When you think sex, drugs and rock & roll there are usually two names that could possibly come to mind – Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth. Both men have made careers off their excess and partying.
But what happened in 1978, when Sabbath invited Van Halen to open for them? I guess they had plenty of downtime, because the two bands' frontmen had themselves a friendly competition.
Dangerous Minds has the entire juicy tale, but here's the meat of it:
The night before the tour stopped in Nashville, Tennessee, Roth and Ozzy decided to stay up until nine in the morning doing blow to see which one of them would faceplant first. Score one for DLR for having the balls to challenge Ozzy to a competition involving drugs without dying in the process. Somehow, both Roth and Osbourne made it to the airport, got to Nashville, and checked into their hotel. Later on when it came time to head off to sound check, Ozzy didn’t show up.
What ended up happening is a far and wide search for Ozzy, who was presumed kidnapped or perhaps dead.
Dangerous Minds even tracked down this hilarious quote from Lt. Sherman Nickens of the Nashville, Tennessee PD, emphasis mine:
“Ozzy Osbourne may have been kidnapped or been the victim of some other form of foul play. Here’s a man who makes a lot of money and has never missed a show in ten years. He doesn’t drink or use dope. He disappears and his people are so frantic. So it was possible that something had happened to this man. While all the time he’s sleeping.”
This guy clearly had his finger on the pulse.
So what happened? Well, Ozzy ended up going to the wrong hotel room and crashed there until he realized that wasn't his room and went back to the proper room where authorities found him the next day. I highly recommend reading the whole story at Dangerous Minds.
And don't feel too bad for Ozzy, it was a big decade for him and cocaine.
