BW&BK; was part of an EXCLUSIVE round-table discussion with OZZY OSBOURNE recently, prior to him commencing rehearsals for his upcoming world tour which begins on May 27 in Moscow, Russia at Olympisky Stadium. Ozzy is supporting his new album, Black Rain - his first new studio material in six years, which is due out this week via Epic Records.

Ozzy spoke at great lengths about his legendary musical upbringing with BLACK SABBATH in the late '60s. When asked about one of the most influential periods in metal history he recalled: "Back then we never thought - 'well, we'll write this song and in twenty years time people will still be liking it.' We never realized that. When you are on the inside looking out, you have no idea you are gathering more fans as you go along. I didn't go - 'all these people like me' or whatever. I never thought. Being in a band when I was a lot younger was a great life. It was better than joining the army, because most times you got home alive. It was traveling you know. The first place I ever traveled to was Denmark and we played a club called the Revolution Club. We also did a stint in Zurich, Switzerland - there was a bar there where we used to play a bunch of sets a day. Then there was the infamous Star Club in Hamburg. We did a lot of residency work and I remember going down to the boats to go to Europe one day - we were called EARTH at that point. We'd written a song called 'Black Sabbath'. Our manager at the time suggested that we stop off at this recording studio and do these songs we were working on like 'War Pigs'. We got out of the van, played a bunch of stuff. And really, the first Black Sabbath album (1970) was really a live album with no audience and a few overdubs. I'm not a visionary. I couldn't say in 25 years this was going to be a landmark album. I'm very, very proud of it."

As for Black Sabbath's obsession with the darker side of life, Ozzy remarked: "With a song like 'Iron Man', I couldn't sing a fucking love lyric could I? It's not a happy lyric. What happened, why we got to be called Black Sabbath, and why it was very dark; we used to rehearse early in the morning in a civic centre. And across the street was a movie theater and it was Geezer (Butler- bass) or Tony (Iommi - guitar) that said 'don't you find it strange that there is a horror film and people are paying money to get scared. Why don't we start writing scary music.' And we poor kids thought that was great. We didn't realize that there were people that practiced black magic and all that. But Black Sabbath was not all about Satan. We wrote about things that people were thinking, but not really talking about. Now they are talking about global warming. We were talking about wars and the effect on mankind. Geezer was phenomenal lyricist - he still is."

Watch for more of BW&BK;'s chat with Ozzy Osbourne in the coming days at BraveWords.com and expect a massive cover feature in BW&BK; #105 - out in late June.