Just like everybody else, the first I heard
of the arrest of Ozzy Osbourne, at his Beel House mansion in
Buckinghamshire, was when I read about it in the newspaper.
‘DEATH THREAT’ OZZY SENT TO BOOZE CLINIC! screamed
the headline in The Sun. BAN ON SEEING WIFE! HELL OF DRYING OUT!
According to the reports, the police had arrived at the house
in the early hours of Sunday morning, September 3, and
subsequently arrested Ozzy for allegedly threatening to kill
his wife and manager, Sharon, or ‘intending her to fear
that the threat would be carried out’ as the official
police report put it. The phone got to me before I got to
it… America’s National
Enquirer, the Sunday Snort, the Daily Angst... and all
with the same questions: what happened? Did he finally go mad?
Or better still, has he always been mad? And what about all
the, you know, rumours. That Sharon had been having an affair
and it was the discovery of this fact that prompted the fight
between them. That Sharon’s father and a former manager
of both Ozzy and Black Sabbath, Don Arden, was about to step in
and retake control of his estranged son-in-law’s career?
And that this move would precipitate the reformation of the
original Sabbath line-up, including Ozzy? I realised straight
away that these were the sort of questions only my answer-phone
could answer, so I switched the thing on and sat back to think
it over…
Flight time from Heathrow: 1.30 pm. Arrive
Frankfurt: 4.30 pm. Drive to Castle Schnellenberg, arrive: 7.00
pm. Begin interviews: 7.30 pm. Finish: open-ended. It looked
like a long day ahead, and another long night. Working, that
is. The one subject I failed in at school. The important thing,
therefore, at this stage, I decided, was not to get too drunk.
I would sink just the one or two on the plane and call it a day
until I’d punched the clock on the interviews. Three,
maybe, but that was max. There, I’d talked myself into
it. At last, I figured, I must be turning pro…
I fill a bag and take a train to the
airport. I make it on time, good old me the pro, and when I get
there my old mate, Rangi, is there to meet me. Rangi has worked
for Steve Harris and Iron Maiden longer than most;
part-security, part-crew, and full-time china-plate to
’Arry and the boys, he has a nice line in gritty Kiwi
patter, and fists the size of my face.
“Hello, my old mate! How are
ya?” I say in greeting. “I’m all
right,” says Rangi, his eyes scouring the horizon of the
over-crowded departure lounge. “But your other old mate
isn’t here yet and the flight leaves in half an
hour…”
The other old mate Rangi refers to is
Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain. Nicko isn’t late yet, but
another ten minutes and he will be. The minutes run away…
five… ten… 15 to go before the big metal bird
flies…
I hear him coming long before I see him.
“MICKEY!” he hollers.
“Nicko!” I cry.
“RANGI!!” he bellows.
“Nicko!” Rangi cries.
“MICKEEE!! RANGEEEEE!!! Am I late?
We’ve still got time for a wet, surely…”
It’s July and hotter than
hell’s kitchen in New York City. The heat clings to
everything like a second skin; the buildings, the sidewalks,
the people. Eyes rolling like hard-boiled eggs in saucepan
faces blurred by sweat and car fumes. Jon Bon Jovi and I are
perched on the veranda of his manager’s second floor
suite of offices on Central Park South in Manhattan, elbows
resting on the railings, gazing out at the piss-coloured taxi
cabs, the hawk-faced pretzel pedlars, the blank-eyed bums and
the power-dressed office shirkers pretending to ignore them. As
we look out, Jon tells me this is the very spot he and the rest
of Bon Jovi first met with Doc McGhee, their powerful and
influential manager, to plot the seeds of a success story that
now spans more than 25 million albums and has generated maybe
10 times as many millions of dollars. “Back then we
didn’t have the price of a cup of coffee between
us,” he says, running a restless hand through his long,
rust-coloured hair. “That was seven years ago. You ask me
has the success changed me since then, I say, sure, man. It
changes everybody. Deep down I still have all the energy and
enthusiasm I ever had as a kid. But on the outside I’m a
lot more cynical these days. A lot more…”
W. Axl Rose is pissed off. Not, thankfully,
in the grand manner to which he is sometimes accustomed: no
glass smashing, no room wrecking. But he has a bee in his
bonnet that he wants squashing, and so what if it’s
nearly midnight, why don’t I come over right now and take
down some kinda statement? Well… why not? Sleep’s
for creeps anyway, or so they say in LA. So I hot-rod my
tape-machine, scuttle down a coupla quick beers and head over
to Axl’s West Hollywood apartment. Axl meets me at the
door with eyebrows like thunder clouds. “I can’t
believe this shit I just read in Kerrang!” he scowls. “Which shit are you
referring to?” I ask. “This shit,” he growls,
holding up a copy of Kerrang! dated November 4, 1989, in his hand, yanked open
at a page from Jon Hotten’s interview with Mötley
Crüe. “The interviewer asks Vince Neil about him
throwing’ a punch at Izzy [Stradlin GN’R rhythm
guitarist] backstage at the MTV awards last year, and Vince
replies,” he begins, reading aloud in a voice heavy with
sarcasm: “‘I just punched that dick and broke his
fuckin’ nose! Anybody who beats up on a woman deserves to
get the shit kicked out of them. Izzy hit my wife, a year
before I hit him’. Well, that’s just a crock of
shit! Izzy never touched that chick! If anybody tried to hit on
anything, it was her trying to hit on Izzy when Vince
wasn’t around. Only Izzy didn’t buy it. So
that’s what that’s all about.” He goes on,
still furious…
