The year was 1987. I was 10 years old. Every Sunday my brothers and I sat around the family stereo in the living room and listened to Casey Kasem’s Top 40. All the latest pop songs that were safe listening and made for good wholesome family fun. Janet Jackson, Prince, Sting and the Police, Whitney. Good times and good dance moves. All Granny approved.
Then one day that all changed.
My two older brothers, who were in middle school at the time, came home with two cassette tapes: Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” and Ozzy Osbourne’s “The Ultimate Sin”. My Mom hated it. My rebellious brothers loved it. My Dad was scared of it. I sided with my mother and tried to fight it. I remember telling my brothers “Janet Jackson’s Nasty Boys is cooler than this stuff.” I was trying so hard to convince myself that I did not like this new music. The loud guitars. The banging drums. The God awful singing! And those words. What were they singing about? It was dangerous. It was strange. I tried to fight it over and over and over again. Then one day I started singing along to it. My brothers played those two cassettes so much that the songs started to imprint themselves inside of my skull. I started to know the songs front to back. I became an air guitarist and memorized all the leads and riffs. I suddenly loved this shit. This was all fucking awesome!! Fuck Janet Jackson! Fuck Casey Kasem and his top 40 bullshit. And did you hear that? I’m saying “Fuck” now because I heard the word in one of those songs!! Not because I ever heard that word from my parents, or any other adult. I WANT MORE OF THIS!!
One of Ozzy’s songs was about the atomic bomb and it made my Dad so uncomfortable when it came on. Really fucking cool.
1980’s Rock N’ Roll was changing. 1950’s rock music was romantic, raunchy and rebellious. 1960’s rock was about experimenting and exploring one’s imagination and creativity. 1970’s rock was expanding on the 60’s especially in the instruments department. Guitar Gods were born in the 70’s and they spawned more players in the 80’s. There were many guitar virtuosos. Classical players plugged into an electric six string, then plugged through a distortion box, then finally ran through a Marshall stack. Ozzy had some of the best rock guitarist of the 1980’s working in his band. Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee. It wasn’t just noise these dudes were creating, it was timeless and identifiable riffs that every kid air guitarist could jam too. And the guy leading the charge was Ozzy and he scared the shit out of so many parents and so many people. His album covers alone were terrifying but they were beautiful works of art. I mean just study the “Ultimate Sin” album cover. Can you not appreciate the detail? Photoshop wasn’t even a thing back then. It still, to this day, is an awesome album cover.
If this music was so threatening to the youth then why were my brothers and I allowed to listen to it? Because my parents were very liberal with how they raised us. They let us find out who we were as people. They guided us as parents to a point, but they never tried to completely control us and steer us in one direction. And they were fans of music too. Our dad loved American Pop music and our Mom loved R&B. My mom’s taste in music wasn’t necessarily accepted in her home when she was growing up. My grandfather would have the nastiest things to say about black artist describing them with the nastiest words. And a lot of those songs she listened to were really beautiful songs. So why couldn’t she listen to the music? Simply because of who was singing the songs. Mom knew what it was like to be an oppressed teenager and she refused to do the same to us. So because of her personal experience she allowed us to enjoy what we liked. Was Ozzy singing about dark spiritual stuff? Yes. But we never subscribed to the behavior. No. We didn’t start boiling our pets. We never started hurting anyone. I personally was attracted to the melodies and the heaviness that came with it. The guitars. The drums. The intensity.
Did Ozzy’s music cause me to act out? A little. Around the time Ozzy came into my life Mom registered me in Catholic school. My Mom, for whatever reason, thought it would be good for her baby boy to attend private school. My brothers, for whatever reason, were immune from it and they got to stay in public school. So here I am in 3rd grade having to wear a uniform. I was one in what felt like a sea of clones. Not one single kid had an identity of their own. So what did Ozzy and rock n’ roll do for me? It allowed me to be rebellious. Â All the rock stars, Ozzy included, in the rock magazines had tattoos. So I took a thick black marker and drew tattoos on my arms. Motley Crue always had pentagrams on their uniforms so that’s what I drew on my hands. Nikki Sixx had two black lines under his eyes like a football player, well now I did too. I felt like a bad ass. One day, while waiting my turn in the lunch line, the lunch lady noticed a pentagram drawn on my hand. She gave me the most concerned look an adult ever gave me. With that stare I was a certified bad ass. All because of Ozzy fuckin’ Osbourne. What was it like going to be Catholic school during the day and listening to Ozzy and Metal at night? Really cool. It felt like I was living a double life. But my night life definitely bled into my day life with all the marker I was drawing on myself. I never tried to hide it. And now as an adult I have real ink on my arms. All because of Ozzy fuckin’ Osbourne.
When I started making my own money, through doing chores, I started to buy my own cassette tapes and one of the first was Randy Rhoads Tribute. I use to stare at the cover wishing I was Randy Rhoads and Ozzy was picking me up while I played the guitar and me and Ozzy were best buds. I also bought his back catalog stuff: Diary, Blizzard, and Bark At The Moon. My school buddy Jeff got me into KISS which only enlarged my appetite for rock n roll music.
