Popular SiriusXM radio host Eddie Trunk recently discussed former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne being forced to postpone all of his 2019 tour dates to 2020 after having a fall at home that aggravated a 2003 injury. Trunk said that while he has an immense amount of respect for Ozzy, saying that Black Sabbath are solely responsible for the heavy metal genre, that it is time for him to retire due to his health issues.
Trunk praised bands like Rush that knew when to step away, saying that his final vision of seeing Rush live was of seeing a band in their performing prime. He said he’d love to see Osbourne live another ‘100’ years doing whatever makes him happy, and that a realistic goal for Osbourne could be to play festivals on a limited basis.
He said it’s sad when you see the ‘wheels coming off’ for artists who stay ‘too long at the party.’ He praised UFO for retiring, despite them being his heroes.
“If you are in a high energy hard rock, heavy metal performing band, you’ve got to know when to say when. Look at what we’ve had just happen to this guy in the last few months. We had him get sick, then that turned into pneumonia, cancelations, and now he has fallen down, he is injured, old injuries being compounded from this injury due to the press release. Why?
I get, ‘I love the fans, I’ve got to be out there for the fans.’ Really, come on, why? If you’re really a fan of an artist, would you rather see them literally falling apart before your eyes, with cancelations, inability to perform, inability to sing, how many bands? This is not relegated just to Ozzy, but how many times are we seeing this with these older artists?”
He also brought up KISS, who first did a farewell tour 20 years ago, and how they’ve clearly stuck around too long, as they now do not have two original members on their latest farewell tour.
