Legally Pathetic Room

RONNIE JAMES DIO: OZZY Has Always Hated Me When I Was In BLACK SABBATH- Mar. 11, 2007

Heath McCoy of the Calgary Herald recently conducted an interview withlegendary heavy metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio (HEAVEN AND HELL, DIO,BLACK SABBATH, RAINBOW). A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On fans' speculation that Ozzy's wife, manager and reputed controlfreak, Sharon Osbourne, is to blame for HEAVEN AND HELL not using theBLACK SABBATH name:

"As far as Sharon being the perpetrator of that, I would certainly notlike to think so. I don't like to think that my life is predicated onsomebody else's whims who has nothing to do with me."

On who might control the SABBATH name:

"I have no idea. That seems to have been a point of contention for along time. Who owns the name? Is it Sharon? Is it Ozzy? Is it TonyIommi (guitarist for both BLACK SABBATH and HEAVEN AND HELL)? I wouldthink if Tony owned the name we would be calling ourselves BLACKSABBATH, so maybe he doesn't."

"They wanted to carry on with something fresh and new. When theyproposed (the band name HEAVEN AND HELL), my initial reaction was, andstill is, 'Well, they're gonna call us f.....' BLACK SABBATH anyway,aren't they? You can call us the BOYS IN THE SHED if you want to. Itdoesn't matter to me.' "

On feeling betrayed when Ozzy, by then a mega-successful solo artist,invited his former band to open for him on the final two shows of his"retirement tour" in 1992:

"With all the horrible things Ozzy had said about Tony over the years. . . let alone what he said about me . . . I felt we needed to havesome pride for that one. Suddenly we're going to finish our reuniontour with great bravado by opening up for your ex-lead singer? . . .Besides, I knew what it was really about. It was going to be announced(at those shows) that the original band was going to reunite with Ozzy. . . I would have been left in the backseat anyway . . . I told them'Guess what? I'm not going to do it.' "

On whether Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi have been creatively stifledworking with Ozzy over the past decade, playing the same greatest-hitssetlist and never recording a new studio album:

"I'm sure that's grated on (them) . . . You know damn well they wantedto be challenged again. . . . Perhaps Ozzy doesn't want to do it, orperhaps he's incapable."

On Ozzy:

"I don't have any problems with Ozzy. I don't care what he's done orsaid. . . . When things come out of that mouth, it doesn't reallymatter to me. They're not earth-shaking comments . . . (Ozzy's) alwaysloved me when I wasn't in SABBATH and hated me when I was. He has acertain possession about (BLACK SABBATH). Or maybe obsession."

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 1:17 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.