{"id":450480,"date":"2026-02-05T12:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T12:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450480\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T12:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T12:30:14","slug":"halestorms-lzzy-hale-on-back-to-the-beginning-and-ozzy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450480\/","title":{"rendered":"Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale on Back To The Beginning and Ozzy"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The first we heard about Back To The Beginning was an email from Sharon [Osbourne] and her people,\u201d Lzzy Hale<\/a> recalls. \u201cWe started off thinking, like, Black Sabbath<\/a> is doing a thing, but as the weeks went on we realised it was a farewell for Ozzy and how important it was. We couldn\u2019t believe they wanted us involved. The first riff I learnt was Heaven And Hell. I literally wouldn\u2019t be spelling my name \u2018Lzzy\u2019 without Ozzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it came to our setlist, Tom Morello<\/a> [musical director for the event] told us we\u2019d have to fly by the seat of our pants. About two weeks from the show, I got a message from him saying: \u2018I know you wanted to do A National Acrobat, but can you switch it up?\u2019 So we ended up doing Perry Mason. I wasn\u2019t expecting that one \u2013 but I loved it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we arrived in Birmingham and went out on the town. The entire city was in celebration, all the pubs decorated in purple, murals everywhere. Then it\u2019s the day of the show, and backstage everybody is just hanging out. Even Axl [Rose]. Probably at any other show he\u2019d be carted back and forth and we\u2019d never see the guy. But we\u2019re sat next to each other, and it\u2019s funny, because there\u2019s all these photographers, and he says to me: \u2018Girl, you come with a lot of cameras!\u2019 And I\u2019m like: \u2018I don\u2019t think they\u2019re here for me, man!\u2019<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Sharon said it best \u2013 it was like rock\u2019n\u2019roll summer camp. I\u2019m talking to Steven Tyler, and he\u2019s like, \u2018You\u2019re from Pennsylvania. I\u2019m good with accents\u2019. Then he starts telling me this story about when the Aerosmith<\/a> guys were in Doylestown in the seventies and they got pulled over for having weed in the car.<\/p>\n

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\"Lzzy\n<\/p>\n

Lzzy Hale and Steve Tyler backstage (Image credit: Ross Halfin)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s intense back there too. Everybody is nervous. Even the Metallica<\/a> guys. Like: \u2018We want to do good by these dudes.\u2019 And everybody\u2019s really emotional because we know it\u2019s the last time. So we go out there and play, and after we walk off we\u2019re like: \u2018That was just a blur. Did we black out? Did we pass the audition?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I went back out to sing The Ultimate Sin, and it\u2019s an out-of-body experience to be up there with legends like Nuno Bettencourt and Jake E Lee. Since then, a couple of super-nerdy Sabbath fans have asked me: \u2018Were you wearing the red dress because of the Ultimate Sin video?\u2019 I wondered if anyone was gonna notice that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was aware of being the only female musician in the line-up. I\u2019m looking around and I can see every single woman in the crowd, and they\u2019re all singing at the top of their lungs. When I was a teenager I was a weird girl. When Backstreet Boys were popular, I would bring Sabbath CDs to show my friends. So now I\u2019m thinking: \u2018These women are just like me, and they\u2019re all here to celebrate Black Sabbath\u2019.<\/p>\n

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\n

\"Lizzy\n<\/p>\n

Lizzy Hale wearing the red ‘Ultimate Sin’ dress (Image credit: Ross Halfin)<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter our set, Sharon gave us a platform out in the crowd. And, man, as soon as Ozzy went on, the atmosphere changed. It was like the whole world was ready to watch this. He sounded amazing. I mean, Ozzy always did every performance like it was his last. So you could tell he wasn\u2019t going to call it in, just because he knew he could get away with it. He didn\u2019t hold anything back. He starts clapping, and it\u2019s like, when Ozzy says clap, you clap. Then he\u2019s singing Mama, I\u2019m Coming Home<\/a> and there\u2019s not a dry eye in the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody was gonna sleep that night. Backstage, everybody was a different level of drunk, depending on whether they\u2019d played early or late in the set. Poor Tom Morello was hobbling around, relieved it was all done. But everybody was just flying high.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was devastating to hear Ozzy had passed. It\u2019s like when Bowie died. You put these guys on such a pedestal, it\u2019s almost like they aren\u2019t even human. But something Ozzy taught all of us is that you\u2019re bigger than your body, you\u2019re bigger than this kind of human vessel. With the legacy he left behind, he will live on forever. And what a way to go, y\u2019know? Ozzy did it right. He had his last show. He was surrounded by all of his friends, his family, his brethren. And they raised so much money for good. What a way to leave your last stamp on this Earth.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ozzy\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Ross Halfin)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to Adam [Jones] from Tool and he said: \u2018You know, we all have a bucket list, but Back To The Beginning is like one of those things on a secret section of our bucket list that we didn\u2019t even know existed.\u2019 It was unfathomable to even conceive it. Even today, I\u2019m still thinking: \u2018Did that actually happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“The first we heard about Back To The Beginning was an email from Sharon [Osbourne] and her people,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-450480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450480","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=450480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}