Few if any heavy metal artists are as widely regarded as Ozzy Osbourne. Rock’s prince of darkness has long been a force of misrule, decadence, and all-out madness in the musical ecosystem. Now, it looks like another cultural free-for-all has decided to honor the bat-biter’s accomplishments — the WWE, who have added Ozzy to their Hall of Fame.
As reported by Loudwire, Ozzy was apparently part of a Hall of Fame ceremony taped last week. Not only that, but the WWE are selling their 2020/2021 Hall of Fame shirts already, and they feature Ozzy’s name and visage on them:
This makes sense — while Ozzy has never thrown Mankind 20 feet through a steel cage, he has made plenty of appearances at WWE events, and his songs including “I Don’t Wanna Stop” have been featured on shows like Smackdown. He and his wife Sharon even hosted an episode of Raw:
More on the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony as it comes.
Late last year, it was revealed that revealed that Ozzy is already in the process of recording another studio album with producer Andrew Watt, which will feature some big guns as Ozzy’s backing band and guest stars.
“We’re about halfway through,” said Watt in a recent interview. “But, you know, it’s been hard with COVID and everything to keep him safe. We all test every day before we work and it’s just me, Ozzy and my engineer. So it’s taken a little longer this time, but it’s cool because the last one was made in this, like, swift love affair of passion, like, ‘Oh my God, this is incredible!’…But this time everyone’s moving a little slower and we’re taking a little more time. And the songs, there’s some songs on there that are like eight or nine minutes long that are these really crazy journeys. I’m really excited about it.”
Watt went on to reveal that playing with Ozzy on this record will be Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, and Red Hot Chili Peppers percussionist Chad Smith.
“There’s a bunch of people involved,” says Watt. “I can’t say for sure until the end, but I started doing a bunch of basic tracks with Chad and Robert Trujillo, who used to play in Ozzy’s band. And Taylor Hawkins also came in and played a bunch on the record as well, which adds a different flair – it kind of harkened back to Ozzy’s ‘80s era, in a great way. And I think it’s so cool for a rock fan to be able to listen to half an album with Chad Smith on drums, and then you flip it over and you get to hear Taylor Hawkins.”
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Words by Chris Krovatin
