Tom Morello Reveals His Final Conversation With Ozzy Osbourne

Tom Morello is recalling his last conversation with Ozzy Osbourne.

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Speaking to Rocklahoma Live, the Rage Against the Machine rocker revealed that the last time he saw Osbourne was at the Black Sabbath singer’s farewell concert, Back to the Beginning. Morello served as the musical director for the show, which was held in Birmingham just weeks before Osbourne’s death.

The moment came at the after party, when Jack Osbourne interrupted Morello’s game of pinball with his son.

“I finish the game and he’s like, ‘Ozzy would like to say hi,’” Morello recalled of Osbourne’s son.

As requested, Morello made his way over to Osbourne.

“I got to, one last time, kiss his head, tell him I love him, thank him for a lifetime of music,” he said. “His reply was like, ‘Could you find Sharon? I want to get the f**k out of here.’”

Morello said that the profanity-laced request to find Osbourne’s longtime wife was “the perfect coda to the night.”

Tom Morello on Ozzy Osbourne’s Farewell Concert

During a recent interview with Chicago’s Q101, Morello recalled the first time the Osbournes approached him about the farewell concert.

“It was over a year before [the show] when they reached out,” he said. “I was like, ‘If we’re going to do this thing, it’s got to be the greatest day in the history of heavy metal. If we do this right, it’s going to be the most important day in the history of that entire genre.’”

Morello made that happen, curating a lineup of artists that included Anthrax, Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and more.

“On the day, a million things could have gone wrong, and maybe like three things did,” Morello said. “It felt like a spiritually great moment for all fans of rock ‘n’ roll.”

While fans knew that the concert would be Osbourne’s last, they didn’t know the rocker would die less than three weeks after the show. Morello, however, said he believes that Osbourne might have known his days were numbered.

“The fact that he lived to play and feel that love and to one more time, you know, do ‘Paranoid,’ do ‘Crazy Train,’” he said. “If you’ve got to go out, it really felt like he knew. He had been frail for a while.”

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