"Ozzy had a chimney brush over his shoulder, a shoe on a dog leash and no shoes on his bare feet." Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler recalls his very first meeting with Ozzy Osbourne, and the start of "the most incredible journey of our lives"

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 12: (L-R) Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne attend the Ozzy Osbourne and Corey Taylor Special Announcement on May 12, 2016 in Hollywood, California. California. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/WireImage)
(Image credit: Tibrina Hobson/WireImage)

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has paid a tender tribute to his friend and former bandmate Ozzy Osbourne, sharing his memories of how "the most incredible journey of our lives" began.

Butler's recollections come in an essay penned for The Sunday Times, published yesterday, July 27.

Referring to his friend as "the Prince of Laughter", Butler writes, "I first became aware of him when I’d walk home from all-nighters at a rock club called the Penthouse, in Birmingham. I had long hair down past my shoulders and looked like a hippy. Ozzy would be on the other side of the road on his way from the soul all-nighters in Brum, with his cropped hair and mod suit. Complete opposites of each other. Little did I know then that within a year we would form what would become Black Sabbath and create a whole new form of rock music."

Butler recalls how, in 1968, he saw an advert in a Birmingham music store reading ‘Ozzy Zig needs a gig’, with the singer's address included. When Butler called around to the address on the ad, ‘Ozzy Zig’ wasn't home, so the bassist left his own address with the singer's sister.

"Later that evening," he writes, "as the Butler family were sitting down to dinner, there was a knock at the door. My brother answered it and said to me, 'Hey, there’s something at the door asking for you'. I said, What do you mean by ‘something’?” He said: 'You’ll see.’

"It was the cropped-hair mod I’d seen walking home from the all-nighters," Butler continues, "except he didn’t have a suit on — he had his dad’s brown work gown on, a chimney brush over his shoulder, a shoe on a dog leash and no shoes on his bare feet. He said, ‘I’m Ozzy’. After I’d stopped laughing, I said: OK, you’re in the band. So began the most incredible journey of our lives."

In his essay, Butler also admits that he "wasn’t prepared" for how frail Osbourne was when he showed up to rehearse for Black Sabbath's final Back To The Beginning show.

"He was really quiet compared with the Ozzy of old," Butler remembers.

Read the full essay here. Geezer Butler donated his fee for this article to Birmingham Children’s Hospital.


Following Ozzy Osbourne's death last week, Butler posted a short tribute to his friend on social media.

"Goodbye, dear friend," he wrote. "Thanks for all those years. We had some great fun. Four kids from Aston. Who’d have thought, eh?

"So glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston. Love you."

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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