Ozzy Osbourne isn't going to stop playing shows — even if he has to be rolled out onstage in a fucking wheelchair.
Earlier this year, after postponing the his comeback tour several times over the last four years due to the singer's many health issues — which have also included Parkinson's disease, with which he was diagnosed in January 2020, and COVID-19, which he contracted in April 2022 — as well as the pandemic, Ozzy finally made the painful decision to cancel all of his upcoming shows and announce he was retiring from touring.
That didn't last long. Just a couple months later, the Great Ozz revealed he would be returning to the stage later this fall at the inaugural PowerTrip music festival in California, which would mark his first proper performance since 2018.
It doesn't seem like he'll be stopping there, health issues be damned. In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Ozzy proclaimed that he's determined to play as many shows as humanly possible, and will go to great physical lengths to make them happen. He simply can't bare the idea of living without performing.
"A guitar player can change his guitar. A drummer can change the drum. If my voice goes, I'm fucked," Ozzy said, recalling the difficulties of being a frontman. "One time I was at a gig at Nassau Coliseum in New York. On the way to the gig, my voice went out. The kids were already there and I thought, 'What the fuck am I gonna do now?' I went out and tried to sing and they gave me a standing ovation. The kids would rather see you being bad than go home.
"I mean, doing a live show is what I live for. I've had to cancel my [2023] European tour but I'm determined. I've gotta do more gigs, [even] if I have to get someone to wheel me out there.
"I mean, you can't retire from this game. It's not a job, it's a fucking passion. I don't know how to do anything else. The thought of sitting in my house all day... I'm a road dog, you know? I've been doing it fucking 55 years. It's the best thing to have ever happened to me."
