Blood Feuds -- They're Not Just For Rappers Anymore

Oh, how we love a good feud here at The Hammer. When it involves two of our all-time favorite old-school metal bands -- Iron Maiden vs. Black Sabbath (or more precisely, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne) -- well, that's just gravy, friends.

Here's what transpired:

"Later that evening, as IRON MAIDEN came on stage, their intro was interrupted by [BLACK LABEL SOCIETY] hanger-on and biker wannabe Big Dave, who was at the soundboard loudly chanting 'Ozzy, Ozzy' over the PA. MAIDEN opened their set and the entire band was pelted from the front row with eggs, beer, beer cups, spit, and various other objects by an Ozzfest-credentialed, bandana-wearing, Osbourne entourage. IRON MAIDEN, ever the professionals, continued through their set, and by the time they launched into their second song, 'The Trooper', Bruce changed into a civil war-era, red coat and began waving a Union Jack — British flag. Then, someone in, or associated with, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY tried to rush the stage waving and American Flag with the words 'Don't fuck with Ozzy' scrawled across his bare chest. He was tackled and beaten by MAIDEN crew and promptly thrown off stage.

"As 'The Trooper' ended, frontman Bruce Dickinson, with characteristic spunk, launched into a scathing attack on the people terrorizing his band, calling them 'a sorry excuse for an Ozzy Osbourne fan,' and wondering aloud how, 'three dozen eggs could get snuck into the front row of Ozzfest by people with Ozzfest laminates?' Though he never named names, all in attendance could understand who he was referring to. Nicko McBrain ran up to the front asking Bruce to hold on while he cleaned egg off his drums. He then stated the the next song wouldn't be heard on 'Your local cocksucking corporate radio station, wouldn't be seen on MTV anymore, and sure as hell wouldn't be played on a fucking reality TV show,' met by a huge roar from the crowd.

The whole article is much longer and more detailed, and well worth some light-hearted reading (as are the comments, some of which are just hilariously bizarre). The nut of it is that Sharon Osbourne threw a temper tantrum and decided to cheat 40,000 people -- who had paid $100 or so to be there, plus $8 a beer -- out of the show they had paid for.

Should Bruce Dickinson maybe have been a little less impolitic? I dunno; I'd always assumed that rock and/or roll was about saying exactly what the fuck you felt like saying. From a strictly bidness perspective, perhaps not, but if that's the case, a supposed savvy professional like Sharon Osbourne should have talked to Dickinson privately about it.

Though Maiden don't record or tour much anymore, there's a decent nostalgia wave of NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) at almost any given moment in the US. Also, Dickinson releases solo CDs every so often, and he moonlights as a commercial airline pilot (seriously, for a small British carrier, Astraeus Airlines). And Maiden has always had a slight leftist slant in their politics, despite the usually warlike sentiments in most metal songs. The point is, while their swag has always been an enormous cash cow for them -- far more than 95% of bands out there, even now -- their quest for entertainment dollars pales in comparison to that of the treacherous Queen Sharon, Matron And Enabler Of All Dysfunction.

So this is very entertaining stuff, this feud. In fact, some enterprising soul has set up two websites, fucksharon.com and fuckozzfest.com. Good stuff. Some satire at the bottom of the home page of the first one. Check it out for a quick chuckle.

Finally, one of my very favorite rock guitarists, Ozzy's own Zakk Wylde, weighs in on the controversy:

Is the whole thing with Iron Maiden overblown or is it for real? How did all the drama start?
This is fact and this is reality. It's not the guys in Maiden and their crew. They're a beautiful bunch of guys. Bruce Dickinson every night would be saying "Ozzy sucks," "Ozzfest blows," "Corporate America sucks," "America sucks," and all this other crap. He was bagging on America and bagging on Ozz. Ozzy's the godfather of my son. It wasn't like Bruce said those things one night. This happened every night on the 'fest. If you got signed by George Steinbrenner to play for the Yankees and every day you say "Steinbrenner sucks," "Yankee Stadium blows," "I can't stand playing for this team - it sucks ass," then why are you playing for the Yankees? Shut your fuckin' pie hole. All he had to do was go up there, play for an hour, whoop some ass and go home. The only thing Ozzy's ever done was given Maiden a stage to come over and play to the biggest audience in the summer. Ozzy would give you the shirt off his back. He'd never do a bad thing to anybody. Sharon didn't like him talking about her husband like that and talking about Ozzfest like that. It's just not kosher. The bottom line is Bruce was being a wad! You act like a cunt you get treated like a cunt! That's what happened. He's definitely not one of the guys. Everybody in their band and crew are cool. I love Maiden but he's talking about the godfather of my son, he's bagging America and all the troops are fighting overseas defending our way of life and freedom and fighting terrorism. This dickwad's taking American money and then he's gonna go home. At the same time he thinks he can badmouth America. It's not cool. He got pelted with a batch of eggs and they turned the power off on him! Go home!

Well, you can't fault the guy for his loyalty, that's for sure. Unfortunately, his politics are somewhere between Ted Nugent and Attila the Hun, and always have been. (In the video for Mama I'm Coming Home, which came out during the first Gulf War, Wylde is seen wearing a t-shirt saying "Iraq Sucks". On the tour, he frequently wore a more strident t-shirt emblazoned with either "Fuck Iraq" or "Bomb Iraq".)

To me, that doesn't really matter that much, strangely. I've read and seen enough interviews with the guy to know where he's coming from -- he could quite easily be one of my drinking buddies from back in the day. I don't let politics interfere with how a performer's efforts entertain me; activist conservatives might want to try that some time before they go running to fire up the "waaah" machine every time they see Sean Penn or Tim Robbins.

So the guy is politically oversimplistic. He's still an outstanding player with an excellent work ethic. I think it's an example for people (from whatever side) to consider as they attempt to parse people's artistic efforts through their political sentiments, which at the very least should generally be considered as honestly felt, however truncated or misguided.

I believe such sentiments might actually surprise many people on the right, who tend to assume that all musicians are Grateful Dead stoner lefties. Nowhere is this more untrue than in heavy metal, with its frequently martial themes and lyrics.

Still, I could have lived without Zakk's final exhortation to the kids.

Stay strong, keep bleeding Black Label and say your prayers for the troops! Let them kick some ass and get back home to their families!

The only thing missing was an entreaty to eat your Wheaties and say ten Hulk Hogans right after your Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Perhaps we can just start bringing them home to their families, or if not, we can at least get some real leadership in that has a plan. We've all got hands, dude, we can jerk ourselves off. We don't need Chimpco to keep doing it for us.