With Ozzy Osbourne’s iconic 1991 album ‘No More Tears’ celebrating it’s 30th anniversary this year, longtime Ozzy shredder Zakk Wylde and album producer Duane Baron recently sat down with Metal Hammer to talk about the creation of the record and the insane antics that took place.
With a sober Ozzy present for album’s recording process, the legendary singer’s bandmates had to find ways to keep occupied.
Zakk Wylde explains what they would do: “Every day Oz had this couch that he’d sit on to watch World War 2 videos or whatever, So I take my enormous shit in this bag and cut a tiny little hole, sliding it in until it’s properly hidden up the back of the couch.
“Meanwhile, Randy [Castillo] goes and takes a shit in some Tupperware, which he then stores in the fridge for later.”
Don’t feel so bad for the Ozzman though, as these pranks were a suitable retaliation for Wylde, Castillo and Baron who had been suffering incessantly with Ozzy’s lethal farts. “Ozzy had these stink bombs he just kept letting off” the guitarist explains. “You could use them to clear fucking buildings, not rooms.
“Ozzy would be there at the back, ‘Sorry…’ and we’d be gagging, ‘Ozzy what the FUCK?!’ They were worried he wouldn’t be able to finish the record.”
“Honestly, at first we thought he had a real problem” adds Baron. “He’d drop them everywhere – the studio, on flights, we even went to Las Vegas for a weekend and he dropped them in a casino! He would terrorize us with them.”
So, the three planned their “shit scheme”. “I knew we had to get him back… so I took a shit in a bag,” says Wylde.
Speaking of Ozzy’s reaction to finding the Tupperware box of shit in the fridge, he continues: “Ozzy bellows down, ‘I was just trying to watch my World War 2 videos, thinking what is that horrendous stench?! I went to get something to eat, thinking we’d got some leftovers… they were fucking leftovers alright!’
“So fucking hilarious, man. There were shenanigans like that going on the whole time – it was a miracle anything got done! I can just see him pulling the shit from out the couch, thinking ‘how much do I pay these fucking scumbags to shit in my room – have I paid them to do this?!’”