Ozzy Osbourne Still Has A Career Ambition Left
Ozzy Osbourne expressed hope that he’d be able to return to the road at some point in the future to complete his suspended farewell tour, but admitted his health wasn’t up to it at the moment.
In a recent interview with Classic Rock the 73-year-old accepted his own mortality as he continued to deal with health issues – and revealed he still had an ambition to fulfil.
“I’m just waiting on some more surgery on my neck,” Osbourne reported. “I can’t walk properly these days. I have physical therapy every morning. I am somewhat better, but nowhere near as much as I want to be to go back on the road.” Asked if he had a message for the readers, he replied: “I hope I can do more gigs. I can’t wait to see you all again.”
He recently completed the follow-up to acclaimed 2020 album Ordinary Man – and that presented the opportunity to achieve one of the ambitions he still retains: “A number-one Ozzy album.” He said of his catalog: “I haven’t got a favorite. I just carry on. The way I look at it, if I say a certain album is my greatest album, to me it’s saying that every album before or after it wasn’t as good. Some of them weren’t as good, but I’ve never gone into the studio and thought: “Well, I had a good run, I’d better make a bad record.”
Osbourne said he’d been delighted to settle his differences with Black Sabbath and complete their farewell tour in their home city of Birmingham, U.K. in 2017, noting that music had always helped him through his difficult times. “Music is a good release from a lot of things in life,” he said. “You listen to an old record and you remember where you were when you first heard it. It takes you back to that time in your life.”
Expressing surprise that wife Sharon had stuck by him for 40 years while he hadn’t been “the fucking perfect gentleman” during their relationship, Osbourne also said he took a day-by-day approach to being sober after decades of excess. “If I drink, I’ll drink,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to drink today. I don’t want to smoke tobacco today. I don’t want to take drugs today. So today’s going to be okay, I suppose. I don’t know about tomorrow.”
Ozzy Osbourne Albums Ranked