Ozzy Osbourne Reveals Why He Didn’t Listen To Dio Era Songs From Black Sabbath

In a new episode of OzzySpeaks on SiriusXM, Ozzy Osbourne praised his Black Sabbath replacement, Ronnie James Dio, for doing “a good job” even though he never listened to the albums the band made with Dio.

Although it was true enough that being replaced in a band that he co-founded was a tough pill to swallow, the Prince of Darkness did not hesitate to say that “Ronnie did a good job.” He said:

“At the time I was fucking sad because … they were the only thing that ever really happened to me.”

Osbourne also noted that his former bandmates also did a good job in getting somebody completely different and not hiring an Ozzy sound-alike. However, even though he respected Dio, he never listened to Black Sabbath’s Dio-era albums. He explained:

“It’s like my ex-wife … [when] you leave a band like that, it’s just like getting divorced.

“You don’t go, ‘How’s your new bloke? Is he better than me?'”

Meanwhile, Iommi also praised his former bandmate and called it “a really exciting period for us” referring to the duration of time when they worked with Osbourne. The guitarist added:

“Ozzy was great, but Ronnie was a different singer altogether.

“We wanted somebody who was different; we didn’t want to bring somebody in who was gonna sound similar to Ozz. So it was good to have somebody totally different, and Ronnie’s voice and the way he approached the songs allowed us to be able to try different things in a different way than what we’d done before. It opened up a lot more variety for us, really.”

Looking back, Osbourne eventually reunited with Sabbath from 1997 to 2006, again from 2011 and until their retirement in 2017. Despite that, the singer acknowledged that the Dio period was also a fruitful one. He stated:

“Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened because they had a good start again.”