In many ways I wasn’t really a father to Aimee. I was more like another kid for Sharon to look after.
9
Betty, Where’s the Bar?
‘Someone’s gonna die before this is over,’ I said to Doc McGhee, on the second night of the Bark at the Moon tour. Doc was the American manager of Mötley Crüe, our support band, and a good mate of mine.
‘Someone?’ he said. ‘I don’t think someone’s gonna die, Ozzy. I think we’re all gonna die.’
The problem, basically, was Mötley Crüe – which back then still had the original line-up of Nikki Sixx on bass, Tommy Lee on drums, Mick Mars on guitar and Vince Neil on vocals. They were fucking crazy. Which obviously I took as a challenge. Just as I had with John Bonham, I felt like I had to out-crazy them, otherwise I wasn’t doing my job properly. But they took that as a challenge. So it was just wall-to-wall action, every minute of every day. The gigs were the easy part. The problem was surviving the bits in between.
The funniest thing about Mötley Crüe was that they dressed like chicks but lived like animals. It was an education, even for me. Wherever they went, they carried around this massive flight case full of every type of booze imaginable. The moment a gig was over, the lid would be thrown open, and the hounds of hell would be set loose.
Every night, bottles would be thrown, knives would be pulled, chair legs would be smashed, noses would be broken, property would be destroyed. It was like bedlam and pandemonium rolled into one, then multiplied by chaos.
People tell me stories about that tour and I have no idea if they’re true or not. They ask, ‘Ozzy, did you really once snort a line of ants off a Popsicle stick?’ and I ain’t got a fucking clue. It’s certainly possible. Every night stuff went up my nose that had no business being there. I was out of it the whole time. Even Tony Dennis got carried away. We ended up calling him ‘Captain Krell’ – Krell was our new name for cocaine – because he tried doing a line once, although I don’t think he ever did it again. Our wardrobe chick even made him a little suit with ‘CK’ written in Superman letters on the chest.
We all thought it was hilarious.
One of the craziest nights of all was in Memphis.
As usual, it started as soon as we finished the gig. I remember walking down the corridor backstage to the dressing-room area and hearing Tommy Lee say, ‘Hey dude, Ozzy. Check this out!’
I stopped and looked around to see where his voice was coming from.
‘In here, man,’ said Tommy. ‘In here.’
I pushed open a door and saw him on the other side. He was sitting on a chair with his back to me. Nikki, Mick, Vince and a bunch of roadies were all standing around, smoking fags, laughing, talking about the show, drinking beer. And there, in front of Tommy, on her knees, was this naked chick. She was giving him the mother of all blowjobs.
Tommy waved at me to come closer. ‘Hey, dude, Ozzy. Check it out!’
So I peered over his shoulder. And there it was: his dick. Like a baby’s arm in a boxing glove. The fucking thing was so big, the chick could only get about a third of it in her mouth, and even then I was surprised there wasn’t a lump sticking out of the back of her neck. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.
‘Hey, Tommy,’ I said. ‘Can you get me one of those?’
‘Dude, sit down,’ he said. ‘Take your pants off, man. She’ll do you after she’s done me.’
I started to back away. ‘I ain’t gonna get mine out with that thing filling up the room!’ I said. ‘It would be like parking a tugboat next to the Titanic. Have you got a licence for that, Tommy? It looks dangerous.’
‘Oh, dude, you don’t know what you’re miss—Oh, oh, oh, ah, urgh, urgh, ahhhhhh…’
I had to look away.
Then Tommy jumped up, zipped up his fly, and said, ‘Let’s get some eats, dude, I’m starving.’
We ended up in this place called Benihana – one of those Japanese steakhouse joints where they make the food on this big hot plate in front of you. While we waited for the food we drank beer and chasers. Then we got a jumbo-sized bottle of sake for the table. The last thing I remember is getting a massive bowl of wonton soup, finishing it, then filling the bowl to the brim with sake and downing it in one messy gulp.
‘Ahh!’ I said. ‘That’s better.’
Everyone just looked at me.
Then Tommy stood up and said, ‘Fuuuuuck, let’s get outta here, man. Any second now, Ozzy’s gonna blow.’
