass Band, Big Sam’s Funky Nation and Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen.

Tickets are already on sale, with weekend passes available for $150 and VIP packages for $500.

Which music festival are you most looking forward to this year? Share your excitement in the comments below.

Don’t miss the “Drake: Better Than Good Enough” documentary, airing Wednesday, June 23, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MTV!

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