Ozzy Osbourne jokes about drunk rodents

Ozzy Osbourne believes he had rats running around his garden "p**sed off their heads" after losing buried bottles of vodka.

The Black Sabbath frontman has struggled with drink and drug addiction for most of his life, and recently revealed that he was battling the problems again but had kept it secret for a year and a half.

Ozzy has recalled the time when his dependency on alcohol was so bad, even rodents were affected.

"In my alcoholic days I used to bury bottles of vodka in the garden and then I could never find them again. There were probably rats running around my f**king garden p***ed off their heads," he quipped in an interview with British magazine Shortlist.

Ozzy recently released album 13 with his Black Sabbath bandmates Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, their first record since 1995's Forbidden.

The 64-year-old rocker was initially concerned he wouldn't be able to come up with the goods after toning down his hell-raising lifestyle.

"When I decided to throw in the towel on the drugs and alcohol – which I still battle on a daily basis; sometimes I'll have a drink, but mostly I can't – someone said: 'Do you think it'll affect your creativity?'" he mused.

"I thought, 'F**k, maybe all that sh*t was what made me come up with these melodies and lyrics.' I was freaking out. But then we made this album without anything like that. I remember one gig [in the '70s] when we decided: no more coke. First song, we were playing great and I thought, 'Hey, we're much better without coke.' By the second song, the band was all [slumps, head down onto the table]. I'd go behind the speaker and do a couple of bumps, thinking that nobody could see me."