How Ozzy Recruited Guns N' Roses and RHCP Icons

William Lee | 12-02-2019

Andrew Watt, who produced and played guitar on Ozzy Osbourne's forthcoming album, has explained how he got involved with the metal legend and recruited Guns N' Roses icon Duff McKagan and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith to make the record.

Ozzy will be releasing that new album "Ordinary Man" early next year and it came after Osbourne made a guest appearance on the hit Post Malone song "Take What You Want", which was produced by Watt.

Andrew recently sat down with Billboard and explained how that collaboration came to be, and also went into more details about the making of the new Ozzy Osbourne album.

He had this to say about the Malone collaboration, "One night, Post was at the Rainbow Bar & Grill and saw this picture of Ozzy, and he bought it and took it home. When I heard that, I had this image of him walking down Sunset with that picture, and I was, like, 'I gotta make a song for Post and Ozzy.' I've said insane sh*t out loud before, and this was one of those times.

"I'd never met Ozzy before, but I had met his daughter [Kelly Osbourne]. I told her my idea and asked if she thought her dad would be into it. She's a Post fan, so she's, like, 'Yes, absolutely.' Then Ozzy got really sick and was in the hospital, so it was, like, 'He's gonna do it,' but then his health was taking longer, and it was, like, 'Is he gonna do it?' I just kept staying on Kelly and [Osbourne's wife] Sharon, and eventually they told me to come over. So we did it. That experience was incredible."

Watt went on to say the following about the new Ozzy album, "The day after [the vocals for 'Take What You Want' were recorded], Ozzy texted me, like, 'I want you to make an album with me.' I was, like, that would be amazing, but can I do this? I picked up the phone and called up Chad Smith. I said, 'Dude, Ozzy just asked me to make an album for him. Are you down to do it?' And he said, 'Are you f***ing kidding me? When?' Then I called up Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses and he said, 'Are you f***ing kidding me? When?'

"We wrote and recorded Ozzy's entire album, musically, in four days. There was no premeditation. The three of us just got in my basement, put on headphones, looked at each other, and wrote 12 songs, 10 of which constitute the album. It was magic. I don't even remember it. Then Ozzy came over to my basement to listen to the music. I played him all 10 tracks at full volume, and at the end he just goes, 'It's cool.' And my heart just f***in' went into my gut. He was, like, 'I'll call you tomorrow.' Stands up, gets his cane, goes upstairs. I go, 'Oh my God, he hated it! What do I do?'

"He calls me the next day, like, 'Okay, so when do we start writing?' I sound like I'm making this up, but he comes over the next day, and we made Ozzy's entire album from top to bottom, all music, guitar solos, all vocals written, in four weeks.

"It's the proudest of anything I've ever been, because it brought the 12-year-old kid out of me again. Don't get me wrong, I love the pop music that I make, but this is what I feel like I was born to do: play rock guitar. I got to be f***in' Randy Rhoads in 2019."