When Ozzy Osbourne and his sonJackvisited the Florida Everglades earlier this year, the younger Osbourne didnt tell his dad what he was in for. In a funny, new clip from the upcoming season of Ozzy & Jacks World Detour, which premieres Wednesday, November 8th on A&E, the Osbournes tour guide opens up a white satchel and a python emerges from it. Ozzy, were going to take you to catch pythons, one of the men says. No thanks, Ozzy says nonchalantly.
When he looks back on the experience now, the singer keeps his composure. Fuckin rats, snakes and spiders not my cup of tea, he tells Rolling Stone. There were snakes everywhere. A hurricane hit a few years ago, and there was a shelter or some fuckin place that had all these pythons and they all got out. Because each one lays 70 eggs, theres fuckin 200,000 in there now. I was in the fuckin boat and thought, Hey, this aint very cool. Theres snakes on the land and theres fuckin alligators in the water. I wasnt the ol Prince of darkness then, I was fuckin scared shitless.
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Even Jack, who attempted to help wrangle one of the reptiles, now admits he was putting on a brave face. I was very nervous, he says. Im not one of those people that sees a snake and freaks. But I was still nervous of grabbing a wild python. That was not my idea of a good time. That said, he still laughs about his fathers reaction. He was such a wuss, Jack says with a laugh. There were a couple times in this season where the tough-guy rock star went out the window.
Im English, Ozzy says. The only thing we have in England is a fuckin adder [snake], which you never see. Out here, theres all kinds of shit thatll kill you.
This season finds the pair going dirt-track racing, camping, dogsledding and fly-fishing, among other activities, all around the country. They began filming in March, weeks after Black Sabbath performed their final concert, and started the trip in Florida and went diagonally to Alaska. Unlike the first go-around, which aired on the History Channel last year, the emphasis is less on the pair learning about history and more on simply having fun. I wanted to focus on the experiential side of things, says Jack, who is one of the shows producers. So we shifted to the road trip.
Growing up, Jacks memories of Osbourne family vacations were relegated to the Four Seasons hotel in Maui and thats it, he says. I know that sounds like, How could I complain about that? But its not like we even got to do anything when we got there. They would just stay at the hotel for a week or two and get on a plane and come home. There was no, Hey, lets go hiking or Lets go check this restaurant out. My parents stay in a hotel and they do not leave.
So they used the show as an opportunity to go on holiday properly. I saw places in America that I never, ever dreamed of seeing before, Ozzy says. I thought being on the road for these 40 or 50 years, I thought Id seen everything in America. But man, Jack and I saw some fantastic sights. It was beautiful.
When they planned the itinerary, Ozzys main goal was to go places hes never been. For instance, every time I go to Utah, the only place I go is Salt Lake City, he says. But the state is fuckin awesome. We saw these mountains that looked like the ones in the cowboy films. And there was one hotel where you could stay in a wigwam, which had TVs, the bed, everything else. And we went to another place where they had a subterranean hotel room, right in the middle of this mountain. Fuckin Its unbelievable.
To see the country, Ozzy had the idea of tracking down the same kind of GMC trailer he used to tour with in Black Sabbath. After some false starts (including Jack obtaining a green one, which they had to ditch since Ozzy said green vehicles are bad luck), they found one that can be seen briefly in the snakes clip. For Ozzy, it brought back a lot of memories. Back in 1979, me and [Black Sabbath drummer] Bill Ward used to travel everywhere in them, he says. The other two would travel by air, but we went in one of these, and we had some fun in it. I think if they were to build it now the same shape with modern-day technology it would still look good.
Unfortunately, though, it wouldnt last. The vehicle eventually exploded on the fuckin freeway, according to Ozzy, about four or five days in. Jack says its all for the best. That thing was built 40 years ago, so the handling on it was not the best, he explains. It was really top-heavy, the suspension sucked, it overheated and it had no A/C. So needless to say, when it exploded on us it was a giant sigh of relief.
With new wheels, they still managed to see some memorable sights. One was an Elvis museum in a Georgia womans house. Her house has every fucking picture thats ever been in any magazine of Elvis on the wall, Ozzy says. Its Elvis for fucking days. It was crazy. The only other concert she ever went to was a Black Sabbath concert in fucking 1972 or something.
Ozzys former band also crept into the picture in an unusual way when the Osbournes caught the Black Sabbath tribute act Brownout Presents Brown Sabbath which plays latin-funk version of the heavy-metal progenitors ouevre on a stop in Texas. My dad isnt the biggest fan of cover bands; he feels kind of awkward when he sees them, Jack says. On the show, he says, If youre spending the time and energy to cover me, why dont you spend the time and energy to create something of your own. But he really liked that they had created their own sound out of the Sabbath skeleton. And he got into it.
I thought it was going to be, like, a mariachi band, they had a brass section, Ozzy says. I was like, Oh yeah, Ive heard all about this lot. But it was fucking cool, man. What I liked about it is they did Tony [Iommis] guitar riffs on the guitar and saxophones. It was great. If you ever get a chance to see em, theyre really good. Its a good vibe.
Ultimately, other than a post-trip visit to Hawaii, the road trip wraps up in Alaska, where the Osbournes went dogsledding. Its an event that blew Ozzy away. There was, like, 130 dogs, and theyre all outside, just patrolling this incredilbly dense, beautiful forest, the singer says. And this guy does this fucking Yukon thing to keep the dogs going; he makes these funny noises and the dogs know what to do. Ah, and they go left. Moo, they go right. Its fucking fun. People go, Oh, dont you think its cruel to have dogs pulling you? Dogs fuckin love it. When the guy comes out with the reins, they go, Oh, were going out for a run. Its great fun.
For Jack, whos already thinking of places to go for Season Three, hes happy he was able to spend quality time with his dad and that Ozzy was able to experience life as a normal person for once. Its awesome cause he kind of forgot that he can do this stuff, he says. I think doing things like this that he doesnt normally do has been really big for him. Cause when hes not touring, he just kind of hangs out at home. Hes not the most social person, so the fact that we are going to a new place every day and hes meeting new people, he really ends up enjoying it.