Black Sabbath
Ghost Stories experienced by Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler
Many of us know him as the loving father on the wildly popular MTV show "The Osbournes." In addition to a hugely successful solo music career, Ozzy Osbourne was once the front man to the original lineup of the band Black Sabbath. This line-up included Tony Iommi on guitar, Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Geezer Butler on bass, and Bill Ward on drums.
If you haven't already heard any of these Black Sabbath albums, do so as soon as you can. Once you do, you'll see why so many great artists point to Black Sabbath as their main influences in beginning their own groups.
The music of Black Sabbath was before its time and radically ground breaking. Many credit them for the whole heavy metal genre. However, many derided them because of their initial influences from the occult.
Back in 1974, Black Sabbath holed up to write and record a new album. The events are from the linear notes of Black Sabbath's 1997 CD "Reunion." They were written by Phil Alexander, editor of Kerang! magazine:
As a last ditch effort, Sabbath hired Clearwell Castle in Wales in a bid to try and write again. What came out was one of Tony Iommi's greatest riffs of all-time, anchoring the title track of what became their fifth album "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath."
"The relief was incredible," recalls Geezer. "We knew that we were back on track and that we could go on after we'd written that song."
While at Clearwell, Tony maintains that Sabbath were not alone.
"We rehearsed in the armoury there and one night I was walking down the corridor with Ozzy, and we saw this figure in a black cloak." recalls the guitarist. I said 'Who's that?' and Ozzy said 'I dunno.' We followed this figure back into the armoury and there was absolutely no one there. Whoever it was had disappeared into thin air! The people that owned the castle knew all about the ghost and they said 'Oh yes, that's the ghost of so-and so'. We were like 'What!'.
"We spent the rest of the time trying to frighten each other by rigging up all these devices. In the end we were all petrified and we had to drive home every night rather than stay there! That defeated the object of it all!"