I saw Ozzy's death coming but it still took my breath away – when giants fall it's hard to accept, says Alice Cooper
Both were born in 1948, on different sides of the Atlantic of course, yet with so much in common.
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The black eye make-up with fingernails to match, the wild shoulder-length hair, the flamboyant gothic outfits, the showmanship, the humour, the hellraising.
Oh, and the notorious incidents involving live creatures on stage — in Ozzy's case a bat, in Alice's a chicken. (Neither survived.)
The rock gods both hailed from tough industrial cities, Birmingham and Detroit respectively.
Maybe this is one explanation for their loud, rebellious form of escapism.
On Tuesday morning, before we learned of Ozzy's sad passing aged 76, I had the chance to catch up with Alice during his arena tour of the UK.
Hours later, as news filtered through that the Prince Of Darkness had left us, he took to the stage in Cardiff.
His typically swashbuckling show, including a trademark mock beheading, ended with Alice announcing on behalf of his band and crew: 'God rest Ozzy.'
Then he led the crowd in a thunderous chant of 'Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!'
After the gig, he was able to reflect more fully on the loss of the much-loved Brummie.
'The whole world is mourning Ozzy,' he said. 'Over his long career, he earned immense respect among his peers and from fans around the world as an unmatched showman and cultural icon.
Ozzy Osbourne top five greatest moments
'When we lose one of our own, it bleeds'
'I always saw Ozzy as a cross between the Prince Of Darkness, which is the persona his fans saw, and the court jester. That was the side that his family and friends saw.
'He was and will continue to be a rock 'n' roll legend. Rock 'n' roll is a family and a fraternity. When we lose one of our own, it bleeds.
'I wish I would have gotten to know my brother Ozzy better.
' Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and the rest of the Ozzy brood — our prayers are with you.
'A titanic boulder has crashed, but rock will roll on.'
Well, we all know that time is going to take us rockers, but when the giants fall, it's really hard to accept.
Alice Cooper on Ozzy's death
In addition to his statement, Alice has revealed that he and Ozzy 'never really ran in the same circle for some reason' but their paths often crossed.
He says: 'Ozzy and I did many shows together over the years.
'One of my favourite memories is when he sang with me on the song Hey Stoopid, a crowd favourite to this day and a staple of our setlist.'
The idea of them singing, 'Hey-hey-hey-hey/Hey stoopid!' to each other conjures a priceless image.
Now Ozzy's death further confirms what Alice is only too aware of — that his generation is not getting any younger.
'Well, we all know that time is going to take us rockers, but when the giants fall, it's really hard to accept,' adds the 77-year-old.
'Even though everybody saw it coming with Ozzy, it took our breath away when it happened.
'So Ozzy, your records and your music and your legend and all that you brought — the humour to the rock business — will live on forever.
'We're gonna miss you, man! Rest easy Ozzy, and we'll see you on the other side.'
For many British schools, it was the last day of term before the summer holidays, bringing to mind his most famous song, School's Out.
'That song is still on every radio station here,' says Alice of the shouty singalong which hit No1 in the UK on August, 12, 1972, and stayed there for three weeks.
He continues: 'You never know when you're going to write an anthem. An anthem is one of those songs that kids will still be singing a hundred years from now because they relate to it.
'So long as there is school, School's Out will be everybody's favourite song at the end of the year. It's the only song I've written that I was totally sure of. I said, 'If this isn't a hit, I shall be selling shoes somewhere'.'
It came with the immortal chorus of, 'school's out for summer, school's out forever', and lines like, 'no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks'.
Alice admits 'it's very subversive-sounding' but that 'it's a real celebration of the last three minutes of the last day of school. For every kid, it's just joy'.
This brings us to the reason I'm talking to Alice in the first place — his big reunion with the original Alice Cooper Band.
Formed in Phoenix, Arizona, they released seven albums between 1969 and 1973 and School's Out, with its hit title track, was the fifth.
We were a band from Phoenix that never should have made it, except that we had a spark that nobody else had.
Alice on his band
Among their other best-loved 'shock rock' creations were I'm Eighteen, Hello Hooray, Elected, No More Mr Nice Guy and Billion Dollar Babies.
In 1974, the band split, amicably but exhausted, and the frontman began his enduring solo career with his Welcome To My Nightmare LP.
Now the original line-up of Alice, Mike Bruce, Dennis Dunnaway and Neal Smith have reunited to make their first studio album together in more than 50 years.
Titled The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, the album effortlessly summons the spirit of their Seventies heyday and incorporates a posthumous appearance by late guitarist Glen Buxton.
