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Ozzy Osbourne leaves Des Moines with 'bat taste' in mouth- A

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Ozzy Osbourne leaves Des Moines with 'bat taste' in mouth- A

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This is a Primary source because it was written in the same time period of the event. It was written two days after an incident. This article was written by reporter Nick Lamberto.

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From the archives: Ozzy Osbourne leaves Des Moines with ‘bat taste’ in mouth

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This story originally ran Jan. 22, 1982, two days after Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat during a concert at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines.

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Secondary source. It is a newspaper about the incident 40 years ago, recapping what Ozzy Osbourne had said and more. It is a secondary source since it is a newspaper and its getting its information from other primary sources.

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When Ozzy Osbourne dies, hopefully several decades from now, his obituary will touch on a great many things. It'll focus on the pivotal role he played in the creation of heavy metal as a member of Black Sabbath, the brilliant music he made with guitarist Randy Rhoads in the early Eighties, his battles with substance abuse, and how his MTV show The Osbournes helped launch a new era of reality television.

Inevitably, it will also mention a Jan. 20, 1982, incident at the Des Moines Veterans Memorial Auditorium where he bit the head off a live bat during a concert. The unfortunate episode, which occurred exactly 40 years ago today, lasted just a few seconds, but it generated news around the world and gave the religious right a powerful new talking point whenever they railed against heavy-metal music.

Osbourne had been on the road for well over a year when he arrived in Des Moines for the infamous show. During that time, he developed a ritual where he'd pummel the audience with raw meat and they'd chuck back whatever insane things they could sneak into the venues.

"I always liked old movies that used to have these custard-pie fights," Osbourne explained in the documentary The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne. "It gave me this idea to throw, instead of pie, bits of meat and animal parts into the audience. I thought it was hilarious. [They'd throw back] sheep testicles, live snakes, dead rats, all kinds of things. Someone once threw a live frog onto onstage. It was the biggest frog I'd ever seen, and it landed on its back."

That night in Des Moines, someone threw a live bat. "I thought it was a rubber bat," Osbourne said. "I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am."

As blood filled his mouth and people in the crowd looked on with horror, he realized he'd made a horrible mistake. "Bats are the biggest carriers of rabies in the world," he said. "And I had to go to the hospital afterwards and they started giving me rabies shots. I had one one each rear and I had to have that every night."

The Des Moines bat thrower has never come forward publicly, but whoever was responsible gave Osbourne just about more press attention than he'd ever received in his life (including the Letterman appearance above). "It got to the point where people expected me to do crazier and crazier things," he said. "I'll tell you what guys - it ain't fun when you get them rabies shots."

He followed it up by urinating on the Alamo a few weeks later when the tour went down to San Antonio, Texas. He was hauled off to jail for that one and banned from playing in the city for the next decade. And just weeks after that, Randy Rhoads died in a plane crash after a show at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum, putting all the craziness into horrible perspective.

The bat incident came up in nearly every interview Osbourne did throughout the Eighties, and he eventually grew very tired of explaining himself over and over. But he's learned to embrace its weird role in rock history, selling plush beheadable bat toys and even rolling out 9,666 NFT bats this month. "CryptoBatz is a fucking mental project for NFT collectors and fans," he said in a statement. "The design pays tribute to one of my most iconic onstage moments and is a chance to acquire a rare piece of art history. I love it!"

But 40 years ago tonight, he wasn't loving anything about the bat incident. He was spitting out warm bat blood and bracing for an agonizing series of rabies shots.

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Ozzy Osbourne Bit the Head Off a Live Bat 40 Years Ago Today

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Forty years ago tonight, Ozzy Osbourne inadvertently bit the head off a live bat, leading to rabies shots and countless headlines.

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This is actual footage of the event happening so it is primary. This is a video of the live event so we see exactly what happened as if we were there.

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Secondary Source, this is a journal article analyzing the event. This was written in 2005 by Kyle Munson. He has interviews from workers and the person who threw the bat on the stage.

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Out of more than 18,000 nights in the 50-year history of Veterans Memorial Auditorium (now the Iowa Events Center), the landmark night turned out to be a bloody decapitation.

Of a dead bat.

By a looney Englishman with toxic drug habits whose job description at the time read something like "dark prince of heavy metal."

It was the chomp heard 'round the world when, on Jan. 20, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne dined on a bat while on stage in Des Moines in front of 5,000 or so witnesses.

