Massachusetts rockers EXTREME have been performing a cover of Ozzy Osbourne‘s “I Don’t Know” at the most recent shows on their ongoing European tour as a tribute to the legendary BLACK SABBATH singer, who passed away late last month at the age of 76.
Fan-filmed video of three different EXTREME renditions of “I Don’t Know”, including at the Artmania festival in Sibiu, Romania on July 26, can be seen below.
A week after taking part in Ozzy‘s final concert, which was held on July 5 at Villa Park in BLACK SABBATH‘s original hometown of Birmingham, United Kingdom, EXTREME guitarist Nuno Bettencourt took to his social media to write: “Thank you Ozzy for being a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood and decades afterwards. Also… Thank you to 3 CHOSEN ONES. Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, Zakk Wylde. Ozzy could not have been Ozzy without your iconic contribution as incredible guitarists and composers. You were an integral part of what made Ozzy Osbourne who he was as an artist. His ‘not so’ secret weapon. And what was even more amazing is that every single one of you three brought your own DNA to each era… It would’ve been easy and safe for all you to replicate and clone the previous guitar god and give the fans what they wanted. Given the pressure of the shoes you had to fill. Imagine: Randy having to step into Iommi‘s shoes. Jake having to step into Randy‘s and Iommi‘s shoes. Zakk having to step into Jake and Randy‘s and Iommi‘s shoes. And in the end neither of you did… instead you brought your own fucking shoes and cemented your own individual legacies. As a fellow guitarist … that alone is a historic feat.
“Thank you Randy, Jake and Zakk for you inspirational guitar work and shaping me as the guitarist I am today. Love you guys.”
Last year, Nuno told YouTuber Rick Beato that he tried to join Ozzy‘s solo band more than four decades ago when he was just a teenager. “The first time I ever played through a proper cab was when the Circus magazine put out an ad,” he recalled. “I think it had come out when Randy passed away, unfortunately, and we were all devastated. And I think, at the moment, [Osbourne‘s camp] were looking for a guitar player… There was like a little cutout thing, like, almost like an ad: ‘Send your tape here, Ozzy looking for a guitar player.’ And I’m, like, ‘This is my gig. I can do this.’ I’m in this four-family home in Hudson, Massachusetts and the ad says, I don’t know, ‘Send ‘Crazy Train’ on cassette to this address.’ And I’m all in, man. I call my buddy saying, ‘Can I borrow your Marshall?’, and I put it in my bedroom. I can’t do without a cabinet, and I borrowed a 4×12; I had never played through one before… I also borrowed some harmonizer and I didn’t even know how to run it, and I’m like, ‘That’s it!’ I’m playing the song, probably horribly; I’m doing the solo… I didn’t tell anybody. I took the solo, wrote down the address, licked the stamp, brought it to the post office, and I was just like, ‘Okay, now I wait. But I’m getting this gig.’ Weeks have gone by, and I’m getting really upset. Then, I read that Brad Gillis is filling in, and I’m, like, ‘Oh, man. They better not keep him, because this is my gig.’ I believed I was going to do it… I’m waiting, and months have gone by. And then, I heard they got Jake E. Lee. I might have shed a tear because I thought that was my gig.”
A decade later, in 1993, after Bettencourt had spent several years touring with EXTREME, the band’s booking agent Rod MacSween told Nuno that Ozzy‘s team offered him guitarist position he once auditioned for, this time without the need for a homemade tape. The guitarist recalled: “He pulls me out and we’re in a hallway. I’ll never forget this. He’s facing me, and Rod says, ‘Nuno, Sharon Osbourne called me. Ozzy wants you to be his guitarist.’ And then, he says, ‘What do you think?’ And all I could say was, ‘They heard the cassette?’, and he’s like, ‘What are you talking about?’… I was literally thinking about the cassette I sent when I was 12. That’s how much trauma I had.”
As it turned out, Nuno declined the offer to join Ozzy‘s band as a result of his loyalty to EXTREME and his determination to “carve [his] own path. He explained: “It finally worked, and I turned it down, because I was in a band, and I was doing my job. And that was the stupidest thing I ever did. Why? Because I left EXTREME about two weeks later. I was like, ‘I’m an idiot.’ I could have toured with Ozzy, and been on the next album… Because, playing with Ozzy was almost a rite of passage, like you were the chosen one… If Ozzy chose you, you were somebody… But I was trying to carve my own path and be my own person. I don’t know what I was thinking; I should have done it.”
Ozzy died the morning of July 22, his family announced in a statement.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” the family said.
No cause of death was given, but Osbourne had battled a number of health issues over the past several years, including Parkinson’s disease and injuries he sustained from a late-night fall in 2019.
