Published by Cel Manero from Global One Media Inc.
In the weeks after Ozzy Osbourne’s passing, Black Label Society frontman and longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde wrote a heartfelt tribute.
Heavy metal icon Zakk Wylde has shared that he believes the massive 2025 Back to the Beginning Black Sabbath tribute concert might have become an annual event—if not for Ozzy Osbourne’s passing just weeks later.
In an exclusive interview with Metal Hammer, Wylde, longtime guitarist for Osbourne and frontman of Black Label Society, said he imagined a yearly tour giving Ozzy “something to strive for.”
“I was talking with Ozzy the whole time,” Wylde explained. “The tribute went so well that I thought we could do it once a year—tour it around the world, Brazil one year, Japan the next, then back to America. It would give Ozzy something to look forward to, all the proceeds would go to charity, and it would just be an incredible thing. That’s what I was picturing.”
The tribute, held on July 5, 2025, at Birmingham’s Villa Park, featured over a dozen of metal’s biggest acts, including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool, and Slayer. It also became Ozzy’s final live performance before his death on July 22.
Wylde’s forthcoming Black Label Society album, Engines of Demolition, closes with a track honoring Ozzy, aptly titled Ozzy’s Song. He revealed that he wrote it in the wake of Ozzy’s funeral.
“I never would have written it if Ozzy hadn’t passed,” Wylde said. “I had the music ready, but no lyrics. After returning from the UK for the funeral, I went on tour with Pantera. The day I got home, I finally wrote the words.”
Wylde credits the song’s simple title to his wife. “I remember playing it for her, and she kept calling it ‘the Ozzy song,’ so that’s what I ended up naming it,” he shared.
The track was recorded on Wylde’s legendary custom Les Paul, ‘The Grail,’ which he famously played during his early years with Ozzy.
“Adam Fuller, our longtime engineer, told me to grab The Grail for the solo,” Wylde said. “It felt right—the first song I ever wrote with Ozzy was on this guitar, and now the last tribute to him, too.”
