{"id":336444,"date":"2025-08-11T19:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/336444\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:00:12","slug":"iconic-metal-drummer-says-ozzy-osbournes-death-has-made-as-big-an-impact-as-john-lennons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/336444\/","title":{"rendered":"Iconic metal drummer says Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s death has made as big an impact as John Lennon\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

A vaunted progressive metal<\/a> drummer has compared the death of Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> to the killing of legendary Beatle<\/a> John Lennon in terms of cultural impact.<\/p>\n

Talking to Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk last week, Mike Portnoy of New York luminaries Dream Theater<\/a> observes that the tributes to the late Black Sabbath<\/a> singer, who died of a heart attack aged 76<\/a> last month, transcend the heavy metal<\/a> genre.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact has been huge,\u201d the drummer tells host Eddie Trunk (via Blabbermouth<\/a>). \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve felt a loss like this\u2026 This is as big as John Lennon or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portnoy goes on to mention late hard rock and heavy metal icons Eddie Van Halen<\/a>, Lemmy Kilmister and Ronnie James Dio, and while he says those deaths were \u201cmassive\u201d, the response to Osbourne\u2019s \u201chas been a whole other level of mainstream\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he transcends metal, he transcends rock even, he transcends music,\u201d he continues. \u201cHe\u2019s a pop culture figure. So this has been a huge one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osbourne died at his Buckinghamshire home on July 22, just 17 days after he played his retirement concert, and last concert with the original Sabbath line, Back To The Beginning<\/a>. The all-day extravaganza took place at Villa Park in Osbourne\u2019s hometown of Birmingham, with a who\u2019s who of rock and metal acts supporting, including Metallica<\/a>, Guns N\u2019 Roses, Tool, Slayer and Anthrax.<\/p>\n

Back To The Beginning was a charity concert, with proceeds going to Acorns Children\u2019s Hospice, Birmingham Children\u2019s Hospital and Cure Parkinson\u2019s. It\u2019s been reported that the event will raise upwards of $190 million for those causes, but Osbourne\u2019s wife\/manager Sharon recently disputed that figure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt takes a really long time [to work out the sums involved],\u201d she told Pollstar, \u201cbecause we\u2019ve had all of the bands that we had come in and their expenses, and it\u2019ll take a good six weeks to get the final number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking to Trunk, Portnoy says that he revisited Sabbath\u2019s discography in the wake of Back To The Beginning, then again after Osbourne\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s been a great, great musical trip to be revisiting all this stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. What a career. But, yeah, what a loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osbourne had a private funeral on July 30, but his procession passed down Broad Street in Birmingham and stopped at the city\u2019s Black Sabbath Bridge to let fans pay their respects.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people showed up to see the cort\u00e8ge, with Sharon and her and Osbourne\u2019s children \u2013 Aimee, Kelly and Jack \u2013 alongside Louis, a son of Osbourne\u2019s from a previous marriage, all appearing in public for the first time since the singer died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A vaunted progressive metal drummer has compared the death of Ozzy Osbourne to the killing of legendary Beatle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-336444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115011677805568363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}