OZZY OSBOURNE: 'I'm Basically A Rock 'N' Roller. That's My Passion.'

BBC News recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the motivation for his tenth studio album, "Scream":

Ozzy: [Joking] "It's called my wife Sharon's left boot.

"It's what I do.

"With that TV thing I do, I did that reality thing for a few years. That's not really what I'm about. That was a kind of an experiment that went crazy. It was okay for my ego for five minutes but I'm basically a rock 'n' roller. That's my passion."

On Ozzfest's return to London's O2 arena in September, with a lineup including KORN, MURDERDOLLS and SKINDRED:

Ozzy: "We're giving a platform for new bands to play.

"When I started out with BLACK SABBATH all them years ago, we used to go around and play clubs and bars, play anywhere. There were no places to facilitate bands then.

"There's been a lot of successful bands that have come out of Ozzfest. It's been really good."

On his new song, "Let Me Hear You Scream", recently debuting on U.S. crime drama "CSI":

Ozzy: "Sharon goes: 'Ozzy! Come in here!' And they're playing and I'm looking and going, 'What am I watching?'

"It was so foreign with all the racket going on in there and I'm thinking my wife's gone nuts. Then I listened and it was pretty cool. That's a new one for me.

"Sharon took to TV like a duck to water, but I don't like doing all this corporate stuff. I don't know anything about it. It's like a wild experiment that went wacky, you know."

On being entirely innocent to the advantages of using new technology — be it Twitter, Facebook or even the Internet:

Ozzy: "I don't own a computer, I couldn't work one if I tried. I don't own a cellphone, I have an assistant.

"Do you know when that hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans it shut everything down and they didn't have a back-up system and so everyone relied so much on this stuff that people were dying because they couldn't get any help.

"We all rely on this technological stuff so much the art of conversation is dying — in fact, I get in the car with my assistant and my wife and they are on the phone all the time and I am sitting there like a dork."

On the possibility to a sequel to his biography, "I Am Ozzy":

Ozzy: "The guy, Chris (Ayres),who did the ghost-writing said to me at the time when I asked, him if he had enough for the book? and he said he had enough for another book. So when I saw him doing a column in The Times, I said, ' Are you joking or do you have enough for another book?' and he said, 'I've got it waiting.'

"So if I get struck by lightning today, there'll be another book."

Read more from BBC News.