I was fortunate enough today to sit in on the Black Sabbath press conference in the presidential suite at Shangri La Hotel, ahead of their gig at the du Arena here in Abu Dhabi tomorrow. Thanks Flash!
While other local journalists have the sucky task of removing anything remotely offensive that Ozzy might have said for public consumption in print, I’m just a freelancer with a don’t-care attitude, and my own forum in which to express myself. Sadly, I couldn’t get anyone to buy the story last minute, so lucky me, I get to keep it all to myself.
These are questions asked by all present, including myself, and I took out some of the boring bits. I also apologise if some of it doesn’t completely make sense to Sabbath geeks – you know how Ozzy speaks (he doesn’t really. Not normally anyway). But here’s pretty much 90% of the full 15-minute press conference tape.
Oh, and for the record, Yeah, I was the one who got them all talking about masturbation. Enjoy!
Q: Over the 45 years of your career, is there any specific country that you’ve always wanted to visit and play a gig in?
TONY: I think we’ve played most of the countries out there… can’t complain. This is the first time here, which is really different, we’re looking forward to it.
Q: Are you prepared for the heat?
EVERYONE: NO!
OZZY: I’ll never complain about being cold again.
Q: With 19 studio albums, is it a nightmare putting together a set list?
OZZY: Well we’ve got so much material, you can never please everyone.
TONY: Yeah but we generally do a bit of each album really, but even then it’s hard because which ones to do?
Q: There’s a regional hard rock/heavy metal scene here and it has gone through its struggles. Have you any advice for the local musicians on how to kick-start the scene and keep it alive?
TONY: Move to L.A.
[Huge pause in questions out of fear, nervousness, apprehension, awe…]
OZZY: NEXT!
Q: What have you been doing since you arrived here in the city?
OZZY: Sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking, staying indoors, it’s so fucking hot. Jesus…
GEEZER: I went to the mosque over the road…that was good. I had to wear a nun’s outfit before they let me in.
Q: What took you so long to come to the Middle East?
OZZY: You know what, that’s a question I can’t answer … I never realised the Middle East liked our kind of music. My wife told me we’re going out [to the Middle East], I was ‘we goin’ there?’ I had no idea our kind of music was liked here.
GEEZER: It’s the first time we’ve been asked.
TONY: I think that’s it, if we were asked we would’ve come before but you can only come when you’re asked really.
Q: This [current] tour culminates with Black Sabbath Time Hyde Park in July. Are you thinking beyond that or is it just a matter of let’s see what happens with this tour, and then we see what happens as a group?
TONY: We haven’t really talked about it as yet. I mean Hyde Park is the last show of this tour, but after that we don’t know…
Q: Iron Man was already a famous song but what are your thoughts on the character Iron Man?
OZZY: What?! The what?
Journalist: The Iron Man movie? It’s been playing your song…?
OZZY: Oh! Oh…
TONY: What about it? What are our thoughts about it? It was good.
GEEZER: At least we didn’t have to think about what design to have for a t-shirt.
Q: So you didn’t know that you had a lot of fans here. What are you expecting tomorrow night?
OZZY: It’s going to be interesting. I don’t know what to expect but I’m gonna go up there with the same attitude I have towards every show, and see what happens. It’s really interesting to play in a place you’ve never played before, it’s great.
…If it starts going downhill, we’ll do a very short set.
GEEZER: And a long drum solo.
Q: You guys have been playing for so long. What keeps you motivated to keep going on stage?
OZZY: Marriage.
GEEZER: It’s great that we’ve got the opportunity to be able to get up and play together and, you know, we have good fun. It’s been good to be able to still get up on stage together after so long and still be able to play.
Q: When you went in to record ‘13’ it had been nearly two decades since you’d last recorded a full studio album together. Did you tend to revert back to the old dynamic or did you reinvent your dynamic?
GEEZER: We did it like we did in the old days, like the first three albums we did it practically live in the studio.
Q: Tony, will we ever see another solo album, and if so are there any other vocalists you’d really want to capture on the second?
TONY: I haven’t really thought about it, you know, we’ve been concentrating on what we’re doing now, which I’m really enjoying.
Q: Part of ‘13’’s success was maybe Rick Rubin. He has a knack for working with bands to rejuvenate them, bring back the old spirit of the band. How was it working with him? What’s he like?
TONY: It was very different for us because we’ve never worked with anybody like that before. But at the end of the day it worked well, it was just a different way of working. He wanted everything very basic, which was what we wanted to do. We wanted to capture it as live as you could.
Umm, he had his quirks… he was different to most people but…
Q: What were some of his quirks?
TONY: When we were rehearsing he wasn’t actually there for any kind of the writing. We would write a song and then get in touch with him and he’d come and have a listen for five or ten minutes and then he’d leave! He’d just say ‘ I like that’ or ‘I don’t like that part’ and then he’d go ‘when you’ve got something else…’… that was basically how it worked.
And then he started suggesting things actually when we were going to record, which for us was strange. We would have liked to have had it worked out before that. So we actually wrote some of the stuff in the studio.
And he’d sort of phone up the day before saying ‘well we need another Planet Caravan-type song’, or whatever, and all of a sudden we’d have to go and come up with one.
Um, we managed to do that, and the same with the lyrics, you know, he was expecting the lyrics there and then.
OZZY: I remember him saying we weren’t singing anything happy or fun… ‘Can’t a Satanist be happy?’ Everything had black, dark lyrics. I’ve known Rick for many years… he knew what he wanted before we got in there, which I think is a big plus for us. He just already a plan.
The songs we wrote that he didn’t like he would just go ‘oh, that’s okay’ , and then there were some songs that I didn’t think even fit… three or more songs never even got on [the album]…
TONY: Yeah, yeah, we actually wrote 16 songs, and recorded them… The other ones were good as well…
Q: Do you have any pre-concert rituals?
GEEZER: Go to the toilet about 40 times.
TONY: Yeah, it’s always a bit nerve-wracking before you go on, certainly when we first started touring again, it’s always a bit edgy… because we haven’t played for a while…the last one was probably five or six weeks ago. So yeah, it’s sort of nervy but exciting.
OZZY: But once you get on stage it’s like a magic, they say, you know, just get on with it.
Q: What are you guys doing to stay fit, young rock stars?
GEEZER: I stay in bed all day.
Journalist: You do some yoga too though, right?
GEEZER: Yeah, only when I’m at the gig though, just to get a stretch, yoga stretches… But apart from that, I just stay in bed.
OZZY: I masturbate.
TONY: Who said I’m fit and young? Um, I do what everybody else does, I suppose…
OZZY: Masturbate
TONY: What’s that now? Oh, you know I just… eat, and drink, and…do generally like everybody else. Try and stay a bit on the healthy side with vitamins, and go for walks and stuff like that. Not here though! Too hot.
Q: You’re playing on the iconic leisure destination Yas Island. Was wondering if you have any plans on taking a ride on the world’s fastest rollercoaster or driving a Formula 3000 car around the Yas Marina Circuit?
[Smirks all around]
OZZY: My life’s been a rollercoaster so…probably not!