Carmine Appice, legendary drummer has drummed alongside some of the most iconic names in rock – from Jeff Beck to Pink Floyd. However one of his most famous endeavors was with Ozzy Osbourne on the highly acclaimed ‘Bark at the Moon’ tour. Here, Appice discusses his initial falling out with Sharon Osbourne. The former Black Sabbath frontman would recently reveal his recording with this late musician. Alternative Nation transcribed the following comments from our exclusive interview.
AN: Let’s talk about Ozzy Osbourne. Sharon stated you were too big for that situation. How do you feel about that looking back?
Carmine: It was sad really. The band, the day she fired me, the band was on fire. We’d all congratulate each other after the show. She (Sharon) called me in there, I always had my own manager, my manager signed the contract. They called me, I didn’t call them. At the time I was a spokesman for a drum company, making big money, I’m talking 6 figures as a spokesperson. I was going around the world and country promoting, including Macy’s in the electronic dept. where hundreds of people would show up and demonstrate these drums.
At this time I was in France for an electronics convention with my wife. We were there for about a week. My manager called me and said Sharon Osbourne wants to talk to you. My manager said I think she wants you to play with Ozzy. I knew Ozzy from Black Sabbath. In the first American shows, they played with Cactus. We almost got in a fistfight over a bag of pot. It was all over Circus magazine.
Carmine: So, I called them and they said can you come to London? Where are you? I said Paris. We’d like you to play with Ozzy. I said Ok. Pay for it and I’ll go. I went, we jammed. I played some of their songs. My management put together a deal. Part of the deal was for me to go to NY and finished the Bark at the Moon album because they didn’t like the drum sound. Can you go in there and finish the album with Ozzy and you can be an executive associate producer on the album.
Carmine: We’ll pay you a bonus every time the album went gold. I said Ok. We went there and did that. Sharon put Ozzy in my custody, which I thought was wild. We’d walk to the studio from the hotel and Ozzy would be wearing these diamond rings and I told him to take them off, you can’t wear that in Manhattan. Wearing a mink coat and diamond rings, you’re gonna get mugged. We took the supersonic jet to England and did the video for Bark at the Moon. I couldn’t go to the rehearsals in England because my visa wasn’t ready. I went to England with notes and we played our first show on the European tour in my contract it said I had my merch and when I booked masterclasses every day I wanted to, it was part of my deal. In England, I didn’t do any masterclasses so everything was fine.
