Q: But you’ve come around to be a romantic of sorts.
A: I’m not one for buying gifts when it’s a birthday. I hate Christmas. But I like gifts on a nonspecific day. I’ll send flowers. There’s not one day that that my wife and I haven’t spoken. There’s nothing about this on The Osbournes, but she got cancer and I thought, “Fuck.” Shows you how educated I am: I didn’t know anybody ever recovered from fucking cancer. The whole family went through it, and I said to Sharon, “Do you want me to get rid of the cameras?” And she said no. Then I had the ATV accident, and my son went into rehab. Believe me I’m not complaining, because when I think about it, that’s kind of been the story of my life. I get success, I go down. That’s just the way it is for me.

Q: Do you still consider yourself anti-establishment?
A: Absolutely. I haven’t forgotten my roots. I don’t like hanging around in nightclubs. I still believe in rock and roll. And my son’s too old to get called up now, but I always said that if they bring back conscription, I would make sure he didn’t get through. I don’t like the idea of my son being called to fight for some silly little war in Iraq over fucking oil, you know?

Q: But didn’t you go to the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, starring President Bush, in 2002?
A: Yeah, um . . . I was fucking out of my tree. I was absolutely fucking loaded.

Q: You just released your ninth solo album, Black Rain. Did you ever think you’d live this long?
A: No. I’ve been terribly lucky. When I had my ATV accident, I was going not more than three or four miles an hour, and I ended up in a coma for eight days. My heart stopped twice. I don’t remember any of it. I went back to the hospital after the accident, and the doctors were telling me, “Your left lung was completely full of blood. You broke your rib, your collarbone, your neck—you’re lucky to be alive.” If I had been going 120 miles an hour it would have been a cool way to go—but four miles an hour? Ozzy Osbourne!?

Q: It’s funny, I was listening to the new album and thinking you’ve actually gotten harder. Which is great.
A: To be honest with you, it’s the first record I’ve ever done completely sober, both writing and recording. I had to put my ego in the wardrobe and forget it for a while. I had to ask people what they think, whether they think it’s going to be acceptable. It was easy, you know, with this Pro Tools stuff they got nowadays. Because to be honest with you, I can just barely turn the bloody light on, you know? I can’t work a phone, I can’t work a digital camera, I don’t know how to work an iPod, I don’t know how to work a computer—I’m fucking back in the Stone Age still. In the old days when we had to do an edit, you’d go, “Oh fuck that’s another day gone.” Now you press two buttons and you’ve done it.