Ozzy Osbourne says that the track Black Sabbath is “the scariest song ever written.”
It led off their self-titled 1970 debut album – and Ozzy says without that song, he wouldn’t have been given his famous nickname.
He tells NME: “When we started gigging way back when, as soon as we started playing this song’s opening chords, young girls in the audience would fucking freak out. They thought we were Satan’s fucking friends or something.
“That’s when the whole Prince Of Darkness shit started. When people get excited about Halloween coming around each year, all I think is, ‘Well, we used to have Halloween every fucking night.’”
Black Sabbath are gearing up for the next leg of their The End tour, which gets underway in November.
Ozzy previously said that when Sabbath’s career comes to a close with a pair of shows in their home town of Birmingham in February, he has no plans to retire and will record his first solo album since 2010’s Scream.
And it’s a point he reiterates, adding: “It’s not me that wants to retire – it’s Black Sabbath. I’ll be continuing my own musical thing.
“My wife is good at telling me partial information, but I know I’m not hanging my boots up for a while.”
In August, Ozzy said he hadn’t completely given up on the chance of estranged drummer Bill Ward returning to the band for their final shows – despite Ward ruling himself out after their public war of words.
The vocalist said: “I’m sad that Bill never came through. Every time I reach out to Bill I get yelled at for something. If something can be worked out, great.”
The End tour continues in Oklahoma on November 8.
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Black Sabbath remaining tour dates
Nov 08: Oklahoma BOK Center, OK
Nov 10: Houston Toyota Center, TX
Nov 12: San Antonio AT&T Center, TX
Nov 16: Mexico City Foro Sol, Mexico
Nov 19: Santiago Estadio Nacional, Chile
Nov 24: Cordoba En El Orfeo Superdomo, Argentina
Nov 26: Buenos Aires Estadio Velez, Argentina
Nov 30: Curitiba Pedrerira Paulo Leminski, Brazil
Dec 02: Rio Praca Da Apoteose, Brazil
Dec 04: Sao Paulo Estadio Do Morumbi, Brazil
Jan 20: Dublin 3 Arena, Ireland
Jan 22: Manchester Arena, UK
Jan 24: Glasgow SSE Hydro, UK
Jan 26: Leeds First Direct Arena, UK
Jan 29: London O2, UK
Jan 31: London O2, UK
Feb 02: Birmingham Genting Arena, UK
Feb 04: Birmingham Genting Arena, UK
The Black Sabbath Lyrics Quiz: can you match the line to the song?