Then black.
Complete black.
Like someone yanking the cord from the back of a TV.
From what the others told me later, I got up from the table, said I was going to the bog, and never came back. To this day, I have no memory whatsoever of what I did for the next five hours.
But I’ll never forget waking up.
The first thing I heard was the noise:
NEEEEEEEEOOOOWWWWOOOM, NEEEEEEEEO -OOOWWWWOOOM, ZZZZMMMMMMMMMMM…
Then I opened my eyes. It was still dark, very dark, but there were thousands of little pinpricks of light everywhere. I thought to myself, What the fuck’s going on? Am I dead or what?
And still this noise:
NEEEEEEEEOOOOWWWWOOOM, NEEEEEEEEO -OOOWWWWOOOM, ZZZZMMMMMMMMMMM…
Then I could smell rubber and petrol.
Then I heard an air horn, right next to my ear.
BLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHMM!!!!!!!!!
I rolled over, screaming.
Then blinding lights – maybe twenty or thirty of them, as tall as an office block – coming towards me. Before I could pick myself up and run, I heard this terrible roaring noise, and a gust of wind blew sand and grit in my face.
I’d woken up on the central reservation of a twelve-lane free-way.
How or why I was there, I had no idea. All I knew was that I had to get off the freeway before I died – and that I had to take a piss, because my bladder was about to explode. So I waited for a gap in the headlamps, then legged it across all these lanes, still too pissed to go in a straight line. Finally I made it to the other side, having just missed a motorbike in the slow lane. I jumped the fence, ran across another road, and began to search for somewhere to take a slash.And that’s when I saw it: a white car parked in a lay-by.
Perfect, I thought, this’ll give me a bit of cover.
So I whip out my dick, but no sooner have I started to give the tire of this car a good old watering than all these coloured bulbs in the back window light up, and I hear this horribly familiar noise.
BLOOP-BLOOP-WHOOOO. BAARRRP!
I couldn’t fucking believe it. Of all the places in Memphis where I could’ve taken a piss, I’d managed to choose the wheel of an unmarked cop car, parked in a lay-by, waiting to bust people for speeding.
Next thing I knew this woman police officer was winding down her window. She leaned out and said, ‘When you’ve finished shaking that thing, I’m taking your ass to jail!’
Ten minutes later, I was in the nick.
Luckily, they only kept me in there for a couple of hours. Then I called Doc McGhee and got him to pick me up in the tour bus.
The first thing I heard when I climbed back on board was ‘Hey, dude, Ozzy. Check this out, man!’ And we were off again, into oblivion.
Someone went to jail for one thing or another every night of that tour. And because Mick and Nikki looked so alike – they both had this long, dark, girly hair – they’d sometimes get locked up for something the other one had done.
One night they’re sharing a room and Nikki gets up, stark naked, to go and buy a Coke from the vending machine in the corridor, next to the lift. Just as he’s pressing the button for the Coke, the lift doors open and he hears this gasping noise. Then he glances over and sees three middle-aged women standing there with these looks of horror of their faces. ‘Hi,’ he says, before turning around and walking casually back to his room. A few minutes later there’s a knock at the door. So Nikki says to Mick, ‘That’s probably one of the groupies. Why don?
??t you go and answer it.’ So Mick goes off to answer the door and he’s greeted by the hotel manager, a cop and one of the chicks from the lift. The chick shouts, ‘That’s him!’ and they drag Mick off to jail, even though he had no idea what he was supposed to have done.
The thing is, though, we were all so out of our minds all the time, it was quite normal not to know what we’d done.
Apart from waking up in the middle of a freeway, the worst moment for me was after we played Madison Square Garden in New York. For the after-show party, we went to this club in an old church. We were all hanging out in this private room, having a few drinks and a bit of coke, when some bloke came up to me and said, ‘Hey, Ozzy, would you like to have your photograph taken with Brian Wilson?’
‘Who the fuck’s Brian Wilson?’
‘Y’know, Brian Wilson. From the Beach Boys.’
‘Oh, him. Sure. Yeah. Whatever.’
