Singer Alice Cooper has said his fellow rock star Ozzy Osbourne was a “lifer”, praising him for performing until he “couldn’t do it any more” after the Black Sabbath frontman died earlier this week.
The 77-year-old US singer spoke about Osbourne at a launch event for the original Alice Cooper band’s first album in more than 50 years, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, at London’s Union Chapel.
He said: “Ozzy was like us, he was a lifer, we call certain people in this business lifers, people who are going to do it until they can’t any more.
“Pete Townshend, The Beatles and the (Rolling) Stones, those guys are still going because it’s their life, it’s not financial, it’s because it’s what we love doing, and Bob Dylan still does 150 shows a year.
“We got into this thing in high school with the attitude that we were going to do this until we couldn’t do it any more.
“Ozzy finally came to the end of that, and he was a lifer, he would’ve gone on as long as he could go, and you’ve got to give him all the credit in the world, he was physically in not good shape, and he still did it.”
Osbourne, who fronted Black Sabbath on classic tracks such as Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs, and also had a successful solo career, died on Tuesday “surrounded by love”, after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2019.
His death came just weeks after the singer, who is often cited as inventing heavy metal with Black Sabbath, performed his last gig with the band at Villa Park in their home city of Birmingham.
Cooper added: “The other day somebody asked me about it, and I said, ‘well, a giant boulder has crashed, but rock will roll on’.”
Speaking about his own band, the School’s Out singer hinted that they could reunite on stage at his billed solo concert at London’s The O2 on Friday.
He teased: “I don’t know if you’re going to be there tomorrow night, but you never know what’s going to happen.”
Cooper went on to say that the reunion album may not be the band’s last.
He added: “Someone said to me the other day, ‘you know on a one-off project like this’, I said, ‘woah woah, what do you mean on a one-off project? Who says this is a one-off project?’.
“We’re having a really good time, we’re really enjoying the process, and we’ve really enjoyed the reception for the record.”
Forming as Alice Cooper in 1968, the band went on to release seven studio albums between 1969 and 1973, which featured tracks such as UK number one single School’s Out, and top 10 hits such as Elected, Hello Hurray and No More Mr Nice Guy.
After the band played their last show in 1974, singer Cooper, formerly named Vincent Furnier, took on the name for his solo work, which saw him move to a heavy metal sound as opposed to the original band’s hard rock.
The Revenge Of Alice Cooper is released on Friday.
