I photographed Black Sabbath several times before I met Ozzy, including in 1979 when Van Halen opened for them. Everyone says that Van Halen blew Sabbath off stage, but that isn’t true. I thought Van Halen were hysterically funny. I saw them at Lewisham Odeon on the night that David Lee Roth said: “Lewisham, you’re the rock’n’roll capital of the world.” But as for blowing Sabbath off… that didn’t happen. It’s a bit like Iron Maiden; as good as a support act might be, people pay their money to see the headliners.
It was on the first Blizzard Of Ozz tour in 1980 that I began to get to know Ozzy. I went with [former Classic Rock editor] Geoff Barton to cover him for Sounds and we hung out for quite a while. He was incredibly funny. Later on I went to America with Ozzy, and that’s when I started to appreciate his sense of humour.
