Former Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne recalled the times when Van Halen was on the tour with Black Sabbath and Van Halen’s nailing the band with their outstanding performances. Also, he revealed the reason why he was too tired to fight Van Halen in an excerpt of ‘Eruption: The Eddie Van Halen Story’ which was shared by Louder Sound.
It has been known that Faber & Faber has recently announced the release date and other details about the unauthorized autobiography of late Van Halen legend Eddie Van Halen. ‘Eruption: The Eddie Van Halen Story,’ which was based on untold details about Eddie Van Halen including the early years of Van Halen, was written by author and music journalist, Paul Brannigan, and will be released on September 23, 2021.
As a person who witnessed the early years of Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne also talked about the times when Van Halen was the supporting band of Black Sabbath for the book. He stated that Black Sabbath had been through hard times because of personal problems between bandmates, the band member’s addiction problems, filing a lawsuit against the band’s old manager. Thus, Black Sabbath couldn’t perform as well as the brand new popular band Van Halen even though they were the headliner of the tour.
Moreover, Ozzy Osbourne revealed that their record company was using the name Black Sabbath to promote Van Halen by recalling their tour after they had released ‘Never Say Die!’ in the book. He remembered that the company’s whole focus was on Van Halen by admitting that Black Sabbath was actually supporting Van Halen’s breakthrough. Osbourne explained that Black Sabbath members were tired of lawsuits and other ongoing problems in the band so they couldn’t go back to the golden days of the band.
In Osbourne’s words, he said:
“I remember being in a hotel room in San Diego with Geezer and one of the reps from the record company, and we’d had a few drinks, and one of us said to this guy, ‘Be honest, you’re only using us on this tour to promote Van Halen, aren’t you?’
And he said, ‘You’re right.’ And if you’re with a record company that won’t back you…
When a band goes on stage before you and goes down better than you, you either say, ‘Right, we’re going to go out there and fucking show them how to do it,’ or you just fold up.
And they had years on us, and we’d been fighting this lawsuit with our old manager for fucking years, and I was just fucking tired of fighting.
We never joined a band to become lawyers or fucking accountants, and that’s how it ended up. We didn’t have a clue.”
Consequently, according to Osbourne, the hard times of milestone heavy metal band Black Sabbath coincided with Van Halen’s international popularity and commercial success. He added that Black Sabbath became only a name that was used to promote Van Halen and they couldn’t fight against this situation.