"The name of the town of Des Moines is embossed in my head!" Osbourne told The Des Moines Register in November 2001, on the eve of his return to the auditorium for his first concert there since the incident. "I've had some mileage from Des Moines!"

No lie. An issue of Rolling Stone in 2004 ranked the bat-biting No. 2 on its list of "Rock's Wildest Myths."

Like most chapters of rock lore, the bat-biting was born of a rare mix of calculation and coincidence.

Osbourne already had been prone to decapitations of winged creatures: He bit the head off a live dove in 1981 in Los Angeles, during a meeting with horrified record-company executives.

The bat in Des Moines, however, was most certainly dead, closer to rancid, according to Mark Neal. He was 17 at the time he tossed the bat corpse on stage. Neal's younger brother had brought the bat home from school, alive and flapping, about two weeks before the concert. No surprise that the bat failed as a household pet. So Neal's friends, aware of Osbourne's carnivorous reputation, convinced the impressionable lad to seal the bat remains in a baggy and tuck them inside his coat.

Neal got more of a reaction than he bargained for.

"It really freaked me out," he told a Register reporter in 1982. "I won't get in any trouble for admitting this, will I?"

After the concert, Osbourne was rushed to Broadlawns Medical Center for rabies shots.

Pam Culver was the nurse supervisor on duty that night when Osbourne's tour bus rolled in. She didn't personally treat the rocker, but she did weather the aftermath of his visit.

"For a week that was probably 50 percent of my job - fielding calls from England and Canada and all over the United States," Culver said. "People wanted to know how much did it cost to do that, and did it hurt, and how may shots did he have to have, what part of his body did we have to attack."

Osbourne's antics also made a lasting impression on the facility's management.

By October 1982, auditorium directors had decided "to prohibit concert performers from using, presenting or in any way making live animals a part of a program at Vets without the consent of management."

What began as a publicity coup has become something of an albatross, according to Osbourne. The bat business has survived his subsequent roles as founder of the wildly successful Ozzfest summer concert tour and star of his own reality-TV series on MTV.

Osbourne in 2001 lamented that he will be plagued until his death with questions about the bat. How did it taste, Ozzy? Why did you do it, Ozzy!?

"And then they'll dig me up and ask me again!" he moaned.

The other 'decapitation'

Prototypical shock rocker Alice Cooper was warned by Vets Auditorium officials that there should be "no blood, no babies" when he was booked to perform on July 4, 1975.

"Cooper's past act included simulated blood, and hurling dummy babies on to the stage," The Register reported at the time. Cooper behaved well enough that he was booked for another concert on April 27, 1978, when he bungled a phony decapitation:

"Only one prop - the guillotine - failed to work smoothly. Cooper's 'I Love the Dead' calls for him to be the guest of honor at his own beheading. But as the evil-looking blade dropped, the phony head let loose too soon."

When Cooper returned to the auditorium in 1987, his decapitation went off without a hitch.

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Everything you need to know about Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat in Des Moines

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Out of more than 18,000 nights in the 50-year history of Veterans Memorial Auditorium (now the Iowa Events Center), the landmark night turned out to be a bloody decapitation. Of a dead bat. By a looney Englishman with toxic drug habits whose job description at the time read something like "dark prince of heavy metal."

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Primary source. It is a Politcal cartoon from the moment and shows what happes.

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C) Picture of the Ozzy Osbourne bat incident

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C) Picture of the Ozzy Osbourne bat incident

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This is a primary source because it is an actual photo from the event. It shows Ozzy biting down on the bat's head.

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H.) Did Ozzy Osbourne really bite the head off a bat?!?!?

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H.) Did Ozzy Osbourne really bite the head off a bat?!?!?

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This is secondary because he did not witness the event and is just describing what happened. He recaps what happened during the event and why he thinks it's real.

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Did Ozzy Osbourne really bite the head off a bat?!?!?

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This is a primary source because it is part of a newspaper article that was written around the time of the event. It describes how he went to the hospital after the concert to get rabies shots. It also tells how some people were skeptical that the incident even happened in the first place.

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I) Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne

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I) Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne

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This is a documentary, which makes it a secondary source. It details parts of Ozzy's life and career, with the main part of the story being about his imfamous bat biting incident.

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Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer

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This is a secondary source because the person who wrote this was not present at the event. This is helpful because it talks about what happens after the event.