In an Osbournes Podcast episode from recently, Ozzy Osbourne talked candidly about how his stage fear has become worse over time.
The musician went on to claim that performing in places like Los Angeles, New York, London, Birmingham, Tokyo, and Sydney was a unique experience for him.
“My stage fright over the years was getting worse and worse, and I’d think I’d psych myself into losing my voice.”
Morrison On Ozzy’s Self-Pressure
Billy Morrison, the show’s guest, then intervened and said:
“I remember that. I remember talking to you in the quick-change halfway through, and you were so hard on yourself. You would do it to yourself. Now we’re talking about it. I mean, I couldn’t say that at the time. I watched you.”
Ozzy added, sharing his perspective before a show at the time:
“‘I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail.’”
Morrison recalled the following after the singer’s words:
“I watched you do it, and then you’d go out, and then you you’d f*ck up a song, and then you’d come back in. You’d go, ‘I told you. I knew I was going to do that.’”
Osbourne Speaking On His Pre-Show Mindset
Osbourne continued by describing his pre-gig feelings:
“It wouldn’t start just before the gig. It would start from the moment I woke up in the morning. ‘I am going to fail tonight,’ and I would be thinking that all f*cking day.”
After Billy said that he always had that, Ozzy said:
“To a certain degree, every singer must have that, but as I got older, it got worse and worse. It really got worse and worse, and I mean to the point I was, I’d be f*cking insane. Sharon [Osbourne] would look at me, and I’d go, ‘Don’t f*cking say that.’”
Ozzy’s Ongoing Battle With Stage Fright
The singer discussed his continuous battle with stage anxiety in a 2022 interview with Metal Hammer, attributing it to ingrained anxieties from his early years. He mentioned:
“Fear was a big thing with me as a little boy. It still is, with my stage fright, thinking I’m going to fail and all the rest of it. You wake up, and you feel afraid, but you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Someone once said to me, ‘If you build a wall on dodgy foundations, it’s not going to be very safe.’ And that’s kind of what I am, you know.”
He added the following about his early experiences of fear and anxiety:
“As a kid, I used to run down the road, and if I trod on a cracked paving stone, I thought something bad was going to happen. I guess I was just born with it. I’ve always felt that way. But that’s where the alcohol and the drugs came in because they nullified that feeling.”
Osbourne will appear on Morrison’s next solo album, “The Morrison Project,” which is scheduled for release on April 19, as was just revealed.
Below, you can listen to the entire episode.