Pals, household and business veterans proceed to share their recollections of Ozzy Osbourne following his July 2025 passing. Particularly, Grammy-winning music producer Andrew Watt just lately spoke to Rolling Stone about how Ozzy was “regular” the day earlier than his demise – making the tragic information “a fantastic shock” – in addition to about his deep bond with the late Prince of Darkness.
What Watt Mentioned About Ozzy’s Loss of life + Impression
Through the interview (revealed on-line on Sept. 27), Watt – who produced 2020’s Odd Man and 2022’s Affected person Quantity 9 – mirrored on why the lack of Ozzy was so shocking and painful.
“Every little thing was regular [the day before], and the subsequent day, the information was only a large shock,” he advised the journal.
When requested if shedding Ozzy seems like “shedding a member of the family,” Watt mentioned that it does. “He noticed me in a method that I didn’t see myself, and if you happen to discuss to anybody that loves him or was fortunate sufficient to be beloved by him, that’s a continuing factor.”
He continued [via Rolling Stone]:
He may see you in your good, your dangerous, and simply in a method that you just have been — he was witchy like that. He usually knew issues that have been gonna occur earlier than they occurred and simply had an unimaginable sense. Once we made all these albums collectively, he was recovering from this accident [a fall at home] that he had. And it was the primary time that I used to be ever making music the place I spotted that music was one thing greater than simply making songs. It was giving him a goal when he didn’t really feel nicely and making him really feel nice and snicker and sing and dance and heal. These two albums have been unimaginable, they usually, for me, are the explanation why I’m right here speaking to you immediately.
In reality, Watt claimed that working with Ozzy “modified every little thing” for him, including [per Rolling Stone]:
He noticed me as a severe album producer. Up till then, I wasn’t actually making full albums. I had made one or two full albums that I used to be concerned in, however I wasn’t doing it like that. And he noticed in me that I may do that. And it was a dream come true. . . . He actually believed in me. He let me play guitar on his albums, and that’s simply unbelievable. We have been actually massive for one another, each as collaborators and as pals. And, fuck, man, greater than something, I miss the laughter. He’s the funniest particular person ever of all time.
READ MORE: Judas Priest Formally Drop New Duet With Ozzy Osbourne on ‘Warfare Pigs’
What Ozzy Taught Watt About Mixing
Watt additionally remarked that Ozzy helped him grow to be more proficient and confident in relation to mixing albums [per Rolling Stone]: “He gave me the arrogance, and he taught me a lot about how one can combine rock music and take all of it the best way to the top.”
Later within the interview, he clarified:
It’s a must to perceive. This man was making ‘Paranoid’ when he was 21 years previous. So he had a 55-year profession the place every little thing was grandiose and on the highest stage. And he’s one of many smartest individuals I’ve ever met, and a historical past buff, and a genius, a literal genius. His persona was [just] persona. He was extremely sensible, extremely sharp. His ears have been reactive. You could possibly assume he wasn’t listening and he heard each single factor. There’d be occasions we’d be within the studio listening to one thing and he’s simply drawing and I’m like, “Oh, he isn’t listening.” After which he’d simply give me this one line that cuts so deep, in a constructive method.
He would all the time say to me, “Take heed to Led Zeppelin and inform me what the loudest factor is.” And me, having my confidence, I’d be like, “It’s the drums. John Bonham.” He mentioned, “Nope, not the drums.” He mentioned, “It’s the bass.”
He identified the bass is a very powerful factor in a rock track. It’s a must to ensure that the bass is there and pumping and reducing by and offering that sense of rhythm, as a result of it’s the bridge between the drums and the guitars. It makes the track heavy, as a result of the guitars can poke by when you’ve got them blended in the appropriate method. The bass is a tough factor to essentially get reducing, but additionally representing the underside. He was very bass-focused, mix-wise, and ensuring the bass got here by. And if you happen to hearken to the data that we made collectively, there’s numerous bass on these data. “Beneath the Graveyard” [from Ordinary Man] has a lot low finish, if you happen to test that out. He was concerned in each element of each single mix-down, too. That’s how a lot he cared.
Watt’s Appears Again on the Again to the Starting Live performance
Naturally, Watt was at Black Sabbath’s Again to the Starting remaining live performance and celebration (which befell on July 5, 2025).
“The expertise on the present was unbelievable, and at this present second, it seems like a dream sequence,” he advised Rolling Stone. “The entire final month of his life seems like a dream. I had been in London engaged on a undertaking, and going to the present and attending to Birmingham was superb. And I received there and there was this massive photograph shoot, everybody was there.”
Watt expounded:
It was this superb factor as a result of [guitarist] Jake E. Lee was there, who hadn’t seen Ozzy in 30 years. And all these individuals have been there from all walks of his life, bands that he beloved. Musicians that he beloved. There’s this actually nice photograph shoot that Ross Halfin was conducting and Ozzy was telling him to fuck off the entire time, and he was telling Ozzy to fuck off again.
It was simply this nice, enjoyable factor. It felt like a heavy steel summer season camp. That’s one of the best ways to explain it. After which we have been all collectively day-after-day, and attending to be with Sharon and Jack and Kelly and everybody… I keep in mind the night time earlier than the large present, I went out with Sharon to have a curry, ’trigger that’s what you eat in Birmingham. And we introduced one again to the lodge for Ozzy. Frolicked with him for a very long time and talked. We had a pair hours collectively in his room the night time earlier than the present. [Pauses.] That is laborious to speak about.
Different Ozzy Osbourne Information
As famous above, Judas Priest just lately put out a canopy of Black Sabbath’s “Warfare Pigs” that options Ozzy’s vocals! As reported by Loudwire earlier this month:
Judas Priest had a scheduling battle that left them unable to attend and carry out at Ozzy and Black Sabbath’s Again to the Starting live performance farewell. However having such shut ties to Ozzy and understanding what this second meant in steel historical past, the band discovered a option to nonetheless be concerned by recording and releasing a canopy of “Warfare Pigs” to coincide with the celebration.
After seeing what the band did with the track, nonother than Sharon Osbourne “requested if there was a option to get Ozzy included on the monitor.”
So, each events made it occur, with Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford enthusiastically telling Full Metallic Jackie earlier this month: “It is the primary ever time in my complete life that I have been in a position to do a duet with Ozzy and I am so eternally grateful and blessed that I used to be ready to do this. If you hear Priest’s ‘Warfare Pigs’ with Ozzy singing on that monitor, it is simply going to a extremely particular place.”
It’s value mentioning, too, that every one income “from Sony Music Leisure U.Ok. and Epic Information within the U.Ok. from audio streams, downloads and bodily gross sales of this particular model of “Warfare Pigs” will probably be donated to the Glenn Tipton Parkinson’s Basis and Remedy Parkinson’s” [via Loudwire].
Outdoors of that, fellow Again to the Starting performer and Ozzy pal Yungblud just lately joined Loudwire Nights’ Chuck Armstrong to debate the live performance; his new EP with Aerosmith (which’ll be the legendary band’s first studio launch in 13 years); and far more.
Oh, and the BBC delayed the discharge of the Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Residence documentary to this October. Plus, the trailer for one other documentary – Ozzy: No Escape From Now – arrived earlier this month.
Rockers We have Misplaced in 2025
There’s some superb expertise that is now not with us, however what a legacy they left behind.
Gallery Credit score: Chad Childers, Loudwire
