It’s been a rough few years for heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne. Between surgeries to treat a staph infection in 2018, the reveal of his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 2019, a pneumonia battle that was followed by a fall at home in 2020 as well as a major neck surgery in June and a positive COVID-19 diagnosis this year, the Blizzard of Ozz has been snowed under by health issues.
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But on Thursday night (Sept. 8), the metal master is slated to put on his first U.S. performance in more than two years when he plays halftime during the NFL 2022-23 season kick-off game between Super Bowl champs the Los Angeles Rams and the Buffalo Bills. In a new interview with Kerrang! magazine, Ozzy, 73, said he’s ready to rock an American stage again for the first time since he collaborated with Travis Scott and Post Malone a the 2019 American Music Awards on “Take What You Want.”
“I am going to put 110 percent into getting myself out there. Time is my most valuable asset now. I’m 73. I don’t think that I’ll be here in another 25 years,” Ozzy told the hard rock magazine. “I’ve got a goal: the goal is to get back onstage. I had my last surgery in June, I can’t have any more. So whatever I make of it is entirely up to me now. Even if I manage one show, then fall over, [I’ll have done it]. But I know that I’m going to carry on. I know I can beat it. I know that I can get back onstage. It’s just that I’ve got to get off my butt and go for it.”
The singer said he’s working on getting his “rhythm again,” admitting that, “my balance is all f–ked up, but I’ve got to keep going. I mean, I’ll probably always have a limp. But I don’t mind, as long as I can f–kin’ walk around without falling on my head. I have a goal: that next summer I will be onstage. If I put every effort into it and I still can’t, at least I can’t say that I haven’t tried.” Osbourne’s No More Tours 2 outing has been repeatedly delayed due to the pandemic and Ozzy’s various medical issues and is currently slated to kick off a European run in early 2023.
In the interview, Osbourne also discussed the warm, weird feeling of reuniting with one of his Black Sabbath mates to perform “Paranoid” at the Commonwealth Games in his hometown of Birmingham, England. “Where I was playing must’ve been about a quarter of a mile from where the [Birchfield Road] school once stood,” he said of his childhood alma mater.
“That’s where [Black Sabbath guitarist] Tony [Iommi] and I went as boys. If someone had said to me back then that I’d be over there playing at the Commonwealth Games when I was 73, I’d have gone, ‘What the f–k are you talking about?!’ But it crossed my mind while I was playing that if I’d stood on the school steps and pointed in the right direction, I could’ve probably seen where I’d be standing. It was amazing. That meant far more to me than Sabbath getting the bench in Birmingham, because when me and Tony went to that school, we were looked upon as the f–kin’ outcasts!”
Ozzy’s 13th solo album, Patient Number 9, will drop on Friday (Sept. 9), with a guest list that includes Iommi, Zakk Wylde, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, among others.
