Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath - Tony Iommi, T.J. Lammers (2011)

Chapter 22. Ozzy’s shockers

Ozzy just had a weak bladder. One night we went to a club and we had a skinful of booze. Ozzy fell asleep on a couch and as they were closing the doorman said: ‘You’d better get him.’

I said: ‘I ain’t getting him. If you want him out, you’d better move him.’

He said: ‘I’ll fucking move him.’

He picked him up, put him over his shoulder and Ozzy pissed himself, all down this guy’s suit.

Eventually we could afford two to a room. Geezer and Bill shared one room and me and Ozzy shared another. That was better, but I’d be in bed, sound asleep, and Ozzy would wake up at all sorts of funny hours. He’d put the TV on full blast and then take a shower. I’d jump up wondering what the hell was happening, turn the TV off and get back into bed. He’d get out of the shower and turn it back on full blast again. I’d hear him bumping and banging and fiddling around and I’d think, I might as well get up myself now.

When we did get our very own rooms, I thought, this is great! But nothing changed: I’d be in bed at God knows what time, and there’d be a bang on the door. I’d answer it and it would be Ozzy, going: ‘You haven’t got a light, have you?’

‘Do you know what time it is? And you bloody woke me up for a light!’

Ozzy and hotels … We were on tour, travelling for hours and hours through a lot of desert land. We came to this shop in the middle of nowhere, so we all piled out of the bus to have a look. There was a big sign saying: ‘Fireworks’. Ozzy went in and bought all the fireworks they had. I said: ‘What are you going to do with them?’

‘Oh, I’m probably going to let them off later.’

When he said ‘later’ I didn’t know he meant as late as he did, and I didn’t know where. It turned out to be in the hotel at four o’clock in the morning. We were in our rooms and I heard these whizzing sounds of rockets flying past. I looked through the peephole of my door and I saw that the hallway was full of smoke. Then it started coming under my door, so I went out. By this time the bloody sprinklers had come on in the hallway and all the rooms. The guests came out in their pyjamas, screaming, not knowing what the hell was going on. It was such a mess.

Meanwhile, Ozzy, absolutely out of his skull, was still in the hallway letting his fireworks off. Of course the police came and took him away. They said to us: ‘You better come down and bail him out!’

We said: ‘You keep him tonight. We’ll bail him out tomorrow. We’ve got to get some bloody rest!’

It was a newly refurbished hotel, but Ozzy’s fireworks had burned the carpets and damaged the walls. They made him pay for it big time, so he learned his lesson there.

Or maybe he didn’t.

And he’s still the same now, always mooning everybody. Even when we were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame and we played ‘Paranoid’, Ozzy mooned the crowd. Well, the crowd - there weren’t that many people there, but he didn’t think they were enthusiastic enough so he decided to pull his pants down again. You’re playing to people in your business, so what do you expect? They’re not going to jump up and shout and scream; they just sit there politely. And The Kinks were in the front. You don’t expect them to leap up!

It didn’t piss me off, though, it didn’t bother us. We’re used to seeing that.

I’ve seen Ozzy’s arse more times than I’ve seen my own!