Ozzy Osbourne was always able to chuckle at himself. He also raised hell, sure, but try naming another titan of metal who would relish a performance of a “fast-food metal” parody band that was forged in his name. That’s exactly what transpired in a 2018 episode of Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour, a three-season show that followed Osbourne and his son, Jack, as they traveled the world to learn more about history that interested them. A pit stop in Los Angeles changed up the format a bit: Accompanied by Jack’s daughter Pearl, the trio find themselves in a warehouse filled with twisted imagery that evokes a certain drive-through chain. (“It’s a really good surprise,” Pearl tells her “papa” in the car.) The curtains drop and the effect is supersize. Mac Sabbath emerge to play their rousing hit “Frying Pan” — don’t get it confused with Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” — with Ronald Osbourne on vocals, Grimalice on bass, Slayer MacCheeze on guitar, and Catburglar on drums. Osbourne thinks it’s hilarious, and the rest is Birminghamburger history with a side of fries. “Funny as fuck, that,” he says.
Mac Sabbath, whose members maintain anonymity behind their characters, formed in 2014 and are an active touring band on the festival circuit. While they lean heavily into their onstage “clownery,” as Osbourne put it, their lyrics are meant to provoke and encourage listeners to think about the dangers of fast food. (A sample stanza from “Frying Pan” goes, “Everybody wants it on gluten bleached flour bread / Everybody needs it till they’re fat and dead.”) Mike Odd, the band’s manager and “spokesperson” for front man Ronald Osbourne, still can’t believe their hero gave enough of a damn to watch them perform. “Ozzy was so bowled over,” he says, “that someone would use his whole life for something so specific and different.”
How on earth did this concept of fast-food metal come to fruition?
I specialize in oddities and I used to have an oddities shop on Sunset Boulevard. When you put yourself into that strange world, the weirdness just follows you and you don’t have to seek it out anymore. I would get these calls like, “Come out to my shed in Pacoima and look at my two-headed otter skeleton and make me an offer.” Or, “Come out to Chatsworth to this burger franchise to hang out, it’s going to change your life.” So I went out there and it was more of a trap. They had this kind of underground fight-club meeting in the basement to protest upper management, which was unbeknownst to them. All these people who had worked for this fast-food organization, and were protesting it, regularly made this meeting and it had a performance-art aspect to it. The curtain dropped and all of a sudden there’s these food mutants, playing these Black Sabbath riffs and screaming about Monsanto, GMOs, and the evils of fast food. That’s when I first met Ronald. He said, “It’s going to be your job to be the manager and bring this above ground, because we’ve only been doing this in secret.”
I had previously written something in the press about Black Sabbath being underrated — they didn’t just invent heavy metal, but punk, goth, and every alternative form of music that went against the mainstream. It was honest, crazy, wild, and spooky. Or for all of us weirdos, any of the music that we hold dear is owed to that band. One of Mac Sabbath’s earliest shows was an elementary-school Halloween party in Silver Lake. Then I booked them for the Zombie Walk in Long Beach. I had that filmed, edited a little video, and put it on YouTube. It blew up so big that the national news covered it. And then Black Sabbath posted it. Once that happened, we went absolutely crazy. We got an offer to play Download Fest in England with Judas Priest, Kiss, and Slipknot, then did a proper U.K. tour. After all of that happened, I was like, Oh, wow. Maybe this isn’t going to be a short thing.
Jack says in the episode that people adopt Ozzy’s music “as a part of their culture.” What’s the culture at the heart of Mac Sabbath?
Ronald asked him, “Ozzy and Black Sabbath have been here to warn the world about evil, correct?” Ozzy said, “Yes.” And Ronald responded, “Mac Sabbath is here to warn the world about the evils of fast food.” At some point Ozzy asked, “But why Black Sabbath?” And Ronald said, “Well, Black Sabbath is the best delivery system for any message.” I actually went to Birmingham and saw the Back to the Beginning show. Black Sabbath was my whole life. It’s hard to even talk about. It was so emotional, being there, breaking into tears, and then realizing it wasn’t just me. I was surrounded by all of these Vikings who were also crying. It already feels like childhood trauma that’s going to affect me later.
Who reached out to you to gauge your interest in doing this for Ozzy? Did you think you were at all being pranked?
I knew it wasn’t a prank. I had already been told by some of Jack’s mutual friends that he was a fan and that he wore the band’s T-shirt all the time. When the producers called our “people,” as scary as it was, it made sense.
