Slash Details Unrealized Ozzy Osbourne Studio Session, Planned After Sabbath Farewell

A week after Ozzy Osbourne’s final performance, seated on a throne at Villa Park for Black Sabbath’s career-closing Back To The Beginning, he and Slash were already talking about what came next. The conversation was brief, practical, and, as Slash now tells it, quietly optimistic: “We should get together soon.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone Australia & New Zealand, the Guns N’ Roses guitarist confirmed that the two had, for the first time, settled on a concrete plan to enter a studio together once his touring obligations were done. “I was sort of like, ‘Okay then, at some point we’ll converge on a studio somewhere.’ And that was it,” Slash said. He then left to finish the road run with GN’R.

The July show — an event Slash called the most special he’d ever witnessed — had already pushed decades of metal history into one afternoon. Slash made a point of paying respects to Tony Iommi backstage and, remarkably, introduced Axl Rose to Ozzy for the first time. “’cos they never met each other,” he said, noting that Axl didn’t know Ozzy was a huge fan of his.

But the planned session never moved beyond that phone call. Seventeen days after Villa Park, Ozzy died at 76. Slash was still on the road when he received the news. “All of a sudden, I got that fucking phone call,” he said. “I was like, ‘Jesus Christ!’ It was unbelievable.” Their long collaborative history — guest spots on each other’s records, shared stages — left an open door neither imagined would close so abruptly.