Zak Starkey has revealed his regret over rejecting the possibility of playing with the late Ozzy Osbourne during his lifetime following the heavy metal icon’s untimely passing.
‘The Prince of Darkness’s passing was announced on July 22nd, aged 76, and occurred at his family home in Buckinghamshire, England. No cause of death has been revealed. Only earlier this month, Osbourne performed his farewell show at Villa Park in Birmingham, which saw him bring his touring days to a close with his original band Black Sabbath as well as a variety of heavy metal juggernauts like Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.
Now, in a new Instagram post on July 23rd, Starkey shared an email that he received years ago from Sharon Osbourne discussing the probability of him playing drums for Black Sabbath for a number of gigs and on their comeback album, 2013’s 13.
The email reads: “The guys need a drummer for their album, which will be recorded in September with Rick Rubin producing. We would probably need you for 2-3 weeks for the album. Also, they need a drummer to play at Lollapalooza which is on August 3rd in Chicago.”
While Starkey had been the longstanding drummer for The Who around the time the band released album 13, he was also struggling with tendonitis, which required him to take a break from drumming for a peroid. He would eventually rejoin The Who in 2014, but it is unclear whether this health issue contributed to his turning down the heavy metal icons.
Further on in the post, Starkey talked about not taking the gig when he had the chance, saying, “Regrets I’ve had a few – this is one.” For the album, the band would eventually settle on working with Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk, having worked with Rubin before for the supergroup Audioslave with former members of his old band and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.
Starkey also dubbed Osbourne one of the best singers he had ever witnessed, writing, “One of the greatest, natural, brilliant singers of all time. I send much love and strength to his family at this sad sad time. If u aren’t familiar with the Never Say Die record – get into it – it’s so far out.”
The former Who drummer is one of the latest in a long line of artists paying their respects to Osbourne’s memory. Outside of the greatest names in heavy metal, everyone from Elton John to Ronnie Wood to Jimmy Page has written their own commemorations to the heavy metal pioneer.
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