Why Ozzy Osbourne Got Kicked Out Of Black Sabbath

Following a legal battle between guitarist Tony Iommi and frontman Ozzy Osbourne over the band’s name, not to mention several denials from the former, the prospects of Black Sabbath jumping on the reunion bandwagon seemed highly unlikely to say the least. But after tentatively reforming last year, the heavy metal pioneers are now gearing up to release their first new studio album in eighteen years, simply entitled 13.

The band’s belated follow-up to 1995’s Forbidden might not feature the entirety of their classic line-up – drummer Bill Ward has been replaced by Rage Against The Machine’s Brad Wilk after claiming he wasn’t offered a ‘signable contract’ – but it’s still a hotly-anticipated record due to the fact that Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler will be joined by Osbourne for the first time since 1978’s Never Say Die!

Both the group and fans alike will be hoping that the new album banishes the memory of the aforementioned album for good, as the 35-year-old release is widely regarded as the nadir of both Black Sabbath and Osbourne’s careers.

It didn’t exactly start in promising circumstances. Osbourne had already left the group following the failure of 1976’s Technical Ecstasy to crack the US Top 50, resulting in a temporary replacement by former Fleetwood Mac vocalist Dave Walker. Later admitting that the latter part of his Sabbath career was merely a ruse to get what he could out of the record company, including “getting fat on beer,” Osbourne unexpectedly returned just three days before studio sessions were due to start.

Refusing to perform anything they had written during Ozzy’s absence, the band were forced to start from scratch, an indicator of just how difficult the whole recording process of the album became. Holed up at Toronto’s Sound Interchange Studios, matters got worse when the group’s mammoth drug and alcohol intake began to interfere with their work rate.

Indeed, Iommi later revealed that the group were often too stoned to think straight and on several occasions were forced to abandon a session until the next day in order to sleep off their drug-induced haze. Eventually released in 1978, Never Say Die! was greeted with a muted response by fans, charting at a career low of No.69 in the US and becoming their second consecutive LP to miss the UK Top 10, whilst critics slammed the majority of its nine tracks for its unsurprising lack of focus.

Osbourne was arguably even more vitriolic, telling After Hours in an 1981 interview that he was ashamed of the record, that he found it totally disgusting and that it was “the worst piece of work he’d ever put his name to.” The band’s misery was further compounded during its accompanying tour when they were described as ‘tired and uninspired’ and a distant second to support act, the then-unknown Van Halen.

The criticism didn’t exactly inspire the kick up the backside they perhaps needed and a year later, they were back to their usual aimless behavior in the studio. However, eventually sensing that the situation needed to change, Iommi decided that the band needed to get rid of Osbourne if matters were to ever improve, and handed the responsibility to Ward to inform Ozzy of his dismissal.

Osbourne claims that his apparent dependence on drugs and alcohol at the time was no worse than his bandmates, but in the end, things worked out for both parties. Sabbath returned to the UK Top 10 and US Top 30 for the first time in five years after recruiting Rainbow’s Ronnie James Dio for 1980’s Heaven and Hell, even scoring a debut Billboard hit single with “Turn Up The Night” a few years later.

Whilst Osbourne of course went onto become one of the most well-known hell-raisers in rock history, scoring a series of hit solo albums in the process (Diary Of A Madman, Ultimate Sin) before the likes of Ozzfest and of course pioneering reality show, The Osbournes, introduced him to a whole new younger generation.

But musically-speaking, the two acts haven’t come close to recreating the magic of Black Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut, same year follow-up Paranoid and 1971’s Master Of Reality, which explains why their reunion is widely regarded as one of 2013’s most significant.