Blizzard in the can at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, I knew we had a cracking album of our own.
We had a couple of cracking albums, actually, because we had a lot of material left over when we were done.
And it was magic to be in control—like I’d finally pulled something off. Then again, even if you think something’s brilliant, you never know if the general public’s going to pick up on it.
But as soon as the radio stations got hold of ‘Crazy Train’, it was a done deal. The thing just exploded.
When the album came out in Britain in September 1980, it went to number seven in the album charts. When it came out in America six months later, it peaked at number twenty-one, but it eventually sold four million copies, making it one of Billboard’s Top 100 bestselling albums of the decade.
Reviews?
Didn’t read ’em.
A few nights before the tour started, I got Sharon in the sack for the first time. It had taken fucking long enough. We’d been at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, rehearsing for our first gig—which was going to be in Blackpool under the fake name of The Law—and we were all staying at the same hotel across the road. So I just followed Sharon back to her room. I think I might even have used my extra-special pick-up line: ‘Can I come back and watch your telly?’
The usual reply to this was, ‘Fuck off, I ain’t got one.’
But this time it worked.
I was shitfaced, obviously. So was Sharon—she must have been. All I remember is her deciding to take a bath, and me ripping off my clothes and jumping in with her. Then one thing led to another, as things tend to do when you jump in a bath with a chick.
I fell for Sharon so badly, man.
The thing is, before I met her, I’d never come across a girl who was like me. I mean, when me and Sharon went out, people used to think we were brother and sister, we were so similar.
Wherever we went, we were always the drunkest and the loudest.
We got up to some crazy shit in those early days.
One night in Germany, we went to a big dinner with the head of CBS Europe, who were releasing Blizzard of Ozz over there. He was a big, bearded, cigar-chomping bloke, and very straight. I was out of my fucking clock, of course. So we’re all sitting there at this huge table, and halfway through the meal I get the idea to climb on the table and start doing a striptease.
Everyone thinks it’s funny for a while. But I end up stark bollock naked, take a piss in the CBS guy’s carafe of wine, kneel down in front of him, and kiss him on the lips.
They didn’t think that was very funny.
We didn’t get a record played in Germany for years afterwards. I remember being on the plane, flying out of Berlin, with Sharon ripping up the contracts and saying, ‘Well, that’s another country gone.’
‘It was worth it for the striptease though, wasn’t it?’ I asked.
‘That wasn’t a striptease you were doing, Ozzy. It was a fucking Nazi goose-step. Up and down the table. That poor German bloke looked mortified. Then you put your balls in his fucking wine.’
‘I thought I pissed in his wine?’
‘That was before you pissed in his wine.’
Then we went to Paris, and I was still wasted from Berlin. I was crazy drunk, because people kept giving us all these free bottles of booze. By then, everyone had heard about what went on in Germany, so these very nervous record company people took us out for a drink at a nightclub. Everyone was talking about business, so to relieve the boredom I turned to the bloke next to me and said, ‘Hey, will you do me a favour?’
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘Punch me in the face.’
‘What?’
‘Punch me in the face.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Look, I asked you to do me a favour, and you said you would. You promised. So punch me in the fucking face.’
‘No!’
‘Just punch me.’
‘Mr Osbourne, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.’
‘Come on! YOU FUCKING PROMIS—’
BLAM!
The last thing I saw was Sharon’s fist approaching my face from across the table. Then I was flat out on the floor, my nose bleeding, feeling like half my teeth were gonna fall out.
I opened my eyes and saw Sharon looking down at me. ‘Are you happy now?’ she asked me.
I spat out some blood and snot. ‘Very happy, cheers.’
Later that night, I was lying in bed in the hotel room, having the worst comedown from cocaine you could ever imagine. I was shivering and sweating and having all these paranoid fantasies. So I rolled over and tried to give Sharon a cuddle, but she just moaned and pushed me away.
‘Sharon,’ I whimpered, ‘I think I’m dying.’
Silence.
So I tried again: ‘Sharon, I think I’m dying!’
Again, silence.
One more time: ‘Sharon, I think I’m—’
‘Die quietly then. I need to sleep. I’ve got a meeting in the morning.’
We’d wind each other up all the time, me and Sharon.
One night, we went for a drink together in a hotel. We took a seat in the corner, then I went up to the bar to get the beers in. But I got distracted by a guy in a wheelchair—a Hell’s Angel. We ended up having a bit of a laugh, me and this bloke, and I ended up completely forgetting I was supposed to be taking the drinks back to Sharon. Then I heard this voice from the corner of the room.
‘Ozzy! OZZY!’
Oh shit, I thought, I’m gonna get a right old bollocking now. So, on my way over, I came up with this ridiculous story. ‘Sorry, darling,’ I said, ‘but you’ll never guess what happened to that guy. He was telling me all about it, and I just couldn’t tear myself away.’
‘Let me guess: he fell off his motorbike.’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It’s much worse than that. He’s suffering from blowback.’
‘He’s suffering from what?’
‘Blowback.’
‘What the fuck is blowback?’
‘Don’t you know?’
The word had just popped into my head, so now I was desperately trying to think of what it could be.
‘No, Ozzy, I don’t know what blowback is.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘WELL, WHAT THE FUCK IS IT, THEN?’
‘It’s this thing you can get from a chick when they give you a handjob. What happens is, they’re wanking you off, and then just as you’re about to blow your wad, they put their thumb over the end of your knob, and sometimes—if you’re really unlucky, like that poor bloke over there—the sperm flies straight back down your tubes and, well, y’know…’
‘For the millionth time, Ozzy, no, I don’t know.’
‘Well, it, er… knocks out your spinal column.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Sharon, looking really shocked. ‘That’s awful. Go and buy that poor man another drink.’
I couldn’t believe that she’d bought it.
I never gave it another thought until a couple of weeks later, when I was sitting outside a Jet Records board meeting. All I could hear was Sharon saying the word ‘blowback’ over and over again, and all the blokes in the room
