there are two first one is ozzy's interview :yes:

The family unit

Ozzy still has metal in his heart, but says TV dad role supports family
Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Maybe Ozzy Osbourne isn't as fried as people think. Actually, he seemed to be fairly sharp when his people offered the Herald a last-minute interview in advance of the Monsters of Rock Festival, which is coming to McMahon Stadium on Saturday. Months ago, a scheduled interview with the "Prince of Darkness" was cancelled, the PR person telling us "Ozzy takes it day by day" -- which didn't exactly inspire confidence in the man's condition -- before putting us on the phone with Ozz's wife and manager, Sharon. Sharon would do the interview, we were told, and Ozzy would not be available. Hence, our Sharon-centric Monsters story which accompanies this one.

Then, just as we were wrapping up that piece, another call came from Ozzy's camp. The man was suddenly available and ready to go. Would we like to chat with Mr. Osbourne?nOf course we would! He's Ozzy Osbourne, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and the godfather of heavy metal. We couldn't help but wonder how lucid Ozz would be, though. This is, after all, the ultimate poster boy for hard living. After decades of staggering alcohol and drug abuse, Ozzy has seemed in the recent past to be a shell of his former self -- a stammering, incoherent mess. In recent years it has been revealed he suffers from a genetic condition similar to Parkinson's disease.

So it was quite heartening to find the Ozzman as focused as he was in our phone interview. He even put me to the test when I told him I had listened to his music most of my life. Was I full of bull, trying to butter him up? He chuckled to himself, cynically. "What's the first album you bought then?"

"Speak of the Devil," I told him. "I know that's one of your least favourite albums. But that was the one." "Hmmm," he answered. "OK, then." I think I passed. Although there were a few stumbly, mumbly moments, Ozzy was quite witty for the most part -- much more on top of his game than I anticipated. Here are a few of the highlights of the interview.

Q: Way back in the early '90s you went on the No More Tours retirement tour. Now, it's more than 15 years later and you're still out there. How much longer can you see yourself doing this?

A: As long as I physically can. I always said if the audience dwindles and I end up playing clubs and theatres I'll be long gone. Why would I want to do that for? I don't want to go down to where I came up y'know. When I decided to give (retirement) a shot, the thing I found was -- well, people have this misconception that in retirement if you have money you can live happily ever after. No. My father . . . (when he retired) he was dead 12 months later because he didn't have anything to live for. He wanted to do the garden and all that s---, but he went and died.

Q: How's your health these days? I know you've had your struggles in recent years with the ATV accident and the Parkin syndrome. How difficult is it for you to perform at the wild level you're famous for?

A: In that ATV accident I died twice. They brought me back again. And the Parkin syndrome is a hereditary tremor. You know, families are f---ing great. My oldest sister Jean . . . when I got the diagnosis (for Parkin syndrome) she told me 'Oh, well mom had that.' I said 'My mother had that? Thank you now for remembering!' I thought I was going to be a in a f---ing wheelchair for the rest of my life . . . But that's what I have so I take this very small amount of medication and I don't shake anymore at all.

Q: Have these problems hindered your performances at all?

A: No! I just get up there and do the best I can. Sometimes my voice blows out, sometimes I do great.

Q: When you were on tour back in the day, when you weren't onstage you were getting wasted. What do you with yourself now in the off hours?

A: I do this crazy Ozzy artwork. I take it on the road with me. I've got pens, coloured pens and I just doodle. I'd love to be able to read better, but this doodling is kind of interesting. It's very sought after as well. I title them and date them and sign them. When I'm gone somebody might do something with them.

Q: I read you and your family have signed on with the Fox Network to do a variety show which will feature music, comedy sketches and a game show. I'm surprised. I thought when The Osbournes reality series ended you said you were glad to be done with it because you were more comfortable with being a rocker than a TV star.

A: My wife loves TV and I love my wife, you know. She's great. We stand by each other and she wants to do it, so I'll do the show . . . I always think 'Oh, it's gonna fail. It's gonna be a flop. It's gonna interfere with my music. In my house I've built a full-on studio so if I had my way I'd do a few gigs each year and just make music. I love making music. I love being artistic. I'm excited to do the TV show but I . . . never think it's going to be a big success. That's the way I am with everything I do though. 'People aren't going to like this new album. People are not going to like this artwork.' I always prepare myself for the drop. Eventually things are going to go the other way.

