Mac Sabbath's Manager Mike Odd

By Jay Oakley

Where does the idea of a band paying tribute to Black Sabbath get mixed up with a fast food conglomerate?

I got an anonymous phone call to meet someone in a burger place in Chatsworth, California. Me, being the odd fellow that I am, chased down this lead and showed up at this fun little eating establishment. I'm in a booth and in walks this clown just drenched in red and yellow and dirty tassels, straight from the ground, like some Uriah Heep reject with white paint caked on like some scary, Skeletor thing. He just engulfed the booth and started vomiting the concepts all over me and innocent customers. It was nothing I'd ever experienced. I kept looking for the hidden camera. I thought it was a practical joke and he told me that my destiny was to manage his band, Mac Sabbath, and it was going to be my job to bring it above ground. He wanted to hire me to manage and expose his secret project to the world. By the time we'd been kicked out of there, he'd invited me to come back to a very similar place, in a very similar location at three o'clock in the morning, in the basement, to this secret show that was mostly just employees that were in on this weird social experiment.

I'd never seen anything like it. There's all these characters from my childhood, metalized and playing these Black Sabbath songs and damning the very location that it was being presented in and I was just blown away and was like, "I want to work with this guy!" I felt this was to good not to be involved in. It was like a gift and as much as it might be a curse it was definitely a gift. So that's what happened and all of these concepts are his. He's really something to deal with. He maintains that he traveled here through the time-space continuum from the 70s to save us from our current state of sustenance and government food control. He goes on and on about how we need to bring it back to the 70s when both music and food were both genuine. It's an amazing ride, I have to say.

When it comes to the show is it Ozzy-era Sabbath songs? Is it Dio or both?

It's absolutely the Ozzy-era Black Sabbath. It was New Years Day 2015, January 1st and Black Sabbath posted a video where we put the lyrics on frying pans at one of the first shows and they posted it to Facebook and Twitter and it went viral like wildfire and got almost a million hits. It's a terrible video. So, they're in support and supporting us and they've given us the thumbs up.

Are you or any other members of the band going to any of Black Sabbath's shows on this, their final tour?

Oh absolutely! I just saw them at the Forum in Los Angeles.

What do the fans have to look forward to at a Mac Sabbath show other then fast food chaos?

It is a big, arena sized stage show crammed into a club. It's really something to see. It almost doesn't fit in the venues we're playing. The members themselves are kind of, giant. Grimalice (bass) is like seven feet tall and probably nine feet wide and it's very theatrical. It's more then just music and costumes. There's lasers, giant clowns and Ronald's (Osbourne, vocals) doing birthday party magic and pulling weird, giant things out of his pants. There's so much going on. There's inflatable burgers bopping around on the crowd and there's audience participation and Ronald does weird things with the audience members. It's really interactive and just amazing. It's quite a multimedia event.

So, when it comes to Mac Sabbath's music. Obviously the are Black Sabbath songs reworked to fit the style and message of the band. Do they cover pretty much the full gamete of Ozzy's albums from Black Sabbath to Paranoid to Master of Reality etc.?

Yeah there's "Pair-a-Puns," "Frying Pan," "Brand of Doom," "N.I.B.B.L.E." so it's kind of, all over the place. There's a song "Zipping Up the Uniform" which is "Symptom of the Universe" and that's a later Sabbath song.

Nice, I can only imagine what "Children of the Grave" is going to sound like.

Yeah, "Chicken for the Slaves" is what they call it. It's about how fast food culture in enslaving people and they're being enslaved by chicken nuggets.

Being so fan interactive would a fan be able to meet the band members?

The three-piece band disappears immediately and depending on the show, Ronald comes out and does a little meet and greet.

Can fans buy things at the event? Is there music they can get or would they be able to get a t shirt?

Oh yeah, the merch is amazing! There's glow-in-the-dark t shirts and Slayer MacCheeze belt buckles. There's a thing he calls a "Burgerfix," like crucifix but the round part in the middle is a burger and it says Mac Sabbath on the cross and there's necklaces. It's an elaborate merch setup.

Mike, thank you so much. It sounds like a blast and I'm really looking forward to the show.

Thank you. It's going to be great and we'll see you there.