WELCOME BACK
Taking time out from playing with big names, he’s made an album of his own, with Ozzy and more guesting.
BILLY MORRISON IS an ex-pat Brit living the American Dream. After leaving both his band, London industrial-punks Stimulator, and the UK at the end of the 1990s and heading to Los Angeles, he’s become a self-made success story, playing with The Cult, Ozzy Osbourne and Billy Idol and all-star covers band Royal Machines (formerly Camp Freddy). His third solo album, The Morrison Project, mashes up metal, punk, EDM and hip-hop, and features guest vocals from Corey Taylor, rapper DMC, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, Linda Perry and, on Crack Cocaine, Ozzy Osbourne.
You’ve hit the contact book hard for this album. That’s an impressive line-up of guests.
I didn’t even know I was making an album. I was just making music during covid for no reason. I ended up with probably about thirty songs. Most of them were shit, but there some great little ideas. The whole contact book thing happened just because I could hear shit in my head that I couldn’t sing: “Corey Taylor would kill this song.”
How does one go about persuading Ozzy Osbourne to sing a track called Crack Cocaine?
You don’t persuade Ozzy to do anything. I’ve had a thirty-year friendship with him, and he’s been there for me more times than anyone else in my entire life. I never say: “Let’s write a song.” He was the one who said it. We wrote it in a day. Typical Ozzy, he’s sitting there writing and he looks up and goes: [sings chorus] ‘Like crack cocaine…’ We went: “And that’s the fucking song!”
How did you get to know Ozzy in the first place?
Decades ago, I was invited by a mutual friend to a Christmas party at Ozzy and Sharon’s house. I get severe social anxiety, so I walked into this kitchen just to breathe. And Ozzy was doing exactly the same thing. We ended up talking about Cadbury’s chocolate and the Sex Pistols. Thirty years later here we are.
