Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath didn't just lose a bandmate with the death of Ozzy Osbourne - he also lost a friend.

Few people knew Ozzy Osbourne more intimately than his Black Sabbath bandmates, who, despite their conflicts over the years, spent decades with the Prince of Darkness. To Geezer Butler, however, Osbourne wasn’t the Prince of Darkness at all; he was the “Prince of Laughter,” as the bassist wrote in a tribute to his old friend for The Times.

Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler is reflecting on the band's final rehearsals with Ozzy Osbourne. In a piece written for The Sunday Times, the band's co-founder detailed how "frail" the late rockstar was in the lead up to their Villa Park show in Birmingham,