Judas Priest<\/a> have long been opening their shows with a cover of Black Sabbath<\/a>\u2018s iconic 1970 single \u201cWar Pigs.\u201d The gesture of love toward one of heavy metal\u2019s founding fathers was taking place before singer Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> died on July 22 at age 76<\/a>, and to hear Priest singer Rob Halford tell it, it will continue long after as well.<\/p>\n \u201cShe [Ozzy\u2019s wife\/manager Sharon Osbourne] approached me with this idea, she said, \u2018I love your version of\u00a0War Pigs. Is there a way we can get Ozzy?\u2019 I was [like], \u2018You\u2019re asking me? This is gonna happen!,’\u201d Halford told the Full Metal Jackie podcast this week.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Halford said the band is currently going through the legal channels to clear the song, which he described as, \u201cOzzy singing a line and then I\u2019m singing a line and Ozzy\u2019s singing a line and I\u2019m singing a line. It\u2019s the first ever time in my entire life that I\u2019ve been able to do a duet with Ozzy and I\u2019m so eternally grateful and blessed that I was able to do that. When you hear it, it\u2019s just colossal. You think that you\u2019ve heard the one experience of Priest\u2019s \u2018War Pigs,\u2019 but when you hear Priest\u2019s \u2018War Pigs\u2019 with Ozzy singing on that track, it\u2019s just going to a really special place.\u201d<\/p>\n Though no release date has been announced yet, Halford said \u201cthe green button\u2019s almost ready to go,\u201d with the artwork being finalized. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s gonna be pretty soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Halford has spoken about how gutted he was<\/a> 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\u2019s final live performance; the band released a live version<\/a> of Sabbath\u2019s anti-war anthem prior to the Back to the Beginning show.<\/p>\n He recently described learning about Osbourne\u2019s death and the emotional impact it had on him. \u201cI just put the phone down in my hotel room\u2026 and I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours,\u201d Halford, 74, said.<\/p>\n 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, \u201crepresented this other side of him that you didn\u2019t see onstage, which is\u2026 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.\u201d He said whenever he saw Ozzy at one of his shows the first question he would ask was \u201c\u2018Did you have a good time? Did you enjoy yourself? Was it great?’\u201d<\/p>\n Listen to Halford on Full Metal Jackie here<\/a> (\u201cWar Pigs\u201d talk begins at 6:13 mark).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Billboard VIP Pass<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Judas Priest have long been opening their shows with a cover of Black Sabbath\u2018s iconic 1970 single \u201cWar Pigs.\u201d The gesture of love toward one of heavy metal\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[373097,350954,33128,348526,22406,372655],"class_list":["post-2026183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-full-metal-jackie","tag-judas-priest","tag-ozzy-osbourne","tag-rob-halford","tag-sharon-osbourne","tag-war-pigs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Charli-XCX-and-George-Daniel-marry-for-second-time-in.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n