![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Black-Sabbath-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credit: Vertigo Records)<\/p>\n
Sun 3 August 2025 19:30, UK <\/p>\n
There once was a short-lived British psychedelic rock band called Earth, fronted by Glenn Campbell (not the \u2018Rhinestone Cowboy\u2019 one), which released two little-heard singles in 1969. If that sounds more like a footnote than a biography, it\u2019s because Earth is essentially remembered solely for their indirect role in inspiring a young Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> and Geezer Butler to come up with a new name for their own upstart rock band that same year. <\/p>\n From 1968 into \u201869, Osbourne, Butler, Tony Iommi, and Bill Ward had also been playing gigs around the UK under the name Earth, leading to some occasional confusion with Campbell\u2019s London-based band. The Birmingham boys were quite annoyed by this\u2014especially Ozzy, who never liked the name to begin with\u2014and it was soon concluded that a rebrand was probably in order. As it turned out, Campbell was already planning to disband his version of Earth, as well\u2014he\u2019d form an even more terribly named band called Juicy Lucy by the end of 1969. Meanwhile, Ozzy and Geezer settled on a far better moniker.<\/p>\n As the legend goes, Osbourne and Butler would famously find their inspiration from a cinema marquee across from their rehearsal space, which was showing an Italian horror film called Black Sabbath. Not only did the new name fit<\/a> their dark, heavy sound far better than \u201cEarth,\u201d it also generated some unexpected controversy and media attention, as the band was immediately questioned about its possible ties to witchcraft, black magic, and various other things that Ozzy would always simultaneously deny and embrace as part of his image.<\/p>\n In a 1970 interview with the The Daily Record in Glasgow, a 22-year-old Ozzy downplayed the significance of rock band names in general, pointing out the silliness of taking such things literally.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Small Faces aren\u2019t little people,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Beatles aren\u2019t insects, and the Rolling Stones aren\u2019t the result of a landslide. So what\u2019s in a name? Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n