Judas Priest have long been opening their shows with a cover of Black Sabbath‘s iconic 1970 single “War Pigs.” The gesture of love toward one of heavy metal’s founding fathers was taking place before singer Ozzy Osbourne died on July 22 at age 76, and to hear Priest singer Rob Halford tell it, it will continue long after as well.
“She [Ozzy’s wife/manager Sharon Osbourne] approached me with this idea, she said, ‘I love your version of War Pigs. Is there a way we can get Ozzy?’ I was [like], ‘You’re asking me? This is gonna happen!,’” Halford told the Full Metal Jackie podcast this week.
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Halford said the band is currently going through the legal channels to clear the song, which he described as, “Ozzy singing a line and then I’m singing a line and Ozzy’s singing a line and I’m singing a line. It’s the first ever time in my entire life that I’ve been able to do a duet with Ozzy and I’m so eternally grateful and blessed that I was able to do that. When you hear it, it’s just colossal. You think that you’ve heard the one experience of Priest’s ‘War Pigs,’ but when you hear Priest’s ‘War Pigs’ with Ozzy singing on that track, it’s just going to a really special place.”
Though no release date has been announced yet, Halford said “the green button’s almost ready to go,” with the artwork being finalized. “But I think it’s gonna be pretty soon,” he said.
Halford has spoken about how gutted he was to miss the final Ozzy show because Priest was double-booked to perform with the Scorpions in Germany on the day of the all-star Back to the Beginning gig in Birmingham on July 5 that marked Osbourne’s final live performance; the band released a live version of Sabbath’s anti-war anthem prior to the Back to the Beginning show.
He recently described learning about Osbourne’s death and the emotional impact it had on him. “I just put the phone down in my hotel room… and I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours,” Halford, 74, said.
But Halford is also keen to keep a diamond in his mind about the metal god who meant so much to him, describing to Jackie who Osbourne was off-stage as well. He said that despite his Prince of Darkness public persona, Ozzy, “represented this other side of him that you didn’t see onstage, which is… He gave everything onstage. When he walked out on the stage, he was always beaming, you know? He loved his fans with such an extraordinary passion, but that existed offstage as well.” He said whenever he saw Ozzy at one of his shows the first question he would ask was “‘Did you have a good time? Did you enjoy yourself? Was it great?’”
Listen to Halford on Full Metal Jackie here (“War Pigs” talk begins at 6:13 mark).
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