Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett opened up about how he felt when he toured with Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne and revealed a story when he and late bassist Cliff Burton encountered Osbourne.

As you may know, Metallica supported Ozzy Osbourne for five months, headlined a string of U.S. dates between May 23 and June 7 with Armored Saint during their The Damage, Inc. Tour which aimed to support Metallica’s third studio album, ‘Master of Puppets.’ The incident gave both Metallica and Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne the opportunity to work together.

During a recent interview with Icons, Kirk Hammett opened up about working with Ozzy Osbourne and revealed that Black Sabbath has been the ultimate band all this time according to him. Thus, having the opportunity to tour with Ozzy Osbourne was a blessing for Hammett.

Here is what Kirk Hammett said about touring with Osbourne:

“To me, at that point, Black Sabbath was the ultimate, and even to this day I still feel that. And to be touring with the lead singer, the former lead singer of Black Sabbath was just a huge thing.“

In addition, Kirk Hammett also revealed a story of him and Cliff Burton when they both tried to get Osbourne’s attention by playing Black Sabbath’s riffs and songs. One day, while the two were playing probably ‘Hole in the Sky’ or ‘Symptom of the Universe,’ finally they encountered Ozzy Osbourne and apparently, had a long conversation about Black Sabbath.

Here is what Hammett said about his and Cliff Burton’s conversation with Osbourne:

“And being a huge Randy Rhoads fan and ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ fan too, that definitely played into it. For Cliff, it really, really meant a lot – I think more to him than anyone else. And all he could talk about the entire time was Black Sabbath. During soundcheck, he was always playing Sabbath riffs in the hopes that he’d get Ozzy’s attention.

And I remember one time – what were we playing, maybe ‘Hole in the Sky’ or maybe ‘Symptom of the Universe,’ or something during soundcheck. And all of a sudden, out in front of the stage there’s Ozzy with a big ole smile, going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ And oh my god, it was amazing for us to be acknowledged by Ozzy during that soundcheck!”

Kirk continued:

“And I remember looking over at Cliff, and Cliff just had the biggest smile. Whenever he’s happy, he’d do the slow-motion walk. But whenever he could, he’d always mention Black Sabbath to Ozzy and he would always try to get Ozzy to talk about Sabbath. And Ozzy was always happy to talk about the Sabbath. And so Cliff and Ozzy, they had quite a few conversations.”

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