Ozzy Osbourne discussed Black Sabbath nearly being dropped by their label in a new Louder Sound article.
Geezer Butler said, “The record company was all over Van Halen. They already thought we were old-hat and over the hill, so Van Halen was getting all the star treatment from the record company, and we were getting nothing.
“When the ‘Never Say Die!’ album came out [in 1978], we went to a reception for it at Warner Brothers, and they were playing Bob Marley’s album and they didn’t know who we were!
“Our sales had dipped, and I guess they were on the verge of dropping us.”
Ozzy added, “I remember being in a hotel room in San Diego with Geezer and one of the reps from the record company, and we’d had a few drinks, and one of us said to this guy, ‘Be honest, you’re only using us on this tour to promote Van Halen, aren’t you?’
“And he said, ‘You’re right.’ And if you’re with a record company that won’t back you…
“When a band goes on stage before you and goes down better than you, you either say, ‘Right, we’re going to go out there and fucking show them how to do it,’ or you just fold up.
“And they had years on us, and we’d been fighting this lawsuit with our old manager for fucking years, and I was just fucking tired of fighting.
“We never joined a band to become lawyers or fucking accountants, and that’s how it ended up. We didn’t have a clue.”
