GUNS N’ ROSES bassist Duff McKagan has released a new 19-minute video on his YouTube channel in which he answers a number of fan-submitted questions, including about his participation in the upcoming “Back To The Beginning” charity event, which will take place on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The concert will mark the original lineup of BLACK SABBATH‘s last-ever performance and Ozzy Osbourne‘s final appearance as a solo artist. Asked what Ozzy means to him, Duff said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): ”Well, that’s a pretty big question. Ozzy‘s been a constant — I mean, since I was, I’m gonna say, about six years old, because when I was a little kid, FM radio started and I had all these older siblings. And we had a stereo in the living room of our house, and they would play FM radio. And what FM radio did then was play a whole side of a record, and it was rock — rock and roll music. So it’d be [Jimi] Hendrix and whatever. And I remember hearing [BLACK SABBATH‘s] ‘Iron Man’ for the first time, whatever year that was, and however old I was — young — thinking ‘Iron Man’ was, ‘Wow.’ It was like a cartoon thing. And ‘What is this song?’ And was kind of accessible for me. And a few years later when I started playing guitar, I could figure that song out. And SABBATH and Ozzy just remained a constant.”
Duff continued: “I love the ‘Never Say Die!’ record, which is ’78. Some people kind of passed over that stuff. And SABBATH going with [Ronnie James] Dio was a really cool period. And Ozzy going on his own and doing his thing was… He became an icon, I think, when he went solo, whatever that means. But there’s certain… Iggy [Pop], Lemmy, Ozzy, Prince — there was these constants in rock and roll, and Ozzy remains that.”
More than five years ago, Duff helped write and record Ozzy‘s “Ordinary Man” album over a four-day period. The GUNS N’ ROSES bassist collaborated with RED HOT CHILL PEPPERS drummer Chad Smith and guitarist-producer Andrew Watt on the songs, including “Straight To Hell”, “Under The Graveyard” and the title track, a duet between Ozzy and Elton John.
“This guy Andrew Watt called,” McKagan told the “Jonesy’s Jukebox” radio show. “He said, ‘Do you have some days this week in the daytime? I need to write an Ozzy record. We have four days to do it.’ So we showed up at Andrew‘s studio. Everything was kind of set up — Chad‘s drum kit was set up — and it was basically one of those things: ‘Who’s got a riff?’ It was really inspired. … The three of us — Andrew Watt and Chad and myself — we’d never written together, and you know that can go sideways in a hot second. But it didn’t.
“Ozzy came, and Ozzy just loved it,” McKagan added. “He just came in and started writing words and laid down the vocals. And it was kind of like that. There was definitely urgency to the whole situation. We had so much time to do it, which was only four days. … I think the record is really, really good.”
After fans snapped up tickets to “Back To The Beginning” in just 16 minutes, it was announced that the event will be streamed worldwide. Fans will have access to the raw livestream from 3:00 p.m. on July 5, and will also have exclusive access to rewatch the concert in its entirety for another 48 hours.
For more information, visit www.backtothebeginning.com.
“Back To The Beginning” will be captured, produced and distributed by Mercury Studios (“One To One: John & Yoko”, “American Symphony”, “Metallica Saved My Life”),who are pioneering the way for premium, music-driven storytelling across film, television, podcasts and immersive formats. Mercury has partnered with Kiswe — the global D2C streaming partner behind the record-breaking BTS concert livestream — to deliver this moment of music history to fans across the globe.
The all-day event at Villa Park, produced by Live Nation, will be hosted and compered by American actor Jason Momoa, and feature a “supergroup of musicians”, including McKagan and Slash (GUNS ‘N’ ROSES),Billy Corgan (THE SMASHING PUMPKINS),Fred Durst (LIMP BIZKIT),K.K. Downing (JUDAS PRIEST),Jake E. Lee (OZZY OSBOURNE),Wolfgang Van Halen (VAN HALEN, MAMMOTH) and Tom Morello (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE).
“It’s an endless amount of people,” said Ozzy‘s wife and manager Sharon. “They’re going to be doing some SABBATH songs, some Ozzy songs, and they’ll all mix together. Different little groups will be coming on, but they’re all icons.”
The original lineup of BLACK SABBATH last performed in 2005. Since then, SABBATH has played in partial reunions but never in its original lineup.
The legendary BLACK SABBATH frontman was diagnosed in 2003 with Parkin 2 — a very rare genetic form of Parkinson’s. During a TV appearance in January 2020, the singer disclosed that he was ‘stricken” with the disease which occurs when the nerve cells of the body degenerate and levels of dopamine are reduced. Dopamine is an essential chemical that is produced by these nerve cells which send signals to different parts of the brain to control movements of the body.
Ozzy‘s health issues, including suffering a nasty fall and dislodging metal rods placed in his spine following a quad-bike accident in 2003, as well as catching COVID-19 three years ago, forced him to cancel some of his previously announced tours.
While Osbourne‘s health issues forced him to scrap most of his live appearances, the musician said he would return if his condition improved.
Osbourne‘s previously announced European tour with guests JUDAS PRIEST, originally set for 2019 and then rescheduled three times, was officially canceled in early February 2023.
Despite his health problems, Osbourne has performed a couple of times in the last three years, including at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022 and at the NFL halftime show at the season opener Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills game in September 2022.