Q: Do you feel sometimes like the hardcore metal fans out there are unfair to your wife and kids because they're not comfortable with you being on these shows? Your family gets attacked an awful lot on these metal websites and some of the stuff is pretty nasty.

A: Believe me, I'm not going to abandon what I'm about . . . If you don't like me, you don't like me. If you don't like my wife, you don't like my wife. I can't change that. But the Osbourne family, we all stick behind each other. We're a unit you know, like every family should be. Forget my success, forget what I have and what I've done, my family comes first. I know how much it means to my wife and family for me to (do TV shows) and if they ask me, of course I will go there. I don't have to like it, but I don't have to not like it, you know?

Source: The Calgary Herald

The small amount of the music I have heard from this guy is not really attractive to me. So ozzy fan, tell me which album of theirs would you consider the best and I'll listen to as a fair chance to see If I like this guy.

As to the topic itself, to one of his answers.

Yes after years of touring and using your voice, it will blow out due to overuse. When that happened all you do is flow with it, and for that I admire what he says, the show must keep going even if there is a mistake.

-Ruben

Sharon's interview :yes:

The family unit

Sharon has big plans for tour alongside 'lovable' hubby
Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

If Sharon Osbourne has her way, the Monsters of Rock will stomp across Canada every summer, laying sonic waste to all major touring centres in the Great Whit North. But before she sends the horned beasts off on a full-scale campaign, the Queen Mum of Metal, ever the strategist, has decided to launch a test invasion. That's where Calgary comes in.

On Saturday, the Monsters of Rock festival comes to McMahon Stadium for a one-day blitzkrieg of heavy metal music starring Sharon's husband, Ozzy Osbourne, one of the genre's founding fathers, along with such heavy-hitters as Judas Priest, Serj Tankian, Hatebreed, Voivod and Testament. If the Calgary show is gauged to be a hit, Sharon, 55, the festival's producer, says there's a good chance that Monsters of Rock will become Canada's very own version of Ozzfest, the festival tour she created in her husband's name that's flourished every summer since its inception back in 1996. "We thought we'll bring it (to Calgary) and if it's successful we'll have Monsters be a yearly tour . . . and we'll keep it just for Canada," Sharon said in a recent phone interview.

While the Ozzfest tour did make the odd Canadian stop over the years, smaller cities such as Calgary and Edmonton were always neglected, despite the tremendous popularity of heavy music in these regions. Sharon claims she always wanted to bring Ozzfest to this city but was met with resistance from concert promoters. "It's one of those ongoing battles," says Sharon, who's managed her husband's career since 1979, relaunching the then fallen British rock star as a solo artist after he was fired from Black Sabbath. "Everyone would say 'Oh no,' (forget Canada), the dollar is worthless. Now the Canadian dollar is gold dust and everybody wants to tour in Canada." A legendarily tough business woman, Sharon has butted heads with a long list of hard rockers in the male-dominated music business, including Ozzy in the stormiest moments of their relationship.

The examples of Sharon's ferociousness are many. She once reportedly pushed a manager of the band Korn down a flight of stairs when that group proved to be a headache on an early Ozzfest tour. She also clashed with the band Iron Maiden when she felt that band's singer disrespected Ozzy. During Maiden's final Ozzfest performance they were pelted with eggs, an action allegedly instigated by Sharon, and their sound was cut during their show. Sharon admitted she was behind this act of sabotage in an open letter to the band's management in which she called herself "The Real Iron Maiden."

Despite her notoriety however, when speaking with the Herald, Sharon's demeanour could only be described as pleasant, if decidedly down-to-business. The only glimpse of her fierceness came when she was asked about her husband's health. But however much Sharon objects to the question, it's entirely valid. In the last decade Ozzy has appeared to be increasingly fragile, his movements shaky and his voice stammering to the point where, at times, it's nearly been impossible to comprehend what he's saying. It's made the singer the punchline for many a joke, including some on his own TV show, hit reality series The Osbournes, which ran from 2002 to 2005 on MTV.

