There have been innumerable jokes about Black Sabbath's final tour carrying on for the next few years, and rightfully so considering these "farewell" tours tend to be anything but that. Though with two dates in Birmingham this upcoming February and comments from the band over the course of the past year, it really does seem like Black Sabbath will meet its end in 2017.
All that being said, Ozzy Osbourne assures his fans that it's just Black Sabbath that's retiring – not Ozzy. In an interview with Billboard, Osbourne states that he'll be continuing his solo career post-Sabbath because he loves it… and kind of takes a shot at the whole "cheating on Sharon" bit with some clever wording below.
"It's not me that wants to retire; it's Black Sabbath. I'll be continuing my own musical thing. My wife is good at telling me partial information, y'know, but I know I'm not hanging 'em up for awhile. Being Ozzy Osbourne solo again is not a job. It's a passion. It's a love. It's the biggest, greatest love affair of my life."
Historically, solo Ozzy has been awesome, so maybe he'll continue that streak in 2017? As for the whole Bill Ward thing, Ozzy sort of skirts the topic in the below quote, starting off by mentioning all four members and then sort of never mentioning a number again. So maybe Bill Ward will come back for the final two shows? Maybe?
"It's great. I'm having a blast with it," Osbourne says, though the emotion of saying goodbye hasn't kicked in just yet, he notes. "Right now I'm OK with it. I'm sure as it starts counting down to five shows left or something, it's gonna be kind of emotional, I think. I mean, we started off as four guys from Aston who had a dream and it became true beyond our wildest dreams. And then we were manipulated, we were ripped off, we were conned, all of the above. We lost each other within each other, if you like. But it's great to have got this back just to end on a high note, y'know?"
So to wrap all that up – definitely new solo Ozzy post-Sabbath, Bill Ward's participation in the final Sabbath shows still unclear. Meanwhile, Sharon has said she hopes Ozzy will retire in about two years.
Ozzy will be plenty busy this summer when his new travel show airs on The History Channel. Here's a trailer.
