Gary Graff of Billboard reports:
Though it wasn’t released until more than two months after his death, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford says his longtime friend Ozzy Osbourne was able to hear and was, in fact, pleased with Priest’s new version of Black Sabbath‘s War Pigs (listen here) that features Osbourne’s vocals.
“The absolute thrill for us all is he, with [manager wife] Sharon [Osbourne], listened to the final, finished mixing and he was grinning – he was smiling and he was very happy,” Halford exclusively tells Billboard. “This all came back to us in a note from Sharon, saying he was absolutely thrilled and delighted that we go to do something together musically in this particular way. So for him to do that and then two weeks later to go where he went was just unbelievable…”
…“It was very beautiful but very poignant for us to unite for the first time ever in the history of both (acts) on a song that’s beloved by millions of metalheads around the world,” Halford says. “To put these two bands — Priest and Sabbath — together in this format is just sensational.”
The new War Pigs, with a pre-existing recording of Osbourne singing the track from Black Sabbath’s 1970 album, Paranoid, was an outgrowth of some challenging logistics that surrounded the Back to the Beginning show…
…“The way I sing on this particular song is in the same kind of realm as Ozzy,” he explains. “I would never say I’m trying to copy Ozzy; it’s just the way… maybe something in the water in Birmingham — or in the beer in Birmingham, ’cause we were both drinkers. But we have voices that are very, very close to match up. It’s kind of spooky — when Ozzy sings, when I sing, the way the two voices are put together it’s absolutely magical. We’re all just so happy that we were able to do justice to such a great moment in metal.”
Read more at Billboard.
4 Responses
Guess that answered my question, about whether Ozzy recorded new vocals for this version, or if they used pre-recorded tracks.
Mine too! In a way I’m glad that’s how it was done. No disrespect to Ozzy, but I knew he couldn’t sing as well as he is in that song and figured they were faking it with an Ozzy sound-a-like clone. Now I can at least fully enjoy the song without thinking there was some trickery going on.
🙂
This was done to perfection IMO. Seeings that Rob was devistated that he couldn’t make the Back To The Beginning show, can’t think of a better way for the mighty Priest to pay tribute! I was at the show in Detroit last week. When they played Giants In The Sky and Ozzy was shown on the screen at the end, you could have heard the crowd roar for miles!!!! (while shedding tears at the same time….)