Rock and roll legend Ozzy Osbourne once told Satanists to “fuck off” in response to their Stonehenge invitation.
The Prince of Darkness may have championed heavy metal and darker forces in rock and roll during his time in Black Sabbath and as a chart-topping solo artist, but he had no time for Devil worship, it would seem. Osbourne‘s rejection of the invitation would backfire somewhat, with the group cursing the Crazy Train hitmaker as well as the Tony Iommi-featuring band. Writing in his autobiography, I Am Ozzy, Osbourne confirmed he had been invited by “freaks with white make-up and black robes” to perform for them at historical landmark in Salisbury. It would not be the first invite Black Sabbath received to play at Satanic gatherings, either, with Osbourne confirming he had turned down the invitations several times.
He wrote: “I couldn’t believe it when I learned that people actually ‘practised the occult.’ These freaks with white make-up and black robes would come up to us after our gigs and invite us to black masses at Highgate Cemetery in London. I’d say to them, ‘Look, mate, the only evil spirits I’m interested in are called whisky, vodka, and gin.
“At one point we were invited by a group of Satanists to play at Stonehenge. We told them to f*ck off, so they said they’d put a curse on us. Britain even had a ‘chief witch’ in those days… Mind you, we did buy a Ouija board once and have a little seance. We scared the shit out of each other.”
The Satanists did not take the rejection well and ended up with the band receiving a bizarre curse during an encounter backstage. Iommi described the moment, saying: “One night, after finishing a show, we returned to the hotel and found the corridor leading to our rooms completely filled with people wearing black cloaks, sitting on the floor with candles in their hands, chanting, ‘Ahhhh.’
“So we climbed over them to get to our rooms, but could still hear them chanting. We called security, but that didn’t work. So we synchronized our watches, opened our doors at the same time, blew the candles out and sang Happy Birthday to them. Pissed ’em off. They freaked—they were expecting us to help them conduct a Satanic mass and they got Happy Birthday instead.”
Osbourne was not all negative on the Satanists as he did say the band’s image being so closely tied with the demonic faith gave the group “endless free publicity”. He said: “The good thing about the satanic stuff was that it gave us endless free publicity.
“People couldn’t get enough of it. During its first day of release, [the band’s first album] Black Sabbath sold five thousand copies, and by the end of the year, it was on its way to selling a million worldwide.”