Alice had met Glen and Dennis in 1963 at Cortez High School in Phoenix, after moving there from Detroit.
'Alice Cooper… a good grandmother name'
He recalls: 'We were all 1,500m and 3,000m runners and when The Beatles came out, we looked at each other and went, 'Oh man, we've got to do that'.
'So we learned a couple of songs and played at parties, then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
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'Eventually, we went to LA and Frank Zappa said to us, 'I have no idea what you guys are doing, so I'm going to sign you.'
That was a great compliment. We actually confused Zappa!' (You know, one of the most zany rock musicians that ever lived.)
Alice tries to put his finger on what made them successful.
'We were a band from Phoenix that never should have made it,' he decides, 'except that we had a spark that nobody else had.
'We had this little theatrical thing going and we also wanted to be America's Yardbirds,' he adds in reference to the British band that helped launch the careers of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
In 1968, the band changed their name from Nazz because it was taken by Todd Rundgren.
During a brainstorming session, they tried to think of 'somebody's grandmother'.
'Who can think of a more grandmother name than Alice Cooper?' says the man who later legally morphed from Vincent Furnier into Alice Cooper.
'I said, 'It would throw everybody right off', and everybody agreed.
'We went through all these other names and we kept coming back to Alice Cooper — it just stuck.'
At that time, Alice also began experimenting with face paint and developing the outlandish stage image (snakes and chickens included) that he's loved for.
'This girl came up to me and said, 'Have you ever seen this guy?' And she showed me a picture of Arthur Brown.'
Brown, a Brit, is remembered for global hit Fire, for which he would don a burning helmet. Let's just say the music and performance were incendiary.
Alice continues: 'We had the same make-up and I went, 'Are you kidding me?' I'd never heard of this guy but we were on the same wavelength.
'I realised I had a kindred brother in England. Arthur and I ended up as great, great friends.'
He was brilliant, like the statue of David. Every girl in the world loved this guy — the tortured poet obsessed with death.
Alice on Jim Morrison of The Doors
He recalls early live forays in LA at Whisky A Go Go and The Cheetah Club, and thinking, until he saw them, that other acts on the bill, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, were solo artists.
Then, in 1970, producer Bob Ezrin took things to the next level. Today, he's regarded as the unofficial sixth member of the band, a bit like 'fifth Beatle' George Martin.
He was in charge of their breakthrough hit I'm Eighteen, giving some much-needed advice along the way.
'We kept trying to be The Yardbirds,' remembers Alice. 'And Bob kept saying, 'No, this song's about a dumb teenager, so it's got to sound like that'.
'And we were dumb teenagers, so it was pretty easy. We just dumbed it down and the simplicity was really powerful.'
Now, the surviving members are all in their seventies, but you wouldn't know from the raw energy on their comeback album, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper.
Anyone who has seen Alice live will probably have seen a menacing boa constrictor draped around his neck. The album begins with a song named after a snake of a different kind, Black Mamba.
It features a free-flowing cameo from Robby Krieger of The Doors because, affirms Alice, 'Robby is the only guy who could have played that kind of snaky guitar part. He nailed it.'
The mention of Krieger inevitably prompts one of his great rock 'n' roll tales.
'We opened for The Doors for a while,' Alice recalls. 'They were the first band to take us under their wing when we came in [to Los Angeles] from Phoenix.
'They allowed us to watch them record and we got to know them really well.'
I ask Alice about The Doors' mercurial frontman Jim Morrison, who was found dead aged 27 in 1971 in a Paris apartment.
The many-years-sober singer says: 'I was drinking so we got along real well. We just drank and talked and drank.
'He was brilliant, like the statue of David. Every girl in the world loved this guy — the tortured poet obsessed with death.'
Alice got to witness 'Lizard King' Jim's incredible stage presence up close.
'Glen was our Keith Richards'
'He was electric, he was James Dean. He'd saunter up to the stage and take half a minute to light a cigarette.
'Then he'd sing and every girl would drop to their knees.'
The new album also features a loving tribute to the Alice Cooper Band's dear departed guitarist, Glen Buxton. Called What A Syd, it brings this response from Alice: 'Glen was our Keith Richards.
'Everybody loved him but the only person I ever saw him jam with was [Pink Floyd's] Syd Barrett.
'When everyone else was slowing down rock 'n' roll-wise with what they were doing to their bodies, he just kept going.
'There was no stopping him. By 49, he looked like he was 78, 80 years old.'
Finally, we return to the mischief that both Alice and Ozzy became renowned for.
