Ozzy: "I hate that phrase heavy metal!"

[ABlairican Pie]

Scott Kara of The New Zealand Herald recently conducted an interview with Ozzy Osbourne. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: You were saying you're not as into the TV side of your life as Sharon is. Do you have any regrets about letting the TV cameras into your home?

Ozzy: We had no idea what it was going to turn into. But my first love is rock'n'roll you know. Television is ... well, I'm somewhat camera-shy believe it or not.

Q: So after the show got big how did you see your public image change?

Ozzy: After doing Ozzfest, being wanted by the police, and doing some crazy, crazy s in my career, there is one incident that will forever stay in my mind. Just as ["The Osbournes"] was getting really big, and I don't know what TV ratings mean, 10.7 is a fin' earthquake reading to me, you know, but I was in Boston, coming out of the hotel and this very conservative middle aged woman, very attractive, stops me and goes, "You're Ozzy Osbourne. What are you doing in Boston?" I said I was doing a show. She said, "What kind of a show?" I'm thinking this woman has left her brain in the fin' car. "A rock'n'roll show," I say. And she says, "You do that too?". I'm thinking, "Where the f have you been?"

Q: And what songs do you play as part of your sets nowadays? I know you always play "Paranoid" [by BLACK SABBATH].

Ozzy: You'll have to wait and see because if I tell ya and we don't play it you'll be pissed off. I always do "Paranoid", but I'm not going to tell you any more.

Q: Why is "Paranoid" always a constant in your set?

Ozzy: It's a fun song, everyone knows "Paranoid", it's good to play live on stage and the crowd love it. It's just one of them songs and when I first departed from SABBATH I said, "That's it I'm not doing any BLACK SABBATH." But then you go round these concerts and things and people go, "What about 'Paranoid'? What about 'War Pigs'?" So it got to the point where I thought, "They played them and I sang them so why not?"

Q: What influence do you think the classic SABBATH albums and Ozzy albums like "Diary Of A Madman" have had on today's music?

Ozzy: You know, we had success from the word go. We never had to wait. You know, we formed in '68, then had a bit of a booze up touring thing in '69, recorded the first SABBATH album in 1970 in 12 hours or something and it just took off and it's never stopped for me. So when you're immersed in something it's hard to say. Plus, I hate that fin' phrase heavy metal. It's got no musical connotation what so ever.

Read the entire interview at The New Zealand Herald.