April 23, 2024 10:37 am
Posted by Editorial –
An episode of the solo career of Ozzy Osbourne of which not much is known is the one that unites the path of the Madman with that of the virtuoso guitarist Steve Vaisomething that happened in the mid-90s, before the album was released ‘Ozzmosis’and that could have resulted in an album so heavy that “it scared the company,” as Vai himself commented in an interview at the time.
Last year, some comments from Vai about that collaboration had to be clarified by the guitaristruling out that there was an entire finished album with Ozzy that had remained finished in a drawer waiting to be discovered, but the interview that has been rescued by The Tape Archives takes us to nineteen ninety five and in his words we see that we could have been close to having another great guitarist to add to the list of Ozzy’s squires on the six strings.
“First of all, I had a great time working with Ozzy”Vai begins to tell in the recording. “He’s one of the funniest guys I’ve ever worked with. When he opens up and starts talking, he tells story after story, and it was great.”
Vai explains how their collaboration came about, which takes us to the stage between the albums. ‘No More Tears’ and the aforementioned ‘Ozzmosis’which was released in 1995: “He had recorded his album with his old band, and then the band broke up and everyone was doing solo stuff, and they needed some songs. So they called me and I met up with Ozzy. I was going to write some songs with him for his album, and it turned out that we really liked everything we were doing and we were going to remake the album and leave the other stuff on the shelf.
The record company’s reaction to the overwhelming material that Vai was writing deprived us of this collaboration, which would end up being reduced to the choice of “My Little Man” to be re-recorded and included on ‘Ozzmosis’: “I was writing really heavy stuff, with C tunings with an octave divider… I mean, it was like if you walked by it your testicles would get this big just listening to it. It just scared the hell out of the record company. They were like, ” Ay ay ay. Get rid of Vai.”
So there were a couple of songs that were very beautiful. And one of them, I think they are going to record it. A song called “My Little Man,” which is pure beauty. And it’s with sitar and it has wild effects.”
Vai finished his response by assuring that there was a lot of material left to be finished at another time, remembering that at that time Ozzy’s couple with Zakk Wylde was tightly united: “We have a lot of material on the shelf and we talked about, maybe one day, getting together and recording it, but it would have been too expensive and would have taken too long to make the whole album. Plus, I already had a lot of it recorded with Zakk. And Zakk is Ozzy’s colleague, they make a good team.
Back in the present, Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career has received the great recognition that will lead to the Prince of Darkness enter the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame for the second timeof which he was already a member along with his colleagues from Black Sabbathand which he now accesses due to the merit of the more than forty years of successful solo career that has survived to this day.
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