A Note From Ozzy Osbourne Started Black Sabbath, Band Member Recalls

The Black Sabbath band started in 1968 with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Tony Iommi in Birmingham, England. According to the group members, a note titled “Ozzy Zig needs a gig” that was left in a music shop birth the iconic band.

Geezer Butler told Wall Street Journal he saw the note while he was looking for a singer after his first band, Rare Breed, broke up. “I left word at his house. The next day, a shoeless, head-shaven Ozzy Osbourne with a chimney brush over his shoulder was at my door,” Geezer recalled.

Bill and Tony felt Ozzy could not sing

Bill Ward and Tony Iommi also talked about finding the note, but they were reluctant about Ozzy joining them because they knew him in high school and did not consider him a good singer. Geezer also added that “Ozzy promised to grow his hair and said he had a P.A. system, which we didn’t have and needed.”

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The four men started writing their own songs and playing at gigs until 1969 when they branded themselves as Black Sabbath. They initially chose names like Polka Tulk Blues Band and Earth before settling with Black Sabbath, which was inspired by a 1963 Boris Karloff film.

Ozzy was kicked out of the music group

After a decade, Ozzy had to start his solo career after being kicked out of the band due to substance abuse. In his 2010 autobiography, Ozzy claimed his former bandmates were doing as much drugs as he was and considered their act “hypocritical.”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel betrayed by what happened with Black Sabbath. We were four blokes who’d grown up together a few streets apart,” Ozzy wrote. “We were like family, like brothers. And firing me for being f—ed up was hypocritical bull—. We were all f—ed up.”

Despite his unfair exit from the group, Ozzy positively reflected on his time with the band during an interview with Rolling Stone in 2020. “They go back to my childhood. It’s more than a friendship with me and them guys; it’s a family,” he told the outlet. “I don’t know any other people as long as I’ve known them.”