'There's a lot of humour on this album,' he says. 'I can't help it, that's just the way I write.
'Everybody's telling the most important song is Blood On The Sun. They say it's poetic, it flows, it makes your mind go, 'Oh my gosh!'
'What are they talking about? Every single line in that song is a movie title. It sounds important but it's not at all!'
So that explains him singing 'Don't Cry, It's Only Thunder' (1982 war movie), 'From Dusk Till Dawn' (1996 horror film) and so on.
Surely Alice's fellow eternal prankster Ozzy would approve!
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By 1970, Black Sabbath - originally going by the name of Earth - had gained a huge following in the US and UK with the release of their first album. Ozzy quit the band in 1978 and four years later divorced his first wife Thelma Mayfair, with whom he had two children, amid his ongoing substance abuse problems. He went on to marry second wife Sharon, who helped him transform into a successful solo artist and the couple had three children together. Ozzy gained a whole new audience of fans with the family's reality TV show The Osbournes in 2001.
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Ozzy Osbourne ‘buried near bat boxes' put in trees on Bucks estate for the animals to thrive
OZZY Osbourne has been buried near bat boxes and a family friend said it feels "like Ozzy had the last laugh'. The Black Sabbath legend, who died on July 22 at the age of 76, was laid to rest next to the lake in his Buckinghamshire home on Thursday. 8 8 8 A family friend told the Mirror: 'This was like a classic Ozzy move. The man loved humour and this sure would have tickled him pink knowing how close friends reacted to this bat situation. 'After all those decades caught up in this drama around bats and animal rights groups, here at his final resting place there are bespoke bat boxes to help encourage the animals thrive in the UK countryside. "It has prompted quite a few laughs and funny reactions. It is just like Ozzy had the last laugh.' One of the most controversial moments of the heavy metal singer's career came in January 1982, when he famously bit the head off a bat on stage. Something small and black landed near him on stage during a show at Des Moines' Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Believing it was a rubber toy, Ozzy picked it up and bit into it. In his 2010 autobiography I Am Ozzy, he wrote: "Somebody threw a bat. I just thought it was a rubber bat. And I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I bit into it. Immediately, he continued, "something felt wrong. Very wrong". Ozzy said he deeply regretted the incident as he had to have daily rabies shots for months. It remains unclear whether the bat was alive or dead - in a 2006 interview with the BBC, Ozzy described it as a 'dead real bat'. Tearful Sharon Osbourne reads fans' touching tributes to beloved husband Ozzy as she joins family at funeral procession Buckinghamshire - home to many brown long-eared and pipistrelle bats - has recently taken steps to improve bat conservation. On Thursday, an "incredibly emotional" funeral service was held for the rocker, a family friend told The Sun. Tents were erected on the 250-acre grounds of the house Ozzy and Sharon bought in 1993, along with a stage where tributes were paid to the rocker. The home was decorated with pictures of Ozzy, and mourners were given a photograph of him to take home. 8 8 8 8 110 of the singer's nearest and dearest attended, joining his wife Sharon and his children Jack, 39, Kelly, 40, Aimee, 41, and Louis, 50, his son from his first marriage to Thelma Riley. Stars at the service included Ozzy's Black Sabbath bandmates, Metallica's James Hetfield, punk singer Yungblud and Sir Elton John. Rock icon Marilyn Manson flew in from the US to attend, alongside Ozzy's guitarist Zakk Wylde and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor. The family friend said: 'Everyone at the service just wanted to support Sharon and the kids, it has been an awful time. 'Toasts were raised, memories were shared - it was a very fitting goodbye. 'Ozzy wanted his final place of rest to be at home and he is buried at a beautiful point on the lake. 'As well as the 'Ozzy f***ing Osbourne' wreath, which made people smile, there was another floral tribute which spelt out 'Ozzy' that was placed by the fountain on the lake. 'There was a stage where people including Yungblud, who grew very close to Ozzy in recent years, were set to pay tribute to him. 'The day was incredibly emotional. Pictures of Ozzy were dotted throughout the house and a photograph of him was given to everyone who attended to take home with them.' Guests were sent a simple black invitation featuring a cross and the words: 'In loving memory of Ozzy Osbourne.' The road leading to the couple's Buckinghamshire home near Gerrards Cross was closed from 1pm. Mourners were transported from The Crowne Plaza and The Bull in Gerrards Cross to the house at 2pm, with the service starting at 3pm. The day before, thousands of fans gathered in the streets of Birmingham to pay tribute to Ozzy. 8
