Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford was extremely saddened to learn of Ozzy Osbourne’s passing, revealing, “I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours.”
The singer spoke about his reaction to Ozzy’s death in a new interview with Detroit radio station WRIF (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), recalling, “Oh, man. I got a call the day [Ozzy’s death] happened. I just put the phone down in my hotel room in — I think I was in Leeds, in England, and I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours. I just couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it now. I’m still grieving, like so many people.”
He continued, “And then we had a show the next day. So, God, how do you process all of this tragedy, all of this love, because I’ve never seen such an outpouring of love. And we did the show and we came to the song that we’ll be playing when we come to see you guys — it’s called ‘Giants in the Sky,’ from the Invincible Shield album — and that song talks about people that we love in music that have moved on to this beautiful place. We reference Lemmy and Ronnie [James Dio] and Paul Di’Anno [of Iron Maiden] and Jill [Janus from] Huntress and Chris [Cornell] and all of these greats, Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury. And then for that show we added Ozzy at the end.”
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Halford added, “And I said to everybody, this just so much to try and comprehend and so tough, but Ozzy would say, ‘Let’s party. Let’s rock and roll. Let’s live it up. Let’s enjoy.’ That was in his heart, his soul, and his spirit.”
The Judas Priest singer further stated that it was important to preserve the legacies of artists like Ozzy and others. “”So it’s great that we are talking about him now and we should keep talking about him forever, like I always talk about Ronnie, I talk about Lemmy,” Halford said. “These are all friends of mine. And we have to celebrate — we have to celebrate. That’s the way of helping you through the grief. You think about the memories, you think about the joy, you think about the good times, and that’s what we will always do with Ozzy.”
Judas Priest were invited to take part in the “Back to the Beginning” concert featuring the final performances of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, but had already committed to playing Scorpions’ 60th anniversary show on that same day. In lieu of their absence at the historic event, the band recorded a cover of Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”
“We used to text occasionally,” said Halford of his interactions with Ozzy. “‘Cause he’s another guy I was in awe of. I’m still in awe of Alice [Cooper]. [Laughs] ‘Oh my God. He’s Alice Cooper.’ And I used to feel the same whenever I was in Ozzy’s presence, because he had this larger-than-life personality. It’d been a while since we’ve been in touch. But, again, I just have the wonderful memories of the two opportunities I was able to sing for him with Sabbath. And then this recent opportunity to cover ‘War Pigs,’ which we still play at the start of our show, which is one of the greatest metal songs ever written. So that connection will never be severed in that respect.”
Halford famously stepped in to front Black Sabbath at a show on Ozzfest 2004 when Ozzy had bronchitis. He also fronted Sabbath for a couple shows in 1992 when then-Sabbath-singer Ronnie James Dio refused to open for Ozzy.
Judas Priest are set to embark on a co-headlining North American tour with Alice Cooper this fall, with tickets vailable here. Watch Rob Halford’s interview with WRIF below.
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