OZZY OSBOURNE Talks About This Year's OZZFEST

Patrick MacDonald of the Seattle Times conducted an interview with Ozzy Osbourne several days prior to the launch of this year's Ozzfest, which kicks off next Thursday (June 29) at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, Washington. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Seattle Times: If it rains [at the Ozzfest kick-off], are you still going to throw buckets of water on the fans?

Ozzy: "I dunno. I'm trying to think of a new bit. That started as a joke and then I got too sort of frackin' bored with it. And then they got all pissed off 'cuz I didn't throw water on 'em, y'know? If it's really hot, it cools everybody down. I just wanna have fun, y'know?

"The thing about Ozzfest, once it starts rolling you can't frackin' stop it. I'm not doing the whole tour. I've got 10 shows. I'll have a bet with you. I bet before the end of the tour, they stick me on some other gigs. I'm doing some shows on the second stage, playing in the parking lot, that's like an oven.

"When I was doing just my tours, I'd do theaters 'cuz I love being close to my audience. I love to be able to touch them, y'know, to see everybody go crazy. But the promoter's going, 'Don't get too crazy, we don't want to have a riot and get sued.' I say, 'It's a rock 'n' roll fracking show, it's not a church gathering!'

"Back a long time ago, I used to play blues and I danced around. I got the lead guitar one time coming over to me and he goes, hey man, it's not cool to be jumping around. It's blues. I said, 'No fracking way.' I mean, I'm Ozzy! They know what they fracking get when they fracking book me. I'm not going to be (softens his voice),'Oh, good evening folks, it's so nice to be here.' I'm me! What the frack! If you don't like me, don't book me!

"I'll tell you a funny story. When I'm onstage, if there's somebody in the audience not getting into it, I wanna get them involved. And so, to my stage left, there's a bunch of people just standing there. So I see them and I'm going, 'Fracking yeah man, get the fracking thing going!' And they're just standing there. Like, duh. I must've thrown 400 buckets of water over 'em. Now I've gone past trying. I go to my assistant, Tony, and I say, 'See them frackers there? Get 'em out! Give 'em their money back! They're frackin' killin' me! And he goes to me, 'They're deaf. I said, 'Oh no, fracking hell!'"

Seattle Times: Are you writing an autobiography?

Ozzy: "No. Up the road, I might write something. But I've got to be careful. I know a lot about a lot of different people, and you've got to watch what you're doing. One of the biggest regrets I have is not keeping a diary. So many unbelievable fracking things have happened in my life! It's in the cards that I'm going to do a book about me, but first things first. I want to make a great album, I want to do a great tour, I want people to have fun and put some spark back into the planet. There's too much misery.

"Bring our boys back from fracking Iraq. We've liberated 'em, now fracking bring the boys back.

"I went to the military hospital in Washington. If you want to see what war's all about, check out that place. It's un-be-lievable. I saw chicks with one arm, kids with their heads blown in. I said to my wife, if they ever call my son up, I'm gonna break his legs, instead of letting him step on a land mine and lose 'em."

Seattle Times: When you were growing up in Birmingham, did you ever think you'd be hanging out with the royal family?

Ozzy: "Before I met them, I built a picture in my mind from the press, from the news. But when you actually meet them — I mean, the Queen, she's 80 and she still fracking rides horses. And Charles is fracking great. Charles is absolutely great. William, too. Harry's the naughty one. He's partying, he's one of the boys. There are a lot of people against having a royal family in this country, but I'm not and I'll tell you why: They bring more fracking tourists into this country than anybody else. People love to see Buckingham Palace. There ain't many countries that have a fracking Buckingham Palace. Our Queen is your Queen as well, y'know. They're just people."

Read the entire interview at SeattleTimes.NWSource.com.