Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash opened up about Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final show, Back to the Beginning. He revealed that he had been in talks with Ozzy about recording new music together — plans that were cut short by Ozzy’s passing.
Slash reflected on the emotional atmosphere of the farewell concert, including a memorable moment where he brought Axl Rose to meet Ozzy for the very first time.
“It was an amazing day. There was just such a massive feeling of warmth and camaraderie with all the different musicians,” Slash said. “Everybody wanted to go back and pay homage to Ozzy. So I went back there, and I got Axl back there to meet Ozzy for the first time, because they’d never met each other. Axl, obviously, was always a fan of Ozzy. But what Axl didn’t know was that Ozzy was a huge fan of his! And so it was nice to see them actually meet.”
Slash also noted that the show carried a rare energy that set it apart from any other event he had been part of. “There was no attitude, no egos — it was all checked at the door. I’ve never witnessed anything like it,” he said.
Beyond the concert itself, Slash revealed that he and Ozzy had discussed getting back into the studio together — a plan that never came to fruition.
“Ozzy and I had been buddies for a long time and I’d recorded with him a bunch of times. So we talked on the phone about getting together and he says, ‘Yeah, we should get together soon,'” Slash continued. “I guess it was about a week after the gig. I thought, ‘Okay, at some point we’ll converge in a studio somewhere,’ and that was it.”
Slash then described the devastating news that followed shortly after. “I was off on the road with Guns; we went off and finished what we were doing. And then all of a sudden I got that f*cking call (about Ozzy’s passing). It was unbelievable,” he said.
The two had a long history of collaboration, making the unrealized studio plans all the more poignant. Their musical relationship stretched back decades. They had previously worked together on the 1991 live album Just Say Ozzy, where Slash’s guitar work featured on tracks including “Iron Man” and “Mississippi Queen.”
The Back to the Beginning concert was widely regarded as one of the most emotionally charged events in recent rock history. Organized in part by Tom Morello, the show drew an extraordinary gathering of musicians united by a shared desire to honor Ozzy. Slash described the atmosphere as unlike anything he had ever experienced — a rare moment where the usual trappings of the music industry gave way to something far more genuine.
Ozzy’s passing came only about a month or six weeks after the farewell show. Slash described the news as a “mind-blowing shock,” a sentiment that resonated across the global rock community, which had only just celebrated Ozzy’s legacy on stage.
The unrealized collaboration serves as a reminder of what was lost with Ozzy’s death — not just a legendary performer, but a creative force who remained eager to make new music until the very end. For Slash, the phone call that never led to a studio session now stands as one of the most painful near-misses of his career.
Source: Rolling Stone Australia