Everyone had been talking about Brian Wilson a lot, because the week before, his brother Dennis – the one who’d been mates with Charles Manson in the 1960s – had drowned in LA. Dennis was only thirty-nine, so it was terribly sad. Anyway, I was told to go and meet Brian Wilson on the stairwell, so out I went, loaded up on booze and coke, and waited for him. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty minutes. Then thirty minutes. Finally, after another five minutes, Brian appeared. By then, I was thoroughly pissed off, thinking, What a dick. But at the same time I knew about Dennis, so I decided to give him a break. The first thing I said was: ‘Sorry to hear about your brother, Brian.’
He didn’t say anything. He just gave me this funny look, then walked off. That was it for me.
‘First you show up late,’ I said, raising my voice, ‘and now you’re just gonna fuck off without saying a single fucking word? I tell you what, Brian, why don’t we forget about the photograph so you can shove your head back up your arse, where it fucking belongs, eh?’
Next morning, I’m lying in the hotel room, my head pounding. The phone starts ringing and Sharon answers it. ‘Yes, no, yes, OK. Oh, he did, did he? Hmm. Right. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it.’ Click. She hands me the phone and says,
‘You’re calling Brian Wilson.’
‘Who the fuck’s Brian Wilson?’
I get smacked on the head with the receiver.
Smack.
‘Ow! That fucking hurt!’
‘Brian Wilson is the Living Musical Legend you insulted last night,’ says Sharon. ‘And now you’re going to call him and apologise.’
The memories start to come back.
‘Hang on a minute,’ I say. ‘Brian Wilson was the one who insulted me!’
‘Oh yeah?’ says Sharon.
‘Yeah!’
‘Ozzy, when Brian Wilson reached over to shake your hand, the first thing you said was: “Hello, Brian, you fucking arse-hole, I’m glad to hear your brother’s dead.”’
I sit bolt upright.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘No, the fucking cocaine you keep shoving up your nose said that.’
‘But I would remember.’
‘Everyone else seems to remember perfectly well. They also remember you told him to shove his head up his arse, because that’s where it belongs. Here, this is Brian’s number. Apologise.’
So I called him and apologised. Twice.
Since then, I’ve bumped into him a few times over the years. We’re cool now, me and Brian. Although we never did get around to taking that photograph.
If any of us had a near-death experience on the Bark at the Moon tour, it was me. Amazingly, though, it didn’t have anything to do with booze or drugs – not directly, anyway. It happened when we took a forty-eight-hour break after a gig in New Orleans to shoot the video for ‘So Tired’ in London. It was an insane distance to travel in that amount of time, but in those days MTV was just starting to become a big part of the music business, and if you could get them to play one of your videos on heavy rotation, it just about guaranteed that your album would go platinum. So we always put a lot of money and effort into them.
The plan was to fly from New Orleans to New York, take Concorde to London, shoot the video, take Concorde back to New York, then connect to the next venue. It was a gruelling schedule, not helped by the fact that I was chronically pissed. The only thing that kept me from passing out was all the cocaine I was snorting.
When we finally got to the studio in London, the first thing the director said to me was, ‘OK, Ozzy, just sit in front of this mirror. When I give the word, it’s gonna explode from behind.’
‘All right,’ I said, wondering what kind of high-tech special effects they were going to use.
But there were no special effects. There was just an old mirror and a bloke standing behind it with a hammer in his hand. I don’t know who the fuck they were using as a props guy, but obviously no one had told him about theatrical mirrors, which are designed to break without killing anyone. So, halfway through the song, the bloke swings his hammer, the mirror explodes, and I get a faceful of glass. It was a good job I was so loaded: I didn’t feel a thing. I just spat out all the blood and glass and went, ‘Yeah, cheers.’
Then I got up and had another can of Guinness.
I didn’t think any more of it until I was halfway across the Atlantic on Concorde. I remember pressing the button for another drink and the stewardess coming over and almost dropping her tray with fright. ‘Oh my God!’ she squealed. ‘Are you OK?’ It turned out the pressure from being up at nearly sixty thousand feet had caused all the tiny bits of glass lodged in my skin to rise to the surface, until my face had literally exploded. It had just popped, like a squashed tomato.
