OZZY CRUSHES SOUR ROCK HALL GRAPES

Ozzy Osbourne has crushed his sour grapes aimed at the Rock And Roll Hall of fame. On tomorrow’s airing of VH1’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, the world will see an appreciative Ozzy Osbourne accepting the award for Black Sabbath’s induction into the Hall.

Black Sabbath got inducted on their eighth year of eligibility, and after the first four, Osbourne made the remark that he wanted the band to be taken off the list. Backstage after accepting their induction from Metallica, Ozzy said that his response was just sour grapes.

“There was that thing where I told them ‘Don’t bother putting our name in.’ Well I’ve just explained it. When you first get your name on the list, you go, ‘Oh, we’re gong to win an award,’ and you get knocked. And the next year it comes in… It was literally every year we were on the list, but we weren’t getting voted in. So, you get disappointed. So I said, ‘F–k you. Don’t even bother putting the name up because we’re not going to [be nominated]. I’ve been up and down the bucket and ladder with my emotion so many times. Like, ‘Oh, I’m going to get an award for lifetime achievement,’ and it never happened. I’m like, ‘Save yourself the agony, don’t put us on the list. That was a few years back. I’ve changed. I’m really happy we finally got one, you know?”

Guitarist Tony Iommi and Osbourne said it was their supporters who eventually helped get them the respect the band thinks they deserve.

[Iommi] “For a while nobody would take us seriously, but our friends in the music business obviously did — as we went on the more we carried on the more we proved, the more we stayed there, and I think we got the respect from that.” [Osbourne] “As Lars was saying, when he toured with me in the OzzFest in Germany, I didn’t realize that people — I thought they were taking the piss out of me, pulling my leg and teasing me about it — I never thought anybody liked us, and people on the OzzFest would come to me and go, ‘You were really one of our inspirations.’ I didn’t want to… I couldn’t believe it, you know?”

While the band remained a viable unit, playing the last two years of OzzFest, they didn’t play at the hall, allowing Metallica to play “Iron Man” and “Hole In The Sky”.