In the world of hard rock, Ozzy Osbourne could be considered heavy metal royalty. Despite his unique turns on reality TV shows with his family and endless parodies of him over the years, ‘The Prince of Darkness’ has always remained a staunch fan of music off the stage, detailing how much he values his old vinyl collection and his love for peers like Motörhead and Led Zeppelin. No band can do it forever, but Osbourne was shell-shocked to see one of his contemporaries holding their own after all these years.
Over the past few years, Osbourne has taken to the road and has faced numerous health conditions, even announcing late last year that he would be retiring from live shows because of his declining health. Though he may have been taking to the stage in a compromised state in the past, Osbourne was taken aback when hearing AC/DC play live for the first time.
When talking about the legendary Australian act, Osbourne mentioned his longstanding friendship with the band and maintained that the Bon Scott version of the group was the best, telling Rolling Stone, “I love Brian Johnson. But to me my good friend, the late Bon Scott, was the best singer AC/DC ever had. This album was like an addiction to me”. As Black Sabbath was turning rock into something much darker with their music, AC/DC were stripping things back to the early days of rock and roll, playing songs that felt like they could have been written by Chuck Berry but with a little more attitude.
After Scott tragically passed away from alcohol poisoning in 1980, AC/DC soldiered on and became even stronger with Brian Johnson, creating Back in Black and giving their career a second wind. Though the band might have brought their energetic live show to anyone who would hear them back in the day, there comes the point where every rocker runs out of gas, right?
Not in Osbourne’s mind. When talking about seeing them at River Plate, Osbourne was still blown away the same way he was when he first saw them, saying at the premiere of their concert film Live at River Plate, “I’ve met AC/DC for the first time touring in Sydney with Black Sabbath. I remember thinking, ‘These can’t be around touring using so much energy at every concert. Angus is like a machine that never stops. He keeps going and going. He still got the fucking energy, man”.
Then again, don’t come to a band like AC/DC looking for the same sonic innovation found in a band like Radiohead. Ever since Scott’s death, they have continued playing some of the most basic rock and roll known to man, albeit with a bluesy twist now and again. It might seem monotonous on paper, but for Osbourne, knowing one’s niche is not a bad thing at all, saying, “(They) are a meat and potatoes band. There is no bollocks, there is no fucking around. Whether you like them or you don’t. I’m proud to say I love them”.
Osbourne has also pulled a few pages out of AC/DC’s playbook occasionally. While he might not sound like Bon Scott or Brian Johnson, Osbourne has been known as a student of the blues from the days of Black Sabbath, and his solo years have a handful of tunes where the guitars crunch as they did on albums like Highway to Hell. Above all else, Osbourne’s no-BS approach has always been linked to AC/DC. Whenever ‘The Prince of Darkness’ takes the stage, what the fans see is what they get.
