Ozzy Osbourne got to say goodbye exactly as he wanted to at last July’s epic Back to the Beginning blowout in Birmingham, England. Now, producer Andrew Watt — who helmed the final two LP’s the late metal legend recorded before his death, 2020’s Ordinary Man and 2022’s Patient Number 9 — has revealed that he and Osbourne recorded as-yet-unheard music that they listened to the night before Ozzy’s swan song.
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“There are some songs that we made for a specific reason,” Watt told Rolling Stone in this week’s episode of The Rolling Stone Studio. “And yeah, that’s all I can say. They’re hard for me to listen to. I haven’t listened to them.” Watt said there is a plan for what to do with the tracks, but he isn’t at liberty to discuss that yet.
“The night before the concert, I actually went in Birmingham with [Osbourne’s wife/manager] Sharon and a couple of people to go get a curry, and I was texting with Ozzy. He was in his hotel room, and he was, like, ‘Come to the hotel, come to the hotel. I was sitting with Sharon and we were both like, ‘He has a big day tomorrow. Maybe I shouldn’t go, ‘cause he’ll get excited and everything,’” Watt recalled.
“But he was, like, ‘No, you’re coming to the hotel. You are coming.’ So I went. I brought a curry with me and sat with him,” he said. “And he was drawing like he usually does, and we sat and we listened to the stuff that we’d made, and made notes. That, and the next day, were the last times I got to see him. But we had a beautiful listening session and talked about a lot of stuff.”
Watt said it’s hard to dredge up those memories now. “I miss him every day,” he said of the hard rock legend, who died 17 days after the Back to the Beginning show at on July 22 at age 76.
Watt also responded to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi recently saying that he didn’t want to commit to a planned final Sabbath album because he felt Watt was “a bit too excited” about it. The producer said he thought the comments were taken out of context while copping to being an “excited musician” and person.
After working on those two solo Ozzy albums, Watt said Osbourne suggested they make one last Sabbath album, this time with the band’s original drummer, Bill Ward, who was not involved in the group’s 2013 reunion album, 13.
“I think looking back at all the stuff he wanted to do, making an album with Bill was really important to him,” Watt said of Osbourne. “And this was before Back To The Beginning was happening and everything. I think the idea of doing something with Bill was very, very important, and so one of the first incarnations of that was a potential album.” Watt said Ozzy told him to call up Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and Ward to get them on board.
“So, I called Tony. [I said,] ‘Would you wanna do it?’ [He said,] ‘Yeah, that sounds cool. If Bill would do it, yes.’ Geezer [said], ‘If Bill would do it, yes.’ It was all about, ‘If Bill would do it, yes.’ So then I had to have a conversation with Bill. And that was one of the strangest and funniest and coolest, at the same time, because you’re talking to Bill Ward, conversations. It was a long conversation. He was speaking in tongues, which, now knowing him and being friends with him, makes sense. Long story short, without going into it too deeply, he was unable to do the album for personal reasons.”
The only thing to come of it was a “nice, beautiful, long e-mail” sent to everyone involved, which, though the project fell apart, was a huge moment for Watt. “I was on an e-mail with the original members of Black Sabbath, which was pretty cool,” he said of the project that ended up falling apart because Ward was not available.
The film documenting Osbourne’s final gig, Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning, will be released in theaters on October 28.
Watch Watt talk Ozzy and Sabbath below.
