I Am Ozzy: The classic autobiography from Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy metal music icon and frontman of Black Sabbath

by Ozzy Osbourne

I hung out a lot with Lemmy from Motörhead on that tour, too. He’s a very close friend of the family now. I love that guy. Wherever there’s a beer tent in the world, there’s Lemmy. But I’ve never seen that man fall down drunk, y’know? Even after twenty or thirty pints. I don’t know how he does it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outlived me and Keith Richards. Motörhead opened a few shows for us on that tour. They had this old hippy bus – it was the cheapest thing they could find – and all Lemmy would carry around with him was this suitcase full of books. That’s all he had in the world, apart from the clothes on his back. He loves reading, Lemmy. He’ll spend days at a time doing it. He came up to stay with us at the Howard Hughes house one time, and he wouldn’t leave the library. Don Arden found him in there and threw a fit. He stormed to the lounge and shouted, ‘Sharon! Who the fuck is that caveman in my library? Get him out! Get him out of my house!’ ‘Relax, Dad. It’s just Lemmy.’ ‘I don’t care who he is. Get him out of here!’ ‘He’s in a band, Dad. They’re supporting Ozzy.’ ‘Well, for Christ’s sake at least get him a deckchair and put him out by the pool. He looks like the undead.’