Before his days playing bass in Metallica, Robert Trujillo played in a band called Infectious Grooves. At one point during his time in the band, they got the chance to play alongside the great Ozzy Osbourne! Via a recent interview with Revolver, Trujillo not only speaks to his work on Ozzy’s upcoming album (Patient Number 9), but also shares a couple fun Ozzy related stories.
One of those stories pertains to when Infectious Grooves got to play for Ozzy – however, while that gig may sound exciting, the show involved a variety of matters that made it, as Robert puts it, “a cursed first gig.” From pentagrams to dead animals, to power going out and a shaking stage – it was one hell of a night for Robert Trujillo and his band mates.
This story comes up when Trujillo is asked if there are any wild stories involving him and Ozzy – this all he had to share about that night:
“Yeah … there’s kind of a crazy story that happened in Austin, Texas. … When Infectious Grooves first opened for Ozzy it was a theater in Austin. We were really excited. We had done a warm-up show just before that in Houston — and now we’re pulling up to the back of the venue in Austin. And the first thing we see when we get off the tour bus is … a pentagram on the ground and a dead raven, black roses and candles. [Laughs] And we’re like, Oh my God. [Laughs] It’s like, Welcome to the tour. We’re literally like, What are we getting ourselves into? [Laughs].”
Trujillo then goes on to talk about the show itself, which involved a series of odd and surreal elements.
“The actual show itself was interesting because we hadn’t learned how to pace our set yet. And with Ozzy, similar to most well-known metal bands, the crowd starts chanting the name — Ozzy! Ozzy! — and they didn’t know who we were. They didn’t know who Infectious Grooves was. So, they’re chanting and the balcony was literally moving. … But we knew once we got into the songs, we could divert that energy and that attention. So the whole thing was kind of edgy: from the pentagram to the show itself … And we were just like, like, ‘Oh my God, we survived, but barely.’
“And then and topper was … Ozzy’s playing, and we’re all excited. I think it was myself and two of the band members we had a beer and we’re like creeping around the backstage as Ozzy’s playing and it’s dark — and I tripped over a pile of cables. I basically fell [into the] connectors for the monitors, the power lines and everything — and I knocked out the power to the monitor system! [Laughs] It was like slow motion. I see myself falling … and I’m knocking out like three of the input jacks and all of a sudden the power’s out onstage.”
Robert continues:
“All you hear is Ozzy and the drums, acoustically. Ozzy looked over, everybody looked over and no one knew what happened. I was so scared. Luckily the monitor guy saw that that’s what happened. And he was able to patch it back in really quickly. I was like, ‘Oh man, we’re going home.’ So I went into the catering and I was trying to just play it off. Like, you know, maybe no one noticed. And Ozzy’s tour manager came behind me and he was really nice about it, luckily. He put his arm around me and said, ‘Robert, did you knock out the power to the monitor rig?’ And then I said, ‘Yes.’ And he goes, ‘Okay, don’t do that again, please.’
“I go, ‘Are we going home?’ And he goes, ‘No, just don’t do that again. … You’re lucky. Ozzy thinks that there was a power outage in Austin.’ [Laughs] I just remember that because between the pentagram and that being our introduction to the crowd in a small venue to me knocking out the power to the monitor rig…”
Trujillo then concludes with saying, “It was a cursed first gig. Welcome to the world of Ozzy Osbourne.” What an absolutely wild night; let alone having the chance to open for Ozzy, but also having all that other shit go down – what a hell of a story.
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