Rocker mourns colleagues: Alice Cooper: Ozzy Osbourne “was just a great guy”

US rock star Alice Cooper (“School’s Out”, “Poison”) has commented on the death of his music colleague Ozzy Osbourne. “The strange thing is that everyone knew that it would happen at some point because Ozzy had not worked well for a long time,” Cooper (77) told the German Press Agency in London.

Nobody expected it just a few weeks after Osbourne’s farewell concert. “He looked really good on stage, he sang well, and now he is suddenly not there. It was a shock for everyone.”

Alice Cooper: “Black Sabbath have opened many doors”

The legendary British Heavy Metal singer and Black Sabbath front man (“Paranoid”, “Crazy Train”) died on Tuesday at the age of 76. According to Cooper, Osbourne’s legacy is gigantic. “Black Sabbath were the first really commercially successful heavy metal band,” said Cooper. “You open a lot of doors. And Ozzy – he was just a great guy, a good singer.”

Although he had met Ozzy Osbourne several times, he personally did not know him particularly well, Cooper reported. “We had mutual respect, I met him a few times, but he was simply not in my narrower environment – which is actually strange. It is unusual that we didn’t spend any more time together.” However, the two musicians had a lot together, said the former shock rocker, who released his new album “The Revenge of Alice Cooper” on Friday.

Common passion for the Beatles

“Something we had together and what I often noticed in interviews was that people always surprised how much we both were influenced by the Beatles,” said Cooper.

“If you listen to many of Ozzy’s solo songs, you can tell that they are all very melodic. I think that also applies to my music. No matter how hard or metallic the sound was-the melody was always in the foreground. That was something that both connected to us: our great admiration for the Beatles and the influence they had on us.”