Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford “bawled his eyes out for hours” after finding out that Ozzy Osbourne had died.
The Black Sabbath legend passed away last month at the age of 76 and Rob admits that he was an emotional wreck when he learnt of the tragic news.
The 73-year-old heavy metal rocker told Detroit radio station WRIF: “Oh, man. I got a call the day (Ozzy’s death) happened. I just put the phone down in my hotel room – I think it was in Leeds, in England, and I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it now. I’m still grieving, like so many people.”
Judas Priest played a gig in the UK the day after Ozzy’s passing on July 22 and Rob recalled how the band included a special tribute during their performance of the song Giants in the Sky.
The Breaking the Law artist recalled: “We had a show the next day. So, God, how do you process all of this tragedy, all of this love, because I’ve never seen such an outpouring of love.
“And we did the show and we came to the song that we’ll be playing when we come to see you guys – it’s called Giants in the Sky, from the Invincible Shield album – and that song talks about people that we love in music that have moved on to this beautiful place.
“We reference Lemmy and Ronnie (James Dio) and Paul Di’Anno (from Iron Maiden) and Jill (Janus from) Huntress and Chris (Cornell) and all of these greats, Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury. And then for that show we added Ozzy at the end.”
Halford hopes that people never stop talking about the Crazy Train rocker.
He said: “It’s great that we are talking about him now and we should keep talking about him forever, like I always talk about Ronnie, I talk about Lemmy.
“These are all friends of mine. And we have to celebrate – we have to celebrate. That’s the way of helping you through the grief. You think about the memories, you think about the joy, you think about the good times, and that’s what we will always do with Ozzy.”