Ozzy Osbourne: The Story of Diary Of A Madman | Classic Rock | Louder - video Dailymotion

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40+ years on, Diary Of A Madman still stands as a classic Ozzy Osbourne album from a band at its peak.

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00:00The story of Diary of a Madman is often overshadowed by what happened next. The

00:08years after Diary of a Madman were peak Ozzy Osbourne. These were the years that

00:13made him notorious, where his offstage behavior threatened to become more famous

00:17than his music. Like the time Ozzy bit the head off a dove at a record company

00:22meeting.

00:22You, you've actually, you bit the head off a, was it a pigeon? Well it's my

00:28hobby, you know. Or the time he must took a bat thrown on stage as a toy and bit

00:33its head off. I am trying to play it down somewhat because we're getting a lot of

00:38hassle from the animal society because there's a rumor going around that I'm

00:42blowing up goats and I don't know where that come from, you know. The day he was

00:46arrested in Texas pissing on the Alamo.

00:48Singer Ozzy Osbourne thinks it's fun to defile public shrines. He says his

00:53greatest ambition is to turn the steps of the White House into a public restroom.

00:56And the terrible moment when it all came crashing down. March the 19th, 1982, when

01:02guitarist Randy Rhodes was tragically killed in a plane crash. But all that

01:08came after. The story of Diary of a Madman really began back in April of 1979.

01:14Fired from Black Sabbath, his marriage falling apart, some people said Ozzy's

01:18career was over.

01:25He was just getting started.

01:37Sharon Arden, the daughter of Dawn Arden, Black Sabbath's manager, convinced him to

01:46put a band together and offered to become his manager. In London, Ozzy met Bob

01:52Daisley, the bass player for Rainbow. They auditioned drummers and settled on Uriah

01:57Heap's Lee Kerslake. Finally, they flew out a guitar player Ozzy had met in LA. He was a

02:04little guy who had a thing for polka dots and played in an upcoming band called Quiet Riot.

02:11He was called Randall William Rhodes, known to the world as Randy Rhodes, one of the greatest

02:19guitar players of all time. Ozzy had found his band.

02:27Debut album Blizzard of Oz was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in England. The band clicked,

02:33with Ozzy particularly impressed by Randy Rhodes' guitar playing. Released in September

02:37of 1980 in the UK, it went to number seven in the charts. Released in the States the following

02:42year, it went to 21 in the Billboard charts, while standout signal Crazy Train went to number

02:47nine.

02:48The band toured the U.S. By the time they'd finished, Blizzard of Oz had sold a million

02:54copies. Guitar Player Magazine voted Randy Rhodes Best New Talent of 1981. Randy, on behalf

03:01of the over half a million readers of Guitar Player Magazine in the U.S. and in 70 countries

03:07throughout the world, I'd like to present you with the 1981 Best New Talent Award. Congratulations.

03:14Less than a year after they recorded Blizzard, the band were back at Ridge Farm Studios to

03:18record the follow-up, Diary of a Madman. Ozzy'd had the Diary of a Madman idea in the back

03:24of his mind for years. A loose concept that came from the madness in his life, and a genuine

03:29fear that he was losing his mind.

03:31This Diary of a Madman isn't just a thing that I've thought of now, it's just an idea

03:34that I've moulded round in my head for ages. In actual fact, when I put it to my management,

03:38I thought I was totally insane.

03:40Where would you like us to go? Would you like us to go over to the fireplace?

03:43We set fire to each other.

03:45After months of touring, it was the band who were on fire, and all four members contributed

03:50to the songwriting.

03:56Ozzy was no longer in the shadow of Black Sabbath, but a solo star in his own right. The title

04:01of the first single from the album said it all. He was flying high again.

04:07On one hand, the song seemed like another of Ozzy's drug anthems, and throughout this

04:11time he was indeed being a bad, bad boy. But it could also be seen as a triumphant two

04:16fingers to everyone who had written him off. The guitar solo by Randy Rhodes was like a gauntlet

04:22being thrown down to the guitar players of the 1980s.

04:25Everyone has got a certain amount of craziness in them, and I'm the

04:30going to unleash it for you if you like.

04:47message about finding the magic in yourself everyone has got a certain amount of craziness

04:52in them and i'm the guy to unleash it for you if you like randy rhodes supplied a suitably mad guitar

04:57solo if you can't kill rock and roll showed a softer side of the band the lyrics were no less

05:10heavy as ozzy and bob daisley took aim at what they saw as the lies of the music business

05:17in between there was the menacing believer power ballad tonight the voodoo symbolism of little

05:29dolls and the mysteriously riffy s-a-t-o and then there was the album closer diary of a madman

05:37an ambitious six-minute epic that ends the album in grand style

05:41all this would be overshadowed by what happened next but 40 years on the music remains

05:52dying of madman is the sound of a time bomb ticking the crazy train coming off the rails

05:57and of a band at the peak of its powers few bands ever flew as high

06:16come on

Ozzy Osbourne: The Story of Diary Of A Madman | Classic Rock | Louder

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