(Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society)
(Bobbi Bush: If you’re reading this, please get in touch. I really want to know what Zakk was like in high school and how bad the fallout was from your party. #epic)
Before the craziness of Ozzy and Black Label, I was in a high school band called Stonehenge, back in Jackson, New Jersey. We were all about seventeen, and we went to school with a girl named Bobbi Bush, whose family was moving. We’d mostly play keg or basement parties, but this Bobbi Bush gig was legendary. Her house was already sold, and her parents had left for the weekend. She invited all her friends from school, but half the town showed up to trash the place. All the furniture was gone, so we set up in the living room. The house was still livable, with maybe the dining room set and beds intact, but they were on their way out, with the new owners set to take over within a week. I have no idea what the parents were thinking, going off to the Poconos and leaving their daughter in an empty house that was begging to be annihilated by Jersey metalheads.
It’s always great when it ain’t your house, and it turned into something out of the movie Weird Science, where all the mutants on motorcycles crash the place. It was every parent’s nightmare, and as a homeowner now I think, “Are you fucking kidding me?” It was a bi-level house, and the whole fucking thing was packed to the gills. To top it off, there was a torrential downpour that night, to the point where my feet sunk while walking across the lawn. Every asshole was dragging mud into the place and ruining the carpets. People were putting their cigarettes out on the carpeting, spilling beer everywhere, and smashing holes in the walls. We opened the show with “Bark at the Moon.” Here I am all these years later, closing out shows with Ozzy playing that tune.
Bobbi’s parents came home early, just as we were loading up the gear in my buddy Tommy’s truck to leave. The mud was so bad we had to prop it up with two-by-fours to get the hell out of there. Between the kegs, hard alcohol, marijuana, and the Caligula factor of people having sex in the bedrooms, the house should have been condemned. Her parents walked in and, aside from some drunk stragglers, we were the only people left. We didn’t say a thing and basically ran out the door. I will never forget the look on her parents’ faces. Anger hadn’t registered yet. They were just gray. The last thing I saw on my way out was “Stonehenge Was Here,” tagged on the living room wall in green spray paint. The million-dollar question we all had was, “What happened to Bobbi Bush?” They moved shortly after, and I never saw her again.
This was one of the craziest Ozzy gigs. After the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, Ozzy got word that people were vandalizing Randy’s grave. To me, it’s one of the most sacrilegious things you can do. If I was a fan of the guy, the last thing I’d want to do is fuck with his grave. I’d be waiting for a lightning bolt to hit me in the graveyard. It was typical silly shit, like how people mess with Hendrix or Jim Morrison’s grave. Randy’s mom and Ozzy decided to play a gig to raise money to build Randy a mausoleum so people would stop fucking with his grave.
I was pretty new to the band. Halfway through the benefit show, we were about to play “Crazy Train.” Oz yelled, “Who wants to go extra crazy?! Come up on stage and dance with the Oz!” We broke into the song and, sure enough, everyone rushed the stage. The barriers crashed down and crazed fans started climbing onstage. Security was like, “Oh, fuck this,” and ran off. It was a sea of bodies, with about 200 people onstage with us. It quickly devolved into chaos, with people trying to take microphones and monitors, and ripping the drum set apart. We almost got to the guitar solo, but that was it. Kids were climbing the huge projection screens we had set up behind us. The weight of the bodies caused one of the screens to snap and people came flying down. I know one guy broke his leg.
Ozzy had buckets of water onstage that he would throw into the crowd. Those all got spilled, and the water rushed over the monitor console, causing smoke and sparks to fly everywhere. It was mass insanity. I wasn’t scared. If someone wants to mess with me, I’ll break their fucking neck. I was just in awe of the whole goddamn thing. Ozzy had a sixty-inch teleprompter with the song lyrics, and that got stolen, along with microphones, snare drums, and cymbals. Our drummer at the time, Randy Castillo, was stabbing people in the fucking neck with his drumstick. The damages to the venue, along with broken bones, was something like two hundred grand. We still got Randy the mausoleum, but the damage bill was fucking ridiculous.
I was standing right next to Ozzy during “Crazy Train.” Right when Ozzy goes, “Things are going wrong for me,” someone tried to steal the microphone. They were trying to pry it right out of his hands, and they eventually got it. Right before my guitar solo, Randy stopped playing, then I stopped. Ozzy gave me a look like, “Do you fucking believe this?” Ozzy has studied a ton of Jeet Kune Do, just like Elvis did during his karate phase. Ozzy studied with Dan Inosanto, who was one of Bruce Lee’s best buddies. Oz probably knocked out about five people that night before we left.
I had a legendary, Hall-of-Fame, world-championship relationship with drinking before I quit. Between neck, back, and shoulder surgeries, I was like a banged-up car that didn’t run anymore. We were out on the road with Static-X and Mudvayne in 2009, and I noticed that the back of my leg was killing me right below the knee. I thought it was from the David Lee Roth splits I was doing at the Shoot ’n Stab bar the night before. During the “Animal House” years of Black Label, it wasn’t just the band partying—it was the driver, crew, and anybody who wanted to come out.
One night on Ozzfest, my wife called and said, “The Berserker has got to stop. I’m shutting him down.” I said to my immortal beloved, “Why, what’s the matter?” She asked if I had seen the credit card bill. Every day, me and a few of the fellas went to the liquor store, without fail. We would come out with a palette of booze, and we weren’t getting the cheap shit. It was top shelf or whatever local microbrew was available—we tried it all. That was our daily routine, so when my wife called about it, I braced myself. “How bad is the tab?” I asked her. She told me to take a guess. I grumbled and said, “Ten grand?” There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. “Fifteen?” Silence. “Twenty?” She told me to guess again. I said, “OK. Twenty-five grand?” More silence. Now I was getting worried. I said, “It can’t be more than thirty-five!” She said, “Keep going.” The total was $51,000. On booze alone. In less than a month.
My leg was still hurting, so I went to the doctor with my wife. He told me I had a blood clot behind my knee, one in the calf, and one going into my Achilles Heel. I thought only older people got blood clots, but he told me a lot of it comes from being stationary. I realized that except for the stage, I was on a bus or parked in a bar drinking. The doctor finally said, “With all your years of heavy drinking, the alcohol thinning your blood may have saved your life.” I raised my arms in victory and yelled, “See! Drinking is good for something!” There was no laughter from anyone else.
That was the end of the road for me and booze. I stopped cold turkey and became the fucking designated driver. There was a lot more laughter than dark times with it. No matter how banged up I was the night before, I never missed a gig. But, I had to drink about four beers just to feel normal in the morning. That was it, and the booze wasn’t why I grew up with Hendrix and Page posters on my wall. I got to the big leagues and get to play with the Yankees. I never let myself forget that. I’m fucking blessed and wouldn’t change my situation for anything.