While the bat incident which still haunts Oz's reputation to this day can be
called an accident, the incident with the dove can be called stupidity. Here is
the story: After leaving Black Sabbath, Ozzy was rejected by many record labels.
Tony Martell, CBS records executive, signed Ozzy to a contract. Ozzy and wife
Sharon were being introduced to the head executives of CBS records in Los
Angeles (Guitar Magazine claims it was New York). CBS was not too interested in
Ozzy because they had just signed Adam Ant. Ozzy was just another album to them,
and they were not interested in the person behind the music. Sharon decided it
would be a good publicity stunt for Ozzy to walk into the office and throw two
doves up into the air. The stunt worked, and made CBS pay attention to Ozzy. It
also made the nation pay attention to Ozzy as well: After throwing one dove up
in the air, Ozzy bit the head off of the other one. It is not known whether
Sharon intended for Ozzy to actually bite the dove's head off or not. Ozzy has
already admitted he (not surprisingly) had drunk a bottle of booze beforehand.
Make no mistake about it, Sharon Osbourne is a shrewd marketer and I wouldn't
put any dirty trick past her. What follows is an interview with an eyewitness
(from Epic) who saw the event:
Q: What happened?
A: It was a normal Thursday
morning marketing meeting down in the conference room. It was just prior to the
release of Ozzy's first solo album. His management and Jet Records, which is the
associated label that puts out his albums, had arranged for him to pay a little
surprise visit to us, to say "Hi, my name is Ozzy Osbourne, and let's make
this record a hit".
Q: Is it unusual for the artist to come to a marketing
meeting?
A: No, they seldom do. We've had people from time to time just come in.
Their manager arranges for them to drop by and say, "Surprise!" just
to push the album.
Q: Then what happened?
A: He walked in with Sharon, who later
became his wife, and [withheld] from Jet Records. They introduced Ozzy all
around, and there was a photographer with them. They sat him down on the arm of
a chair, and he pulled a dove out of his pocket. I looked at it and thought,
"Gee how cute!"
Q: It was a live dove?
A: I'm ninety-nine and
nine-tenths sure it was alive, but now I can't say for sure. I remember I was
leaning forward and thinking, "How cute," and suddenly he bites its
head off. There was blood on the floor. I think he ate the head; he started
spitting some feathers out. I was in shock. It's hard to remember too much after
that, to tell you the truth. It was horrible.
Q: What was the reaction of the
people in the room?
A: There was a stunned silence, and they got him out of
there, fast. It was just very quiet-not a good reaction, I would say. People
were going, "Yucch!". Some looked as though they thought it was a fake
bird, that it was all just a publicity stunt. And others said "No, it's a
real bird and what a horrible thing to do." Personally, I thought it was an
awful thing to do even if it was a fake bird. Sharon called up afterward and
sort of apologized.
Q: Do you think it was her idea all along?
A: Oh, I know it
was. I said to her, "He's not mad, just desperate for publicity."
Q:
Did it work? Did he get the publicity?
A: I don't think it worked in getting
Epic Records to take notice, but I think it did work as far as getting the kids
to take notice. When the story leaked out, with photos and all, it got around
everywhere. I'm sure Sharon was calling columns all over the country. That sort
of became the Ozzy legend, that and all the other things he did afterwards.
Q:
Sharon said that Epic wasn't taking any notice of Ozzy before this happened. A:
I feel that people were already aware of Ozzy, prior to the meeting. My
impression was certainly that he was a major artist we were going to be working
with. I doubt if it changed our impression one way or the other, although I
could be wrong. Obviously, he went on to great success, and maybe that was part
of the reason, but who am I to say?
Q: So it was all definitely planned in
advance?
A: Definitely. It was not a spontaneous act. He just didn't walk in and
happen to find a dove hanging out in the CBS reception area and say, "Gee,
I'll take this in with me in case I get hungry and they don't have coffee and
doughnuts." It was right in his jacket pocket. Come to think of it, he had
two of them. That was it: he had two of them, one in each pocket. He let the
other one go afterwards. Everyone made him do it. He took the other one out of
his pocket and everyone screamed, "No, don't do it again!"
Q: Did the
second one fly away? That would indicate the first one was alive, wouldn't it?
A: Not necessarily. He might have had one live one and one fake one. It's just
all so hazy; I was so shocked.
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