The 90’s arrived. Rock music was changing again. All the bands that dominated the 80’s started to fall off the face of the earth. The sound and style they wailed was becoming boring and quite frankly every band started to sound the same. And there were hundreds of them. And maybe 5 out of 100 bands had no skip albums meaning all the tracks were great. But the rest of the bands? Their singles were the best songs on the albums. Lots of wasteful purchaser spending. But Ozzy’s album? His whole 80’s solo career was perfect. He had a perfect track record of great written and recorded songs. His last album in the 80’s was 1988’s No Rest For The Wicked and it was PERFECT. That album introduced us to Zakk Wylde and the fans loved him. I loved him. His guitar work on that album was incredible. Zakk was only 21 years old when he recorded that album. Absolutely ridiculous!
So here we are. The 1990’s. Glam bands of the 80’s fell off. Bands that were around since the 70’s were barely hanging on. But not Ozzy. There was no holding on to dear life for Ozzy. Ozzy was special. Ozzy was always invited to the party. Ozzy was always “The Guy”. Ozzy had the ability only a few people possessed. He was loved by everyone and I mean everyone. Thrashers, metal heads, glam rockers, and even punk rockers. Yes punk rockers loved Ozzy Osbourne. If you were a guitar player, and it didn’t matter what genre you played, you were shredding the chords to Crazy Train and Iron Man because Ozzy was bad ass. Ozzy went beyond genres of rock. He was able to fit in everywhere and everyone appreciated him. You cannot say that about many people especially performers. And his voice was so unique that it makes it impossible to cover him. If you watched the recent 2025 tribute “Back To The Beginning” concert a lot of singers, who are great singers in their own rite, were covering Ozzy’s music with such difficulty. It was an amazing spectacle to watch so many titans struggling to sing those songs.
Ozzy should have fallen off in the 90’s but he didn’t. Ozzy, Zakk, and Lemmy gave us 1991’s “No More Tears”. 1991: the year Grunge broke. A year so many bands went away, and new bands took their place. 1991 handed us one of Ozzy’s best albums. Every single release dominated MTV. Every time “Time After Time” or “Road To Nowhere” came on I had to stop everything just to watch the videos in full. Let’s not forget “Mama, I’m Coming Home” and “No More Tears”.
When I was 14 I upgraded from being an air guitarist to a real player with my first bass guitar bought for me from good ole J.C. Penny. It was a white model which I painted and marked up with upside down crosses and pentagrams. The album I played along with every day was Ace Frehley’s 1978 solo album. When I turned 16 I got my first real piece. My Mom bought me a yellow Fender Jazz bass. Did I learn any Ozzy songs? Honestly no. By the time I could finish a song from front to back it was actually Punk rock. It was the Ramones. Playing to their records, Loco Live especially, built the stamina in my right wrist. A technique I still use to this day. I still loved Ozzy, but I was just growing up and getting into different types of music. Ozzy was like my Woody and/or Buzz Lightyear. I just grew up.
In the late 90’s I attended an Ozzfest in West Palm Beach, FL.
Two things I took from that day.
1) I saw Slayer and it was so cool. Their 45 minute set was over in 5 minutes or so it seemed. Â That is how exciting it was.
2) Don’t do ecstasy in Florida during 100 degree summer weather. I passed out standing in line waiting to purchase water. It was embarrassing. I saw Slayer though. Metallica too. But still: SLAYER!!!! Black Sabbath finished the night right after Metallica. For a whole day I was in the same location with “Thee Man”. I was at the festival all because of “Thee Man”.
Do you remember earlier I wrote that Ozzy surpassed all rock genres and certain things? Well he did and the best example I can give is my own mother. The woman who was so shocked by his music when it first invaded her home years ago was now glued to the tv laughing her ass off watching The Osbourne’s. It was awesome that I shared those moments with my Mom. It was great for our relationship. We bonded. Once there was a time when we were on opposing sides and now here we were on the same side watching Ozzy and his family. It was special for me to have that with her. Something about Ozzy just tickled my Mom’s funny bone.
Here we are in the 2000’s. Another decade that by logic Ozzy should have fallen off, but he didn’t. Now, more than ever, the brit born was an American household name.
Funny how when I was a kid Ozzy and Mom were like water and gasoline. But as an adult Ozzy and Mom was popcorn, or pizza, Â and a favorite soda. And laughs. Lots of laughs.
Mom passed away in 2019. “Mama, I’m Coming Home” has hit differently since.
Death. It is why I am writing this. Today Ozzy passed away. Paul McCartney is also going to pass away one day. And I love the Beatles. I always credit the Beatles for teaching me everything about writing music and they’ve navigated many decisions I have made in my musical career. I found out years ago that Ozzy was also a huge Beatles fan. He said the Beatles is what got him into wanting to be a musician, singer, and performer. That’s cool that we have that band in common.
I credit Ozzy for getting me into rock n roll. And not the safe rock, I’m talking about the living on the edge kind. That fearless rock. The scared of the unknown rock. The jump off the cliff without a safety net rock. That thrill. Ozzy made me feel that. He made me feel like such a bad ass at 10-11 years old. He tapped in and pulled something out of me. Something that I tried so hard to fight at first but once I accepted I felt so liberated. Thank you, Ozzy.
And thank you to my brothers John and Denny. I don’t know where life would have led me if not for those cassette tapes you brought home many years ago. Rock N Roll music has truly brought fulfillment to my life. Ozzy was the first to lead the charge for me. My Pied Piper. The Prince of Darkness.