{"id":226145,"date":"2025-10-15T09:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T09:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/226145\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T09:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T09:07:08","slug":"how-ozzy-osbourne-saved-motorheads-heavy-metal-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/226145\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ozzy Osbourne saved Mot\u00f6rhead’s Heavy Metal Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> was sacked by Black Sabbath<\/a> in 1979, his solo career got off to a convoluted start with Blizzard Of Ozz, released in September 1980 in the UK and six months later in the US. With the album an instant success in America, Ozzy\u2019s epic arena tour started there in April \u201981.<\/p>\n

Support for the first three months were Mot\u00f6rhead<\/a>, making their US debut. Now major stars in the UK after their breakthrough with Ace Of Spades, Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Philthy felt like they\u2019d stepped back to their scuffling days as they often faced hostile reactions or dumbfounded apathy from audiences.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When the tour started, Ozzy was still reeling in the post-Sabbath aftershock. As Lemmy recalls in his memoir: \u201cOzzy really was having a rough time on the tour we did with him. He nearly died on this trek. He was at the height of his nervousness and the depths of his despair, and he was just overdoing everything. We kept finding him flat on his face, passed out on the floor everywhere at the beginning of the tour. Finally, his girlfriend Sharon took over and pulled him out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Once out of his slough of despondency, Ozzy and Mot\u00f6rhead became friends for life. \u201cWe got on really great with Ozzy,\u201d Fast Eddie told me on their return. \u201cWhen we started the tour he was like the Ozzy we\u2019d heard of \u2013 a nutcase. He was out of it most of the time we saw him. But after four or five weeks he seemed to mellow out quite a lot and we started to get on really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Mot\u00f6rhead were away, No Sleep \u2019Til Hammersmith<\/a> had entered the UK album chart at No.1. Arriving home to find they were one of the biggest bands in Britain, they decided to celebrate by playing the mammoth Heavy Metal Holocaust<\/a> at Port Vale football ground in Stoke-on-Trent on August 1.<\/p>\n

The original plan was to co-headline with Black Sabbath but come on before them. Early reports suggested the event would see the most spectacular Mot\u00f6rhead show yet, rumours including a Battle Of Britain RAF squadron flying over during Bomber and Mot\u00f6rhead\u2019s own bomber taking off from the stage. It would be a tough act for Sabbath to follow, especially with Ronnie James Dio<\/a> now in place of Ozzy.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before the event, Sabbath announced they couldn\u2019t do the Heavy Metal<\/a> Holocaust because they were finishing their new album in the States. \u201cOzzy told us in Las Vegas that Sabbath would pull out,\u201d Eddie told me. \u201cHe knew our album had gone in at number one, and said: \u2018Sabbath will not do it, they won\u2019t take a chance.\u2019 We said: \u2018No, it\u2019s all booked, man. There\u2019s only six weeks before the gig. They can\u2019t pull out.\u2019 A few weeks later they pulled out. Ozzy was dead right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, they were scared that we\u2019d blow \u2019em off stage,\u201d Lemmy reasoned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were in Santa Monica and Ozzy was on our bus, we were talking about him doing it instead,\u201d Eddie continued. \u201cHe said: \u2018I can\u2019t, man.\u2019 We thought it\u2019d be great, Sabbath out, Ozzy in, because if it wasn\u2019t for Ozzy we wouldn\u2019t have been there in the States. He was the only person who wanted us on his tour. You appreciate somebody doing something like that for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had to blow out three gigs to do Port Vale. He went back and did \u2019em eventually.<\/p>\n

\u201cPort Vale was a nostalgic gig for Ozzy. That\u2019s why we introduced each other on stage. I wouldn\u2019t have minded if Ozzy had wanted to go on last but he didn\u2019t mind. He\u2019s a genuine rock\u2019n\u2019roller.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mot\u00f6rhead were first to agree that the rest of the bill that day was less than compelling. Blasting through the biggest PA ever assembled in Europe, it was only when Ozzy came on that the crowd jerked out of its stupor for this familiar, much-loved figure who went down a storm and even sang Paranoid as darkness fell, relishing the irony.<\/p>\n

Ozzy and Lemmy remained firm friends, the latter writing lyrics for songs including Mama I\u2019m Coming Home, Desire and Hellraiser on 1991\u2019s No More Tears. Lemmy\u2019s death in 2016<\/a> hit Ozzy hard. He later admitted, \u201cI think about Lemmy all the time, he was a great fucking guy.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"Heavy\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Straight Music)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Ozzy Osbourne was sacked by Black Sabbath in 1979, his solo career got off to a convoluted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-226145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}