Zakk Wylde has mirrored on his remaining moments with Ozzy Osbourne following the steel icon’s loss of life.
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The loss of life of the heavy steel pioneer and iconic Black Sabbath frontman was introduced final Tuesday (July 22). His household stated in a press release that the 76-year-old music icon was “surrounded by love” on the time of his passing.
It got here shortly after he took to the stage for the massive ‘Again To The Starting’ gig in Birmingham on July 5 – marking his remaining present each as a solo artist and with Black Sabbath. Whereas a reason behind loss of life has not been revealed, Ozzy had notably been coping with a myriad of well being points for quite a few years, together with being recognized with Parkinson’s Illness in 2019.
A who’s who of arduous rock music historical past performed units at ‘Again To The Starting’, with Rage Towards The Machine’s Tom Morello serving as musical director and names on the invoice together with Weapons N’ Roses, KoRn, Instrument, Slayer, Pantera, Metallica, Alice In Chains, Gojira, Anthrax, and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
Amongst those that carried out on the present was Zakk Wylde – who other than taking part in with Pantera – later joined Ozzy for the latter’s solo set. Wylde had been a longtime member of Ozzy’s solo band, relationship again to 1987.
Chatting with Guitar World journal, Wylde recounted of his remaining moments with Ozzy: “All people and their mom had been within the backstage dressing room and I simply needed to provide him a break. I figured we’d see him in a while – the following day or no matter. However no. The final textual content I obtained from Oz was saying, ‘Zakky, sorry, it was like a madhouse again there. I didn’t see you.’ He goes, ‘Thanks for every thing.’ It was simply us speaking, saying, ‘I like you, buddy.’ That was it.”
As for his reflections on Ozzy Osbourne as an individual, Wylde stated: “Oz was simply the perfect. I’ve my father, who was a World Warfare II veteran; after which Ozzy, who was nearly like an older brother. There was nearly a 20-year age hole between us. With our relationship, there was the enjoyable ingesting – but when I ever wanted recommendation, I might discuss to him.”
Wylde additionally known as performing on the Again To The Starting present “enterprise as regular”, although everybody concerned new that the precedence was “ensuring that Oz was okay.” “It was positively fairly superb. Seeing Oz onstage when Sabbath obtained accomplished, that’s the final time I noticed him,” Wylde added. “I’m blessed and grateful, man. Something apart from that will be egocentric.
“And on prime of it, to exit with what’s the biggest-grossing charity occasion of all? That’s unbelievable. He helped an entire lot of individuals as a substitute of constructing a revenue. My God, what an unimaginable grasp. What an unimaginable life.”
In different information, Pantera have rescheduled and cancelled plenty of upcoming concert events to permit Zakk Wylde and different members of the band and their crew time to mourn Osbourne’s loss of life.
