Black Sabbath Tested And Educated Rival Sons
Rival Sons frontman Jay Buchanan has shared the story about how the band landed the coveted gig of being the opening act for metal legends Black Sabbath's farewell tour.
The band has since graduated to headlining status of their own and are preparing to hit the road with Stone Temple Pilots for a North American coheadlining tour.
Jay spoke with The Art And Span Show ahead of the trek and shared his band's Black Sabbath experience. He said, " We had played an awards ceremony out in Los Angeles where we were being honored for something.
"It just so happened that Ozzy and Sharon [Osbourne were] there, along with a long list of living legends. We played a couple of songs and really burned it down. After that set, we were out in the press tent area doing interviews and different things, and we passed by Ozzy Osbourne. He and Sharon just start talking to us and they're loving it.
"A couple of days later, they contact our management. They say, 'You guys need to make it down to Brazil for Monsters Of Rock.' I think they were getting a litmus test to see how we did playing in front of 100,000 people, how we handled a big stage. We did that. Then they asked us to be the sole opening act for Sabbath's final tour. That tour lasted over a year."
The experience had a huge impact on the band. Jay explains, "What they effectively did is they gave us the opportunity to receive an education that you can't get any other way: 'Hey, we'll give you our arena for 45 minutes every night. There you go. Go learn how to be an arena band.'
"And they did that for over a year. That is real. That is a real leg up. That's what you read about in the books for other bands getting a leg up from another legend. They gave us that opportunity and it absolutely gave us that taste of blood. After that tour, we decided we will never eat at the kids' table again. We're going to do this for real now."
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