“They were absolutely huge”: the band Ozzy Osbourne always wanted to join

Posted On March 3, 2025March 3, 2025

Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of Black Sabbath recently announced they would be playing one last show in July 2025. Alongside Black Sabbath, a range of exciting heavy metal bands will also be playing, such as Metallica, Slayer, Lamb of God, and many more. This is a great reflection of how much influence Black Sabbath has had on music, specifically heavy metal; as one of the pioneering bands of the movement, every act on the line-up is in some way indebted to them.

Black Sabbath was a complete reflection of their surroundings. The lyrics that flooded the twisted-sounding songs spoke about depression, illness, and war, some of the only things that line workers in post-war Britain knew about. Equally, the toned-down guitar was due to Tony Iommi losing his fingers, and the mimicking bass sound was there because Geezer Butler couldn’t write fluttering basslines like those that were popular at the time. Their sound was totally unique, and it ushered in a new musical movement worldwide.

Of course, while Black Sabbath was a unique-sounding band, that’s not to say that they weren’t fans of the music that had been made elsewhere. Ozzy Osbourne has spoken multiple times about how much of a big fan he was of The Beatles, saying that they didn’t just write good music but gave a depressed nation permission to have fun again.

“When I heard The Beatles, I knew what I wanted to do,” said Osbourne when talking about the band. “My son says to me, ‘Dad, I like The Beatles, but why do you go so crazy?’ The only way I can describe it is like this, ‘Imagine you go to bed today and the world is black and white, and then you wake up and everything’s in colour. That’s what it was like!’ That’s the profound effect it had on me.”

Osbourne was among the many people who heard The Beatles and immediately wanted to be in a band. He was one of the many musically minded who listened to the Fab Four and figured the only rationale next steps were to put together a band and try to capture the same lightning in a bottle that The Beatles had.

That being said, while Ozzy Osbourne was a big fan of the band, they weren’t the musical outfit that Osbourne was most keen on joining. That was an honour reserved for another band who rose to fame at the same time as The Beatles, the Dave Clark Five. These had a sound comparable to The Beatles’, but Osbourne was drawn to the heaviness of their drums, which separated them from many other bands of the time.

“I wanted to be a member of that group. Even the drummer looked sexy, you know,” Osbourne concluded. “Dave Clark was ahead of anyone else. I wanted to be a member of the Dave Clark Five. I remember being at a school dance, and ‘Glad All Over’ came on, and it sent chills in my spine. People don’t realize how big they were. They were absolutely huge.”

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