After releasing two of the greatest metal albums of all time, Ozzy took a break as he struggled with the grief of losing his friend and virtuoso guitarist Randy Rhoads. If there was some sort of "edge" that the odd-defying, drug- and drink-guzzling Ozzy could sail over, he did after Rhoads passed. The image of a solemn Ozzy, Rudy Sarzo, Kevin DuBrow (RIP), and Tommy Aldridge carrying Randy's coffin is as surreal as the airplane crash that took the life of the way-too-young guitarist.
To this day, Ozzy has difficulty putting the tragedy behind him as, in his words, it's not something that you ever "get over." As we all know, despite not wanting to go on, Ozzy did at the urging of his wife, Sharon. He finished the Diary of a Madman tour with Bernie Tormé (RIP) in Randy's place and eventually, Pete Way (RIP), who replaced Rudy Sarzo before the tour concluded.
For his next album, Ozzy dug deep into his bag of heavy metal mind tricks, reinventing his persona and becoming, temporarily though memorably, a werewolf for his 1983 record, Bark at the Moon. In his 1997 compilation album, Ozzy mused about a source of inspiration for the title track of the record in the liner notes:
"The title for this song actually came from a joke I used to tell where the punch line was 'eat shit and bark at the moon.' I'd had the vocal line for this, and Jake (guitarist Jake E. Lee) came up with the riff. It was the first song we wrote together.".
Bark at the Moon was a wildly successful record, going gold in the U.S. within a few weeks of its release. If there had been any doubts that Ozzy would be able to rebound from Randy's loss and his notorious use of illicit party favors as a way to dull the pain, they were now gone.
As he has always done during his career, Ozzy continued on with his special brand of theatrics by becoming a werewolf with the help of FX artist Greg Cannom. Cannom had previous experience making people into werewolves for director Joe Dante's 1981's flick The Howling and turned Michael Jackson into a dancing werewolf for Jackson's Thriller video.
For the photoshoot, Ozzy once again relied on legendary heavy metal photographer Fin Costello, who shot images of Ozzy for both Blizard of Ozz and Diary Of a Madman.
According to Costello, he and Ozzy would meet up at Ozz's favorite place, the pub, and pour through books and photos of werewolves to find the right look for Osbourne's heavy metal wolfman. The shoot was scheduled for October at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, where scenes for Blade Runner, Alien, The Omen, and The Song Remains the Same were also filmed.
The session at Shepperton was approximately five-hours long, with Ozzy arriving at 6 AM (!) ready to become a werewolf in the freezing cold. The process took around eight hours and a total of twenty photos made the cut–and we've got a few you might not have seen before.
Take a look at even more outtakes over at Getty Images.