Ozzy's condition has long been attributed to decades of hard alcohol and drug abuse, though in recent years its been revealed he suffers from a genetic condition similar to Parkinson's disease. The 59-year-old rocker also had a life-threatening experience back in 2003 when he crashed an all-terrain vehicle, breaking several bones, including vertebra in his neck. Given all that, how could one not question Ozzy's ability to live up to his own reputation for wild performances?

Sharon lashes back at the question, suggesting the media hasn't treated her husband fairly. "I don't think anybody asks (this of) Robert Plant or Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger and they've led lives just as interesting as Ozzy," she says, with a distinct edge in her voice. "Paul McCartney is 65 and he's going out touring this year. Hey, 65 is not what it once was years ago. Ozzy's not even 60 you know, so he's doing fine." Of course, some might say, Plant, Jagger and McCartney appear to be a lot more fit than Ozzy. Sharon won't hear of it. "Look at it this way . . . He's done a couple hundred shows in the last year and didn't miss one. There you go." But if critics have been tough on the Ozzman, they've been far more nasty where his family is concerned.

No one can deny Sharon has saved Ozzy's life on several occasions when he's been on his many downward spirals of addiction -- Ozzy is the first to credit her for being the driving force behind his mega-success. But many of Ozzy's most diehard fans have also come to resent Sharon for some of the places she's steered him in recent years. While it was a huge international hit, a lot of metal heads despised The Osbournes, which propelled Sharon into the pop culture spotlight alongside her husband. Their children Kelly and Jack, who were featured prominently on the show, also became stars. On The Osbournes, rock's prince of darkness suddenly appeared as yet another lovable but hapless TV dad. The fearsome Ozzy Osbourne was morphed into a rock-fried Homer Simpson, perpetually befuddled, most often at his wit's end trying to deal with the demands of his wacky family.

Mainstream America loved it but a fair portion of Ozzy's long-time fans, the guys who grew up banging their heads along to classic albums like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Blizzard of Ozz, felt betrayed. They felt as if their hero had lost his credibility. Due largely to all of this, Sharon-bashing from Ozzy fans is rampant on the Internet on any number of websites devoted to heavy metal.

Sharon's well aware of all this and, somewhat surprisingly, she takes a rather softball approach to the criticism, wishing to respect Ozzy's fans. "This goes back to that old time metal (mentality) from the '80s where you couldn't even say you were married or had kids, because the metal fans didn't want to see that side of your life . . . Ozzy's fans are great. They're unbelievably loyal. But some of those old-time metal fans are a bit Spinal Tap. That's not all of Ozzy's fans, but some of the hardcore ones you're talking about, yeah, they do feel that way. I just think it's a very outdated approach. "Yes, Ozzy is a very lovable and warm person who wouldn't hurt anyone. But he's still great at making his music the way he's always done it. I don't see any conflict in that."

Source: The Calgary Herald

Shozzy and sharon, Why don't you suggest an album to hear from ozzy here?

thanks for the interviews cass. :) :wub:

for discussion more central to ozzy and his music, click here.

i have answered your question there. :yes:

interesting interview. i imagine sharon found this guy very annoying. :lol: i do think that ozzy has been treated a little unfairly. anyone who's seen him since he sobered up know he's not a completely incoherent stuttering mess. :no:

Thanks for the articles.I'm not to keen on the reporter, so sometimes Ozzy stutters, and mumbles, so what, he's packed a lot of hard living in his life. It's just the way Ozzy is.

I can't really help, because 'theirs' would suggest that you mean Black Sabbath. They're a little too heavy if you prefer the more lightweight stuff like Iron Maiden. You may prefer some of Ozzy's more recent solo stuff, though ~ I see from your avatar that you're a David Hasselhoff fan. ;)

Well I want to first say how does a picture of me, show that I am a "David Hasselhoff" fan? I did not even know who that was until i looked him up. lol

And as for the music, Iron Maiden might be my favorite band but I do listen to heavier stuff like Amon Amarth, Immortal, Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth...and such bands.

I'll see that link that one person posted and check out some of this guys work.

It's you in the picture? I see. So it's just coincidence that you have the same hairstyle, dress sense, etc. as David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider then? :unsure:

Well being an 80's iron maiden fan and paul dianoo fan that is what I like to dress like. Not like david hasselhoff lol

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w2LEWTt743g

See. =)

Great concert by they way.