After eight albums and a decade as a band, Black Sabbath were set to start recording their ninth album.
Only Ozzy, at the height of his alcohol and drug abuse, was stalling it, leading to the tough decision to replace him with Ronnie James Dio. But what really happened?
Now in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, guitarist Tony Iommi has revealed what went down and how the difficult decision to fire Ozzy actually benefitted the singer and Black Sabbath.
Tony said: “We went to went to Los Angeles to write and record an album. But it never really got off the ground really because Ozzy just wasn’t in to it anymore.”
He continued: “He was doing too many drugs. He’d just gone off the idea of it. I think he’d had too much of everything, as we all did at that point to be honest – but him more than most.
“He just couldn’t come up with any ideas and just wasn’t gelling anymore. I had to go to the record company – it was always me – and they’d say, ‘How’s the album coming along? When can we hear some tracks?’
“And I’d say. ‘Err…soon’. We hadn’t got anything. And I thought, ‘I can only bluff it so much.’ It was getting pretty bad when I was called into Warner Bros.
“We had to have a serious talk as a band saying, ‘What are we going to do? Nothing’s happening. It came about that either we break up or we replace Ozzy.”
He continued: “It was very sad really. We said we were going to do it all together and of course Bill [Ward, drummer] stepped in on his own, which made it look worse.
“It was difficult for us. Really difficult. But y’know out of that was goodness for Ozzy and for us.
“It make him get off his arse, pull himself together and do something with his own album, which he did – it was really good.
“And it gave us the fighting end to do something, because we had to prove something. When we had Dio, we wrote the Heaven and Hell album, which pulled us back on again.”
Tony also revealed his first impressions Ozzy when they met at school in Birmingham.
The 69-year-old rock legend said: “At school Ozzy and I didn’t really associate because he was a year younger than me.
“He was a pain to be honest and I probably was too.”