“The Alamo incident, bat-biting, dove head-biting, snorting ants”: Ozzy Osbourne was at his “wildest” during early days of solo career, says Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Butler

Geezer Butler says that his Black Sabbath bandmate Ozzy Osbourne was at his “wildest” in the period that followed his dismissal from the band in 1979.

Butler – who served as Sabbath’s bassist and lyricist and co-founded the heavy metal pioneers with Ozzy, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward – has penned a moving tribute to the late Prince Of Darkness for Uncut magazine.

In it, he observes the numerous infamous antics that Ozzy got up to in the early 80s, after he kicked off his post-Sabbath career with the solo album Blizzard Of Ozz.

The bassist highlights the times the singer urinated on the Alamo cenotaph in Texas, bit the head off a bat onstage in Iowa, bit the head off a dove during a record label meeting, and snorted ants, all of which happened between 1980 and 1985.

“When he went solo, he didn’t have the restraints of being in Sabbath,” remembers Butler. “He was his own boss, so that era was when he was at his wildest: the Alamo incident, bat-biting, dove head-biting, snorting ants. He just seemed to let loose and he quickly gained the reputation of the wild man – his fans loved it.”

Elsewhere in the tribute, Butler looks back on the whirlwind that was Sabbath’s early career, when they attained unexpected chart success despite their music being reviled by many professional critics.

“The whole band was from Aston in Birmingham and we became closer than brothers,” the bassist recalls. “We shared everything we had and that remained true throughout the 70s. None of us expected to have the success we had and we really didn’t know how to handle it, especially the financial side of things. The press hated us, but the fans loved us, which made us that much closer to each other and to our fans.”

Butler played alongside Osbourne in Sabbath from 1968 to 1979, then again when the band reunited from 1999 to 2005, from 2011 to 2017 and for their retirement concert, Back To The Beginning, in 2025. He also collaborated with the singer during his solo career, playing on the No Rest For The Wicked tour in the late 80s and appearing on 1995’s Ozzmosis album.

Ozzy died aged 76 on July 22: 17 days after Back To The Beginning took place at Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham. On the day of his death, Butler remembered the Prince Of Darkness in a social media post, writing: “Goodbye dear friend. Thanks for all those years. We had some great fun. 4 kids from Aston – who’d have thought, eh? So glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston.”

Butler retired from performing live in June 2023, with the Back To The Beginning show marking a one-off onstage comeback for the bassist. His memoir, Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath – And Beyond, came out in 2023.