"He'd Drop Stink Bombs and Run Out Cackling!"

After then-unknown band Ugly Kid Joe played the Randy Rhoads benefit show in March 1992, Ozzy invited them out on tour. Frontman Whitfield

Crane remembers the life-changing experience

HOW DID YOU REACT WHEN YOU HEARD YOU WERE GOING ON TOUR WITH OZZY AND MOTÖRHEAD?

“I remember distinctly being told we were up for the Ozzy tour and wanting it more than anything else I’d ever wanted in my life. Ozzy Osbourne, Motörhead… Ugly Kid Joe? When we got it, we jumped up and down like those people you see in awards shows, in some shitty hotel in Houston or whatever. We were living in a motorhome at that point! All of a sudden, we were hearing through the grapevine that we could get a tour bus. We’d seen one from outside but never been in, so we walked in and it was like, ‘No fucking way’ – these 23-year-olds on tour with Ozzy Osbourne.”

WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF MEETING OZZY?

“I would go hang out with him and sit in his dressing room. I wanted to be in that dude’s shadow so much. He’s a hero – he’s everybody’s hero! I’d even go out and sing soundcheck with the band. Ozzy is a funny dude, though. It was a dry tour because he needed to stay sober, so we were drinking a shit-ton of beer on the down-low, worried that we’d get kicked off the tour for such behaviour. But then Ozzy sent two cases of beer to our room! We thought it was a trick, but he was happy so long as we kept it back in the rooms.”

WHAT DID YOU GET UP TO BACKSTAGE? “We’d come offstage so excited because a crowd kicked ass, and there’d be this knocking at the door – ‘kah-kah-kah!’ Every time it was, ‘Uh-oh, it’s him again’, and there he’d be, Ozzy Osbourne in his stage clothes and black eyeliner, like, ‘Let me in!’ And we were like, ‘No!’ because he loved to come in and drop these little glass vials with really pungent, disgusting stink bombs and then run out cackling while we had to stay there all night! We hated it, but come on… we loved it.”