Down to Earth is the eighth studio album by English
heavy metal singer
Ozzy Osbourne. Released on 16 October 2001, it reached number 19 on the
UK Albums Chart and number four on the US
Billboard 200. "The
Ozzfest was doing well", Osbourne explained. "I just wanted to be like the
Grateful Dead and keep it going by touring, but
the record company said they'd like a new Ozzy album."[5]
Excluding his contributions to re-recordings of Ozzy's earlier material, Down to Earth is the only Osbourne studio album to feature bassist
Robert Trujillo, who left to join
Metallica in 2003. It was the first Osbourne album to feature drummer
Mike Bordin, previously of
Faith No More, though he had played live with Osbourne since 1996, as well as the last to feature
guitaristZakk Wylde until 2007's Black Rain. Though he plays on the album, Wylde did not contribute as a songwriter for the first time since joining Osbourne's band in 1988, because many of the songs were written before Wylde rejoined the band. Osbourne's previous guitarist
Joe Holmes was involved in the writing and Osbourne chose to use outside songwriters such as producer
Tim Palmer and
Aerosmith collaborator
Marti Frederiksen.
"Working with Tim on this album reminded me of
[late guitarist] Randy [Rhoads]", Ozzy remarked of Palmer. "If it hadn't been for him, there wouldn't have been an album ... He has incredible patience, just like Randy."[6]
Allegedly, the
Weezer song
Hash Pipe was slated for this album. Ozzy approached that band's vocalist,
Rivers Cuomo, for song ideas, and Hash Pipe was one of them, however, Osbourne did not use the song,[7] and Weezer included it on their
Green Album instead.