Rob Halford of Judas Priest speaks about Ozzy Osbourne’s death

Rob Halford discussed Judas Priest‘s absence from the “Back To The Beginning” concert in Birmingham, UK, which marked Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final performance, in a recent interview with Jonathan Clarke, host of “Out Of The Box” on Q104.3, New York’s classic rock station. This is what he stated, transcribed by blabbermouth.net.

We’d been approached by Scorpions a long, long time before any of the incredible Sabbath/Ozzy event was taking place [to play with them in Hannover, Germany on the same day]. So we’d made a commitment — we’d made a commitment to do the show for Scorpions. We’d known those guys forever. And so we were locked in. We were locked in to do the show. And that was it. So when we got the call, ’cause we heard there were rumblings it was coming together. It was coming together. And in my heart I thought, ‘Sharon’s gonna reach out. She’s gonna reach out. I just know it. I don’t how we’re gonna deal with saying we’re really, really, really sorry.’ And that’s how it evolved into being that dilemma. So while Ozzy was doing his thing in Birmingham, we were doing our thing on stage in Hannover, Germany.”

Just before the event, Judas Priest released a cover of “War Pigs”.

I think we made something of our love for the band when we did the homage of ‘War Pigs’, when Priest did a version of ‘War Pigs’ that was so wonderfully accepted by everybody, so graciously accepted. We didn’t know what was gonna happen. We went in the studio with the feeling that this is a Sabbath song, a great classic Sabbath song. We’re not gonna mess it up. We’re gonna give it the homage and the respect that it deserves. And so we did make that contribution, and I’m glad that we were able to do something to that event and be a part of that beautiful day.

Halford shares when he found out that the Prince of Darkness passed away.

Oh, yeah. We’d just flown over from one of the last dates in Europe. We’d gone into the U.K. for a day off, and the next day we had a U.K. show. And I got a call from our manager, Jayne Andrews. She said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ She goes, ‘Ozzy’s gone.’ I go, ‘What do you mean Ozzy’s gone?’ ‘He’s passed away.’ I said, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, I just heard the news.’ I knew it wasn’t a joke, but your brain is going… because you think I’m still buzzed, I’m still high, like we all were, from the show. I was watching clips of it all the time. People were sending me, ‘I’m here. Check this clip out,’ blah, blah, blah. And so I was still there, I was still in that celebration, the party, the beautiful experience that it provided for so many people at the Aston Villa football ground and online to millions of people around the world. We were all still going, ‘Yeah. Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy.’ And then I get this news, and I can’t talk. I can’t talk. And I sat there stunned, like we all were. And then my phone starts pinging, and I go, ‘It’s real. It’s real.’ And you’re just trying to make sense of it, man. You can’t. My head’s spinning. And then the tears start. And I was lost, like we all were lost when we had the news that day.

Thankfully, Osbourne was able to perform one last time before saying farewell.

We’re all sitting still thinking about that side of the way he left us. And I’ll just give you my personal point of view. He was such a strong man in battling Parkinson’s, like Glenn is doing right now still. But he just got to the point where I think he knew, with the other things that were going on with his body, the clock was ticking. And I know it took Sharon a year to put this halting thing together — bless her — and when all of these bands were piling in, my heart’s going, ‘God, I wish I could be there. I wish I could be there.’ But then, of course, we have the show. We are watching him, and we’re crying when he is singing ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’. And then he has all these great other Ozzy tracks. And then the big moment with Sabbath, with the real — I’m not gonna say the ‘real’ band; that’s a cruel expression. But the band we love in that respect. Bill’s on the drums, Geezer’s on the bass, Tony’s on the guitar, Ozzy’s on vocals, and there it was — there was Sabbath. So all this joy and celebration and love and everything. You could see it in his face. He was lit up. I’ve never seen him so happy. So then, how do you think he felt when he went home to Windsor the next day and got in his chair and just sat there? It’s done. It’s done, it’s done. I think somehow your body says it’s time to let go. You take a deep breath and, and you just let go. Parkinson’s is a really, really fucking cruel, horrible disease. And it chips away at your life — it chips away at your life slowly and slowly and slowly. And maybe he thought, ‘I’m not making that exit that way. I’m going my way.’ And if he did that, God bless him even more.