When Sharon turned around to look, she almost passed out.
An ambulance was waiting for me at JFK when we landed. It wasn’t the first time I’d been wheeled off Concorde. I used to get so pissed on those flights, Sharon would have to carry me through immigration on a luggage trolley with my passport Scotch taped to my forehead. And then when they asked her if she had anything to declare, she’d just point at me and go, ‘Him’.
In the hospital in New York they put me under and tried to pull out as much of the broken glass as they could with tweezers. Then they gave me some drugs to reduce the swelling. I remember coming to in this white room, with white walls, and people all around me covered in white sheets and thinking, Fuck, I’m in the morgue. Then I heard a hissing noise next to my bed.
Pssst, pssst.
I looked down and there was this kid holding up a pen and a copy of Bark at the Moon.
‘Will you sign this for me?’ he asked.
‘Fuck off,’ I told him. ‘I’m dead.’
By the time the tour ended, we were all still alive, but my prediction that someone would die still came true. It happened when Vince Neil went back to his house at Redondo Beach in LA and got fucked up with the drummer from Hanoi Rocks. At some point they ran out of booze and decided to drive to the local bottle shop in Vince’s car, which was one of those low-slung, ridiculously fast, bright red De Tomaso Panteras. Vince was so loaded he drove head-on into a car coming in the opposite direction. The bloke from Hanoi Rocks was dead by the time they got him to hospital.
I didn’t see much of Mötley Crüe after the tour, although I kept in touch with Tommy, on and off. I remember going to his house years later with my son Jack, who must have been about thirteen.
‘Wow, dude, come in,’ said Tommy, when I rang the door-bell. ‘I can’t believe it. Ozzy Osbourne’s in my house.’
There were some other guests there, too, and after we’d all been given the tour of his place, Tommy said, ‘Hey, dudes, check this out.’ He tapped a code into a keypad in the wall, a hidden door slid open, and on the other side there was this padded sex chamber with some kind of heavy-duty harness thing swinging from the ceiling. The idea was that you’d take a chick in there, strap her to this contraption, then fuck the living shit out of her.
‘What’s wrong with a bed?’ I asked Tommy. Then I turn
ed around and realised that Jack had walked into the room with the rest of us. He was standing there, his eyes bulging. I felt so embarrassed, I didn’t know where to fucking look.
I didn’t take him to Tommy’s again after that.
By the time the Bark at the Moon tour ended, me and Sharon’s fights had reached another level of craziness. Part of it was just the pressure of being famous. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t complaining: my first three solo albums eventually sold more than ten million copies in America alone, which was beyond anything I could have hoped for. But when you’re selling that many records, you can’t do anything normal any more, ’cos you get too much hassle from the public. I remember one night when me and Sharon were staying in a Holiday Inn. It was maybe three or four in the morning, and we were both in bed. There was a knock on the door, so I got up to answer it, and these guys in overalls just brushed past me and walked into the room.
When Sharon saw them she said, ‘Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in our room?’
They went, ‘Oh, we’re just interested in seeing how you live.’
Sharon threw something at them and they brushed past me again on their way out.
All they wanted to do was come in and stare. That was it.
We stopped staying in cheap hotels after that.
I mean, I’m usually happy to meet fans, but not when I’m asleep with my wife at four in the morning.
Or when I’m eating. It drives me nuts when people come up to me when I’m in a restaurant with Sharon. It’s a big taboo with me, that is. The worst is when they say, ‘Hey, you look like you’re somebody famous! Can I have your autograph?’
‘I tell you what,’ I want to say to them, ‘why don’t you go away and find out who you think I am, come back again, and then I’ll give you my autograph.’
But fame wasn’t the biggest problem for me and Sharon. That was my drinking, which was so bad I couldn’t be trusted with anything. When we were in Germany doing a gig, for example, I went on a tour of the Dachau concentration camp and was asked to leave because I was being drunk and disorderly. I must be the only person in history who’s ever been thrown out of that fucking place.