
In fact, as Hammer chats to him over Zoom, he disappears off camera, only to return proudly brandishing a gold record he was presented for his contributions on Ozzy’s 2020 record, Ordinary Man. “I don’t have my own records up at home,” he admits. “But I’ll have an Ozzy Osbourne album any day!” But what pearls of wisdom does he have to share on a four-decade-plus career?
“Back when I was in my first punk bands [in the early 80s], I always thought there was a special sound to Seattle – even pre-grunge. We’d be in the garage with our friends playing and end up with kinda wet strings because it’s always so damp here! Nobody had a tuner, so you’d tune to whatever the other guys were playing and it created this really heavy sound. When the Seattle sound formed, around bands like Tad, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains… It was like, ‘That’s the sound of wet strings and guys who have to play in puffy jackets!’ Ha ha!”