OZZY OSBOURNE And TONY IOMMI: The ROLLING STONE Interview

Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi sat down with Rolling Stone magazine on March 31 to discuss what made Ozzy famous long before MTV: the glory days of BLACK SABBATH, the band from Birmingham, England, that put the heavy into heavy metal.

The occasion for the interview was the imminent release of "Black Box", a box set containing the eight classic albums from SABBATH's debut in 1970 to Osbourne's exit in 1978. "It's the major part of SABBATH — all the Ozzy years," Iommi said. "It means a great deal." "So many bands come up and say, 'SABBATH is my biggest influence,' " Osbourne added. "Being inside, you don't realize what you're achieving. We were just four local guys who went to school with each other who just formed a band. We didn't set out to influence the world."

On 1978's "Never Say Die!":

Iommi: " 'Never Say Die!' was written under difficult circumstances. Everything had to be done too quickly: Ozzy returned, but we only had a few days left to record. We'd gone to Toronto to escape British taxes. We had no new songs, so we hired a freezing-cold cinema where we'd write a song during the day, then record it at night."

Osbourne: "The legal stuff was over. But the early days when we had nothing to lose were still the most fun. We weren't interested in being on TV, we didn't hang out with celebrities. I've played with some great players since, but there's not a fucking band in the world that plays like SABBATH. When we did a reunion tour, I thought, 'What the fuck have I been doing?' Nobody plays it like the original."

Read Osbourne and Iommi's interview with Rolling Stone at this location.