Lock up your bats, Ozzy's coming to NZ

Reuters

SABBATH DAY: Ozzy Osbourne will play Wellington's Westpac Stadium in March.

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Block your ears - foul-mouthed veteran rocker Ozzy Osbourne is coming to Wellington.

Osbourne, who went from being best known for biting off a bat's head to a reality television superstar, will join American glam metallers Kiss in the two-day Rock2Wgtn music festival at Westpac Stadium next Easter.

Osbourne, who with his family became a household name in television series The Osbournes, will headline the second night on March 23. Kiss will open the festival on March 22. Promoter Phil Sprey said other acts would be announced later.

Osbourne, 58, shot to fame as founder of British heavy rock band Black Sabbath in the early 70s and has since had a high-profile solo career. It included biting off a bat's head during a 1982 concert.

But The Osbournes - which both shocked and enthralled viewers with its eccentricities and wall-to-wall foul language - has been one of his biggest successes. The Times this year estimated Osbourne and his wife to be worth at least $NZ270 million.

Alcoholism has dogged him throughout his career, as well as being the inspiration for some of his songs.

"It wasn't my plan to get up in the morning and do something stupid. But put a bottle of cognac down me and I'll do something stupid," he said in one interview.

"But if you go down to your local bar every Friday night, you'll see people doing things more stupid than anything I ever did. But they're not Ozzy Osbourne. They don't get reported. They get arrested."