going, ‘What? Blowback? What the fuck are you talking about?’
Then Sharon came storming out, bright red in the face, and screamed, ‘You fucking BASTARD, Ozzy!’
Smack.
Sharon was managing me virtually single-handed when we did the Blizzard of Ozz tour. It was the first time in my career that I’d ever seen anyone plan things so carefully. Before we even started, she said, ‘We can go two ways, Ozzy. We can open for a bigger act, like Van Halen, or we can headline smaller venues. I think we should headline smaller venues, because that way you’ll always have sold-out shows, and when people see sold-out signs, they want to go. Also, you’ll be seen as a top-billing act from day one.’
It turned out to be a brilliant move.
Everywhere we went, the venues were full, and there were more people queuing up outside.
Mind you, we worked our arses off for it.
This was my chance, and I knew I was only going to get one. Me and Sharon both knew it, actually, so we went out and did every radio station, every television station, every interview we could get. Nothing was too small. Every record or ticket we sold counted.
I learned that when Sharon’s on a mission, when she wants to get something done, she’ll fucking throw herself at it, lock, stock and barrel, and she’ll not stop fighting until well after the bell’s rung. When she’s got a bee up her arse, you can’t stop her. Whereas, with me, if it hadn’t been for her pushing all the time, I doubt I would have had the same success. In fact, I know I wouldn’t.
Sharon didn’t take anything for granted. It was in her blood and how she was raised. She used to tell me that her family either had the horn of plenty, the cornucopia, or nothing. One day they had the Rolls-Royce and a colour TV in every room; the next they were hiding the car and the tellies were being repossessed. It was a real boom-and-bust household.
I trusted Sharon, like I’d never trusted anyone before on the business side of things. And that’s essential for me, because I don’t understand contracts. I choose not to understand them, I suppose, because I can’t stand all the bullshit and backstabbing.
But Sharon wasn’t only good with money. She knew how to manage my image, too. She had me out of my grubby old Black Sabbath get-up in a second. ‘When Randy’s mum came over from LA, she thought you were a roadie,’ she told me. Then she got a hairdresser over to bleach my hair. It was the eighties—you had to be flamboyant like that. People laugh at it, but when you go to a gig nowadays, you don’t know who’s in the band and who’s in the audience, because they all look the fucking same. At least when somebody got on stage with a big glossy hairdo, they looked special.
Mind you, my stage rags got so outrageous at one point, people used to think I was a drag queen. I’d wear spandex trousers and these long coats studded with rhinestones. Looking back now, I’m not embarrassed by those clothes, but I am embarrassed by how bloated I was. I was a fat, boozy, pizza-eating fuck. You should have seen my face, it was fucking massive. It wasn’t surprising, either, given how much Guinness I was putting away on a daily basis. I’m telling you, man, one pint of Guinness is like eating three dinners.
Another person I learned to trust on that tour was Tony Dennis. He was this little Geordie bloke who kept turning up to the gigs every night, without fail. It was the middle of winter, but all he’d wear over his T-shirt was this little jeans jacket. He must have frozen his nuts off when he was queuing up to get in. He came to so many shows I ended up letting him in for free, even though I couldn’t understand a fucking word he said. It was all, ‘Why-eye, y’nah, Tuhni I-uhmi, haweh man, lyke.’ For all I knew, he could have been calling me a cunt.
Anyway, we were in Canterbury, and it was minus five or something, and I asked him,
‘How do you get around, Tony?’
‘I just hitch-hike, man.’
‘And where d’you sleep?’
‘Train stations. Telephone boxes. Ahl awa the place, y’nah?’
‘I tell you what,’ I said. ‘If you want to take care of the bags for us, we’ll get you a room.’
And he’s been with me ever since, has Tony. He’s like a family member. He’s a great guy, a really wonderful human being. I’m so reliant on him, and he’s so efficient, it’s amazing.
Nothing’s ever too much trouble for him, and I trust him completely. I could leave a big pile of dough on the table, come back two years later, and it would be exactly where I’d left it. He was there for my children, too, in the dark years. They still call him Uncle Tony. And all because of that one night in Canterbury when I asked him how he got around.
After our first night in the hotel opposite Shepperton Studios, me and Sharon were bonking all over the place. We couldn’t stop. And we didn’t carry on behind closed doors, either.
The people around us knew exactly what was happening. Some nights Sharon would go out of one door and Thelma would come in the other. I was knackered all the time, having two women on the go. I don’t know how those French blokes do it. When I was with Sharon, for example, I’d end up calling her ‘Tharon’, which earned me more than a few black eyes.
Looking back now, of course, I should have just left Thelma.
But I didn’t want to because of the kids. I knew that if we got a divorce, it would be terrible for them, because the kids always suffer the most in a break-up. And the thought of losing my family was unbearable to me. It was just too painful, I couldn’t take it.
On the other hand I’d never known what it was like to fall in love before I met Sharon—even though we didn’t exactly have a normal romance. I mean, Sharon was piggy in the middle when I was still married to Thelma, and in the beginning she was drinking nearly as much as I was. When we weren’t shagging, we were fighting. And when we weren’t fighting, we were drinking. But we were inseparable, couldn’t stay away from each other. On the road we’d always share a room together, and if Sharon ever had to go away on business, I’d spend hours and hours talking to her on the phone, telling her how much I loved her, how much I couldn’t wait to see her again. I’d never done that with anyone before. In fact, I can honestly say that I didn’t have a clue what love was about until I met Sharon. I’d been confusing it with infatuation. Then I realised that when you’re in love, it’s not just about the messing around in the sack, it’s about how empty you feel when they’re gone. And I couldn’t stand it when Sharon was gone.
But as badly as I’d fallen for Sharon, I knew things couldn’t go on the way they were. For a while, I’d thought I could have the best of both worlds—my family, and the woman I loved—but something had to give. So that Christmas, with the British leg of the tour over, I told Thelma everything, because for some stupid drunk reason I thought that would make things better. Not the most fucking brilliant idea I ever had.
Thelma went up like a bottle of pop, kicked me out, and told me she needed time to think.
Then Don Arden put in his size-ten boot. He called Thelma to a meeting down in London and told her he was putting his son David back in charge of me, to get me away from Sharon.
But the truth was, he was also shitting himself that Sharon was going to leave Jet Records and go it alone, which could end up costing him a fortune, especially if she took me with her—which is exactly what she did in the end. But Don should have known that if Sharon has her mind set on something, she’ll do it, no matter what. And if someone tries to stop her, she’ll just try twice as hard.
David didn’t last five minutes.
Before we took the Blizzard of Ozz tour to America in April 1981, we went back to Ridge Farm and recorded Diary of a Madman. To this day, I don’t know how we got that album done so quickly. It took us just under three weeks, I think.
We were all living in this crappy little flat while we were doing the sessions, and I’ll always remember the morning when I woke up and heard this amazing acoustic riff coming out of Randy’s room. I burst through his door, still in my underpants, and he was sitting there with a very uptight-looking classical instructor, having a lesson.
‘What was that you just played?’ I said, while the instructor stared at me like I was the Loch Ness Monster.
‘Ozzy, I’m busy!’
‘I know, but what was that you just played?’
‘Mozart.’
‘Right. We’re nicking it.’
‘We can’t nick Mozart.’
