Ozzy Osborne

As is something of a tradition now, we pay our respects to a recently departed musical great through the medium of Six Degrees Of Kevin Shields.

As ever, we embark upon a journey of random musical connections from a starting point to the King of Shoegaze, Kevin Shields. This time, we could only start our meanderings with heavy metals very own, Prince of Darkness, the one and only Ozzy Osborne, who we sadly lost earlier this week - just a few weeks after his final ever live show with Black Sabbath.

This journey will inevitably plough down the metal furrow, but will take a few other twists and turns along the way...

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John Michael Osborne was born in December 1948 in Marston Green, Birmingham. We could focus on the many musical ups and downs, and controversies that he has created over five decades in music, but lets not forget the early life that forged who he became.

He was one of six siblings, was abused at school, suffered with dyslexia, but did find solace performing in school plays, including several by Gilbert & Sullivan. Hearing She Loves You by The Beatles as a fourteen year old was something of a game changer, and left him knowing that he needed to be a musician. But in the meantime, there was more of a hard life to face - leaving school at 15, he worked myriad jobs, including as a labourer, trainee plumber and in a slaughterhouse. There was also a six week spell in prison aged seventeen, for small time robbery.

It was 1967 when his music career began on its long and winding path. He formed Rare Breed with Geezer Butler, who played two live shows before splitting. Next was the Polka Tulk Blues Band, which saw the pair team up with Bill Ward and Tommy Iommi - they would become Black Sabbath in 1969. The classic line-up lasted until the end of the 1970's before it started to fall apart, although the band would continue with a variety of line-ups and reunions right up to now. November 2011 saw once such reunion, with an album and tour planned, but Ward had to drop out for contractual reasons, so he was replaced for the tour by Brad Wilk.

Black Sabbath: Paranoid (Official music video)

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Photo: José Goulão

Brad Wilk was already friends with Tom Morello, when they met Zach de la Rocha in 1991, through his friend, Tim Commerford. Rage Against The Machine was born, and put out four albums between 1992 and 2000. They would reunite for the Coachella Festival in 2007, playing through to 2014. It was time again in 2020 to get back together, but plans were severely disrupted by Covid, and they stuck with it until 2024, before splitting again.

Audioslave: Show Me How To Live (Official music video)

He was also, with Commerford and Morello, a staple part of Audioslave, providing backing for the monster vocals of Chris Cornell. Then, in 2016, he, Morello and Commerford helped form a rap-rock supergroup, Prophets Of Rage, for which they were joined by Chuck D and DJ Lord from Public Enemy, and B-Real from Cypress Hill. They performed some original tunes along with a bunch of RATM, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill covers, and set out on the 2016 Make America Rage Again tour, releasing The Party's Over EP, and then an eponymously titled LP in 2017.

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B-Real, real name Louis Mario Freese, has been the co-lead rapper in Cypress Hill with Sen Dog since 1991. He was initially told that his rapping voice was too boring to stand out, so he started to adopt a more high-pitched, nasal tone. Their debut LP shifted more than two million copies, while follow up Black Sunday sold 3.4 million. This meant that they were the best selling Latino rap group of all time.

Freese contributed to the Space Jam movie soundtrack in 1996, and was also a part of the rap-metal group Kush, along with Stephen Carpenter (Deftones), and Christian Olde Wolbers and Raymond Herrera (from industrial metal band, Fear Factory).

Cypress Hill: Insane In The Brain (Official music video)

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Stephen Carpenter was influenced in his playing for The Deftones, by industrial metal band Fear Factory. He adopted the use of a seven-string guitar for their third album, White Pony, but progressed to an eight-string for albums in 2010 and 2012, before finally pulling our a nine-string instrument for 2020's Ohms.

Carpenter had taught himself guitar while he was in a wheelchair for months, after being hit by a car, aged fifteen. He learned along to music by the likes of Metallica, Anthrax and Stormtroopers of Death. By the time of White Pony, the band had adopted a wider range of influences, from trip hop and shoegaze, to hardcore and prog-rock. It was a critically well received record, and included guest vocals from Tool's Maynard James Keenan, and some additional vocals on Rx Queen by Scott Weiland.

Deftones: Back To School (Official music video)

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Photo: John Fusco / Getty Images

Scott Weiland was born with the last name Kline, but later adopted his stepdad's name. He was a mainstay of Stone Temple Pilots from their late 80's start until 2003, and then again from 2008 to 2013. He would also sing with Velvet Revolver for five years, joining forces with a several legends from Guns n Roses.

Stone Temple Pilots: Interstate Love Song (Official music video)

He was another fantastic vocalist from the Northwest U.S. scene of the early 90's, but some of the other words frequently bandied around about him provide more clues about how he lived his life - 'flamboyant'. 'chaotic' and 'substance abuse' all cropping up frequently, and indeed his addictive personality also led him to do some prison time in the late 90's.

His time in Velvet Revolver came as a result of several random connections; he used the same gym as Duff McKagan (GnR), went to the same rehab as Matt Sorum (GnR) and had played on the same bill as Dave Kushner (Wasted Youth) - and to round it off, they were also joined by Slash. It was to be his substance abuse that, as was the case with the Pilots, got him fired from Velvet Revolver.

While he would be part of acts that sold a collective fifty million records, his first solo album, whilst well reviewed, was not a commercial success. 12 Bar Blues came out in 1998, with David Fricke writing in Rolling Stone, that, "Weiland, out on his own, has simply made an honest album - honest in its confusion, ambition and indulgence. It was worth the risk." He managed to attract a fairly decent set of musicians to contribute to the LP too, with noted jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, Peter Di Stefano and Martyn Le Noble from Porno For Pyros, Daniel Lanois and Sheryl Crow (who chipped in with some accordion), all appearing.

Velvet Revolver: Slither (Official music video)

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Daniel Lanois is a Canadian producer and musician, perhaps best noted for his work with Brian Eno on U2 albums, The Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. But he has also produced the likes of Peter Gabriel, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. He had started out, as a nine year old, playing penny whistle, before learning the pedal steel guitar. He began producing music as a seventeen year old, working with local Quebec artists like Simply Saucer, working with his brother Bob Lanois.

He then started Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton, Ontario, working with people like Martha & The Muffins (which included his sister Jocelyne on bass), Ray Materick and Spoons. In 1996, he wrote and performed the music for the film Sling Blade, starring Billy Bob Thornton. And back in 1990, he had been one of several producers (also including Steve Lipson, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley) working on Hothouse Flowers second LP, Home. He produced the track Shut Up And Listen, also playing dobro on it too.

U2: Running To Stand Still (Audio only - Lanois also plays rhythm guitar)

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Liam Ó Maonlaí formed the Hothouse Flowers with his schoolfriend Fiachna Ó Braonáin in 1985, but his first band had been the punk band The Complex, back in 1979. They played a few gigs based around songs by the Pistols and The Ramones, and for that, the fifteen year old Ó Maonlaí had been joined by a twelve year old called Mark, fourteen year old Colm Ó Cíosóig and sixteen year old KEVIN SHIELDS - Ó Cíosóig and SHIELDS would go on to form My Bloody Valentine....