How long did you have to prepare?
Oh, no time at all. It was all very ragtag and scary.
Is “Frying Pan” kind of like Ronald’s signature song? Why choose that one and not “Pair-a-Buns”?
That was the hot thing. In the video that Black Sabbath shared, “Frying Pan” was the performance. So that was the one they wanted.
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You knew Ozzy was coming and, at the very least, his son believed this would be a terrific idea. Still, how nervous was Ronald to do this? Did the “never meet your heroes” idiom scare him?
Ronald handled it so well. All of us were shocked at how the two of them got on like a house on fire. But, yeah, the nerves were really high. I remember having a conversation with one of the show’s producers and he said, “It’s going to be a surprise. Ozzy’s not going to know until the curtain drops. He genuinely has no idea.” And I said, “That’s a terrible idea.” And he went, “What do you mean? He’s going to love it.” But I was still nervous. I told him, “Well, what if he doesn’t? That’s all fine and good for you guys and the drama of your reality show, because I know that’s what you folks are like, but what happens to us if he doesn’t like it and he’s offended?” He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry about it. Trust me.”
Within ten seconds Ozzy gave the camera this gigantic grin. Do you find that the metal community generally has a good sense of humor?
One of the struggles Mac Sabbath had coming up was there were a lot of metalheads who would say, “This is disrespectful.” I would get into arguments with people because it wasn’t enough to say, “Well, Black Sabbath posted it.” People would argue, “No, they didn’t.” I would show them screenshots and they would still be like, “You Photoshopped it.” Some metalheads just couldn’t handle it. Even if Ozzy is their god, and Black Sabbath is their band, metalheads are very serious most of the time. A surprising amount of them don’t possess that humor. The funny thing is Ozzy has always been a clown. He’s always had more of a sense of humor than anybody in heavy metal or anybody on the planet. So we all knew that he would love the performance, but we still have this tiny, little worry.
I always assumed that Mac Sabbath was going to be for the heavy-metal people. What I quickly realized is that wasn’t true. It’s for everyone who’s a weirdo. It’s for everyone that has a sense of humor. It’s for everyone that appreciates a spectacle and isn’t satisfied by a band walking up there in cargo shorts and tennis shoes, and not putting in a lot of effort. What I’m finding is the band is very, very popular with high-school kids that didn’t even necessarily have any knowledge of Black Sabbath. I can’t tell you how many kids have told me that they got into Black Sabbath through Mac Sabbath. But hearing and seeing Mac Sabbath before Black Sabbath? The thought of that, at first, disturbed me and I didn’t like it.
But now I realize that it’s probably, dare I say, the band that’s helped turn most people on to Black Sabbath over the past decade. On Instagram, TikTok, or whatever the kids are looking at, they see these amazing, bright-colored, furry creatures that are popping off the screen and lighting up their little brains. They’re in, not even knowing what the music is yet. And it leads them onto the path of the band that started it all.
I know Mac Sabbath covers other heavy-metal songs. Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” was turned into “The Grouper,” for instance. Do you think someone like Bruce Dickinson would be equally flattered and humored by this sort of thing?
Oh, god. Bruce doesn’t have as extreme of a sense of humor as Ozzy. We’ll just leave it at that.
Was your entire meeting with Ozzy relegated to the camera or were you able to spend a bit more time together?
The camera was rolling almost the whole time with Ozzy. We spent a lot of time with Pearl, his granddaughter, actually. She and Ronald had a great conversation about Care Bears. She also liked what Catburglar was wearing.
Where does a tribute band possibly go after performing for the man who inspired them to do this in the first place? Did Ronald have an existential crisis afterward?
Absolutely. It was ridiculous. Everyone was just blown away. There was this sense of, What could possibly happen next? The funny thing is, I went home, and I soon got a call from one of the guys in the band who said, “Hey, can Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys take a bath at your house?” Whoever he was staying with, his water heater was out, and that’s what his ritual is before a show. Next thing I knew, Jello was in my bathtub in the same 24 hours. So I thought, Okay, I guess I’ll just die now.
Ozzy says later in the episode that “if you can’t stand the laugh, don’t fucking do it.”
Talk about getting it. Ozzy inspired everything. He’s responsible for all the music that all of us weirdos hold near and dear, that reject the mainstream and pop brainwashing. For him to say that was affirming to everything. I’m obviously still very emotional about this. The way the waves have gone has been like, I’m going to lose it. Then another wave hits and I pull it back.
