Ozzy Osbourne has a lengthy list of guests on his new album Patient Number 9. Among them is Taylor Hawkins, and the Prince of Darkness shared a funny story about the drummer’s influence on the LP.
Osbourne said in a new interview with Kerrang! about the track “Degradation Rules” with Tony Iommi, “You know what ‘Degradation Rules’ is about? Masturbation. Sticky little magazines. A toss-pot. There’s a line in there, ‘Red Tube rules!’ which is an [ode to] the free porn website. And, do you know who suggested that? The drummer, Taylor Hawkins, who died recently.”
Ozzy bluntly said about the late drummer, “To be perfectly honest with you, I’d never heard of him before he played on my album. But he must be good to play with Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters.”
He added, “When I met him, and from what I saw of him, he was a really nice man, one whose soul will surely last. I should imagine that everyone in that band was f—ing devastated when the poor guy passed away.”
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Ozzy’s Patient Number 9 comes out tomorrow (September 9) and is available for pre-order here. In addition to Hawkins and the aforementioned Iommi, the album features appearances by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Zakk Wylde, Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo, Duff McKagan, Zakk Wylde, Josh Homme and Mike McCready.
In honor of the album’s release, Osbourne will be performing during halftime of the Los Angeles Rams’ season opener at SoFi Stadium. The game is the Rams’ first since winning Super Bowl LVI and will air live on NBC beginning at 8:20 PM ET.
The halftime performance comes about a month after Ozzy’s surprise appearance with Tony Iommi to close out the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Osbourne and Iommi were joined by bassist Adam Wakeman and drummer Tommy Clufetos for a rousing rendition of the Sabbath classic “Paranoid.” Osbourne was aided during the performance with a back support likely The Commonwealth Games performance was Ozzy’s first time since performing with Post Malone at the 2019 American Music Awards.