The Insult That Launched Ozzfest

It could appear laborious to consider now, however one of many greatest festivals within the historical past of heavy metallic — Ozzfest — began with a easy insult.

The touring roadshow put the highlight on a few of metallic’s most legendary acts and hottest up-and-comers for greater than twenty years.

Ozzfest additionally helped revitalize Ozzy Osbourne‘s profession and endear him to a brand new era of metalheads, facilitated a Black Sabbath reunion and reaffirmed the industrial viability of the style after years of cultural decline.

So, what was the insult that launched Ozzfest?

How Ozzfest Stemmed From One other Main Competition’s Rejection

The seeds for Ozzfest had been planted within the mid-’90s, after Osbourne had ostensibly retired following the conclusion of his 1992 No Extra Excursions Tour. Docs suspected the Prince of Darkness may need a number of sclerosis or Parkinson’s and, even after his assessments got here again clear, they suggested him to retire and benefit from the fruits of his labor.

So on the finish of 1992, on the ripe outdated age of 44, Osbourne retired. Unsurprisingly, it did not final lengthy.

By 1995, Osbourne had grown tired of home life and anxious about each private {and professional} expense popping out of his personal pocket. He requested his spouse and supervisor, Sharon Osbourne, if she might get him again onstage. She then pitched him to Lollapalooza, the choice music competition launched in 1991 by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell.

It did not go nicely.

The Insult

Osbourne mirrored on the competition’s response in his 2010 memoir, I Am Ozzy. “She referred to as the organizers of Lollapalooza. They usually advised her to fuck off,” he wrote. “‘Ozzy Osbourne? He is a fucking dinosaur,’ they mentioned, in not so many phrases.”

After the preliminary sting of rejection wore off, Sharon determined she and Ozzy would merely beat the Lollapalooza organizers at their very own recreation. “I simply thought, ‘Fuck them,'” she mentioned on the time (through Metal Hammer). “If Lollapalooza wasn’t in a position to see what Ozzy might give them, then we might provide you with our personal metallic model, solely higher.”

READ MORE: The Osbournes Name the ‘Naughtiest’ Bands at Ozzfest

Ozzfest’s Humble (however Profitable) Beginnings

The inaugural Ozzfest occurred in 1996, with simply two dates — Oct. 25 in Phoenix and Oct. 26 in Los Angeles — tacked onto Osbourne’s Retirement Sucks Tour. The lineup was unfold throughout two levels and featured Osbourne, Slayer, Danzig, Biohazard, Sepultura, Fear Factory, Neurosis, Narcotic Gypsy, Earth Crisis, Powerman 5000, Coal Chamber, Cellophane and King Norris.

Ozzfest was successful proper off the bat, drawing 1000’s of followers to each dates. And even in its primitive state, the occasion served as an act of rise up in opposition to the music business and offered a haven for metallic bands that may have in any other case been ignored.

“Our technique was to take all of the undesirables, all of the bands that could not discover an outlet anyplace else, and put them collectively, give them an viewers,” Osbourne wrote in I Am Ozzy.

“It labored higher than we ever might have anticipated, ‘cos nothing existed for these bands on the time,” he continued. “It had acquired to the purpose within the music enterprise the place should you needed to play a gig, the venues made you purchase all of the tickets prematurely, so that you needed to give them away totally free or promote them by yourself, which is bullshit. Black Sabbath by no means needed to take care of that sort of bollocks within the early days. We might by no means have left Aston, if that had been the case. The place would we have now discovered the dough?”

READ MORE: Whatever Happened to the Acts From Ozzfest’s Inaugural Lineup?

As Ozzfest Expands, Ozzy’s Impression Grows

After its profitable first yr, Ozzfest expanded right into a full-fledged nationwide competition in 1997, headlined by a reunited Black Sabbath (minus drummer Bill Ward), shock-metal iconoclast Marilyn Manson and excessive groove-metallers Pantera.

Ozzfest’s early success did not simply show that Osbourne was nonetheless commercially and culturally related greater than 25 years after his profession started. (In any case, he was nonetheless using excessive off the success of 1995’s double-platinum Ozzmosis.) It additionally turned him into an elder statesman who might shepherd younger metallic bands and provides them an enormous platform to develop their viewers.

“That was such an enormous breakthrough for us,” Coal Chamber vocalist Dez Fafara mentioned of the inaugural Ozzfest (through Steel Hammer). “You do not get many possibilities to be make historical past. So we had been privileged to be a part of the very first Ozzfest.”

Maybe most significantly, from its humble beginnings to its thunderous shut in 2018, Ozzfest caught to its weapons as a metal-exclusive competition. “We favored the concept of staying true to metallic,” promoter liaison Jane Holman advised Billboard. “At the moment Lollapalooza was sort of everywhere in the board so far as genres go. However we mentioned, ‘We’re metallic.’ We caught to that theme and the approach to life round it.”

In different phrases: Due to Perry Farrell for Ozzfest!