Originally published in UCLA Daily Bruin, June 30, 1972

“For the best coke, just ring three-eight-nine-oh-nine-eight, only one hundred dollars!” exclaimed a very stoned Ozzy Osbourne as he grinned stupidly from behind a microphone in studio “B” at Hollywood’s Record Plant, where Black Sabbath were finishing up their fourth LP. “I’m so stoned,” Ozzy moaned while gesturing like Frank Sinatra.

Aside from Ozzy’s ridiculous presence, the studio was more an avant garde artist’s view of a room than a musician’s. A smoky-burned American flag hung on one wall while parachutes were draped on the opposite wall. The room as a whole was composed of gentle combinations of orange and red, including red tie-dyed baffles surrounding the drums.

“Look at ‘em,” Geezer [Butler] refers to the way the earphones squeeze Ozzy’s brassy head. “He looks like he’s in the Guards.” Ozzy takes out this hard bound book and starts to chant lyrics in the customarily determined Sabbath style. His voice is flat—though he doesn’t seem to notice—and the track has to be recorded again until he gets it right. The first verse is finished and Ozzy sings again along with the first take in order to give the (doubletracked) vocal more strength. Ozzy has trouble singing the next verse and the band agrees to take a break.

That afternoon a gregarious Mr. Osbourne took time off after swimming to discuss his life as a rock star.

Who were some of your influences and what kind of music were you into before Black Sabbath?

I used to like what everybody else did: the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Geezer was into heavier things like the Mothers. We just started playing 12-bar blues and 12-bar jazz about four years ago.

Those influences are quite a bit different than Black Sabbath’s sound.

Well, I used to like anything that was heavy. The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” did something to me, and I use to dig the early Who and Led Zeppelin. I dig anything that makes the hairs in the middle of my spine stand up. We just started writing our own stuff and our sound just evolved into what it is today—it wasn’t planned.

I suppose we are similar to Grand Funk Railroad, but I hadn’t heard of them until our third tour here. Nobody knew who Grand Funk were in England. We didn’t realize how big they really were until we played the Forum with them and they just packed the place—two nights! They turned the crowd on, but musically they didn’t do anything for me. I’m not saying they’re a bum group, because they’ve gotta be a good group for people to dig them. Personally, I like to hear music which is considerably different than what we play.

Do you think that if you changed your music considerably you’d lose the majority of your fans?

I think everybody peaks. Not only does the crowd get pissed off of hearing the band, but the band gets tired of gigging. It’s not like we’re juke boxes or records that can play forever. When you’re a new band it’s like you get a tinge of stardust sprinkled on you. It’s born, then accepted, and after leveling off it dies. Anything’s like that.

Our new album still has the Black Sabbath sound, but it’s more melodic. Instead of me singing the guitar riff like on “Iron Man”, I’m singing different melodic things and it’s all building up. Tony [Iommi] just composed a guitar piece with strings. It’s a nice piece of music, and we wanted to write a happy song.

People call us “Downer Rock”: you take the reds, man, and drink the wine and blow out, get high on the decibels; all that’s a lot of rubbish. Whatever people do at our concerts is none of our business as long as they enjoy it. I’m just out to entertain people—a good old show business trip.

Yeah, so they’ll be a lot of gentle things on the new album. One song, “Changes”, about a guy—whether he’s with a band or not I’m not gonna say—who quits with his woman, is the ultimate in the way I feel about things. It’s more of a song rather than a frustration-reliever screamer. It’s just a pretty, slow ballad.

I find one of the most appealing and consistent things about your music is the lyrical commentary.

When we started writing things we didn’t want to present bullshit like “I’m gonna see my chick and we’re gonna get it on.” It’s all hypocritical. Let’s face it, you only remember the good times because you don’t wanna remember the bad. You can have a whole month of downer and only one good night and you’ll remember the good night. If you feel positive, that’s fine, but we wanted to write things the way they really were. Geezer furnishes most of the lyrics.

This love trip is so grossly distorted. One week you fall in love, the next week you fall out and start doing dope and blow your mind out. I don’t believe there’s anyone in this world who is 100 percent in love. I don’t think anyone is totally happy; you can’t really wake up in the morning free of hassles and do what you want as long as you don’t harm anybody else. If you wanna stick needles into your arm, it’s your own life. Like, I’m not into taking heavy dope, although I have taken dope. People who take it just have hang-ups that they can’t deal with.

If you haven’t got your own mind and can’t do what you want, you’re not an individual, just part of a mass. The society trip in England is that you go to school, then get a job, and at the age of 21 you get married. You work the rest of your life in a factory and when you retire at the age of 65 you get a gold watch; 45 years in a factory with stinking oil, polluting the land. I used to work in a factory and I used to see these blokes dying on their machines. That just blew my mind.

They’re saying you should cut your hair and get a good job—for what? So people can suck off you? They’re picking your bones, getting all that energy out of you, when it could be put to so much better use.

But I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve got children, and if such a day ever came, I’d dig holes to feed them. I believe in giving your children a good start and a lot of love.

Rodger Bain produced you on the albums, but now you’re producing yourselves.

He was someone the record company gave us when we signed with the company. It was really a clash of egos. He got it into his head that he was more responsible for our hit status than we were. He wanted, to a moderate extent, to control our music.

Contrary to the downer aspect of your music, on stage you exude a feeling of joy.

When someone identifies with the downer song that I’m singing, they’re able to put their energies into the music and relieve their frustrations. It’s good therapy. If I make people feel good, I feel good. The band and the crowd gets off on each other and it’s a tremendous trip: Peace Power. I don’t wanna see people get busted on the head, I’ve been through that whole trip, been knifed a couple times, and it’s not much fun.

Watch: “War Pigs” from 1970 [at youtube.com]

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