Jack Osbourne recently made an appearance on the “The Magnificent Others” podcast, hosted by The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. During the conversation, the two discussed the deep brotherhood within Black Sabbath, highlighting the unique and sometimes tense relationship between Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Tony Iommi.
Agreeing with Corgan‘s observation that the legendary riff-master acted like a big brother to his father, Jack confirmed that they shared a special connection:
“There was always an interesting dynamic between my dad and Tony and [I’m] not revealing anything that people don’t know.”
This dynamic was on full display last summer as the band prepared for the massive “Back to the Beginning” farewell concert. Ozzy was highly anxious about the monumental gig and wanted everything to be perfect. However, during the pre-show run-through, he was holding back to save his voice—a move that prompted a blunt critique from his bandmate.
“He was soundchecking, so he wasn’t going out there with his A-game on. He was just making sure everything worked and ran through the set,” Jack recalled. “Tony said, ‘Hey you’re singing kind of flat.'”
The comment visibly upset Ozzy. While his mother, manager Sharon Osbourne, attempted to smooth the situation over, Jack quickly realized that Tony‘s tough love was actually exactly what his father needed to hear in that moment:
“My mom was like, ‘Oh you know dad…’ And I was like, ‘No I think it’s a good thing because out of the 40, whatever thousand people at that stadium, the only person that could ever say to my dad, ‘Hey, do better,’ was Tony and I think everyone needs someone like that.”
Jack reasoned that because the Black Sabbath founders essentially operated as brothers, Iommi simply wanted to push Ozzy to be at his absolute peak for their final time playing live together.
During the same episode, Jack also revealed new details about Ozzy‘s upcoming biopic.
He said: “Initially it was gonna go from kind of my dad as a young man to the kind of mid-’90s, but we’re shrinking it down,” Jack revealed. “We’re doing a rewrite right now. In my perfect vision of it, it would be kind of tail end of Sabbath, him going solo. [Because] you gotta have the love story. And that’s kind of the main focus of the film, and all the craziness that happened in the early ’80s and Randy‘s [Rhoads, late Ozzy guitarist] tragic death. But, yeah, it’s an origin story.”
Before the interview wrapped up, Jack also shared a fun detail: Ozzy Osbourne was a big fan of Corgan‘s podcast and wanted to be a guest someday.
