Online Reporter
LONDON.—Ozzy Osbourne, who has died at the age of 76, helped forge the sound that became known as heavy metal —and on top of that, the frontman practically invented the image of the wild rock star.
Ozzy’s band Black Sabbath made an indelible mark on music by pioneering heavy metal — and was hailed as a major influence by a range of artists who followed. With his wailing vocal style and “Prince of Darkness” reputation, Ozzy led the band to become global stars – before he was fired, mainly because of his increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol.
But, controversy was never far away.
The most notorious incident was biting the head off a live bat while on stage in Iowa in 1982.
He had been catapulting raw meat into the audience on tour, which prompted fans to throw things on stage in return. He claims he thought the bat was fake before he took a bite.He did not attempt to use the same excuse about the two doves whose heads he bit off during a record label meeting the previous year.
His other exploits included being arrested for urinating on Texas war monument the Alamo while wearing a dress, getting thrown out of the Dachau concentration camp for being drunk and disorderly while on a visit during a German tour; pulling a gun on Black Sabbath’s drummer while on a bad acid trip; blacking out and waking up in the central reservation of a 12-lane freeway; and massacring the inhabitants of his chicken coop with a gun, sword and petrol while wearing a dressing gown and pair of wellies.
That all added to Ozzy’s legend, but in reality most of his behaviour was not very appealing or glamorous. He was a wreck, and the drink and drugs gave him a Jekyll and Hyde personality.
However, he carved out a successful career as well as becoming the unlikely star of a hit TV reality show which showcased his erratic domestic life.
He was born John Michael Osbourne in the Aston area of Birmingham on 3 December 1948. His father Jack was a toolmaker, while his mother Lillian worked at the Lucas factory, which made car components.
He picked up the nickname Ozzy at primary school and it stuck.He left school at 15 and wandered into a series of random jobs, including some time spent working in a slaughterhouse, which allowed him to play practical jokes in pubs by putting cows’ eyeballs in peoples’ pints.
He even turned his hand to crime but found he had little luck there either.
A TV fell on him while he was burgling a house and he later spent six weeks in Birmingham’s Winston Green prison after robbing a clothes shop.
What saved Ozzy was music: the sound of the Beatles singing She Loves You out of a crackly transistor radio transformed his life.— BBCC
Mathew Masinge