Ozzy Osbourne engineer Max Norman revealed on The Metal Voice how much Black Sabbath paid Ozzy Osbourne when he was fired in a new interview. A Black Sabbath Member Bought An Expensive Car.
You received a Metal Hall of Fame Award along with Lee [Kerslake, drums] and Bob [Daisley, bass] for your contributions to ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ and ‘Diary of a Madman.’ And ‘Bark at the Moon,’ I would say it’s right up there too, it’s a great album.
“Yeah, it has been sort of a good third, and then after that, it seemed to tail off. I think that probably the main cause of that is the management sort of squashing the music, and just turning it into a commodity.
“It was such a great band, for the first two records, the band was so good you just couldn’t do any wrong. They could play any fucking song and it would sound really good.
“But they never seem to last that long, very few bands go more than a few years with having that kind of lineup, like Cream or Hendrix. Maybe The Stones is probably the only one that keeps going.
“You see this happen all the time, bands don’t last that long because of the personalities, and what kind of makes them good is also what destroys them in the end. You see this happening over and over and over again.
“I saw it with Bad Company, they were breaking up at the time we were making that ‘Diamond’ record, that was just a debacle. I watched [drummer] Simon Kirke getting punched by [singer] Paul Rodgers, it was just some awful stuff.
“And it’s a real shame when you see that kind of stuff. But I got to say, the mood of those first two records is great because everybody was in a great mood, and everybody was 100% into it, and that’s what you need to make these kinds of records.
“Somehow it comes through the music, even if it’s an ambivalent song, it still comes through the field.”
They were struggling musicians at that time too, so they had nothing to prove, they weren’t resting on their laurels, they really had to come up with the goods because they were still struggling.
“As far as I know, Ozzy had 30 grand that he got from Black Sabbath when they fired him, and that was the money he used to make ‘Blizzard of Ozz.’ That’s the story that I don’t know if that’s true.
“He had this severance pay and he added just enough money to go and make a record, find the people, and all that kind of stuff.” Ultimate-Guitar transcribed his comments.
