In The Pipeline:

“People ask me how come I’m still alive, and I don’t know what to say. When I was growing up, if you’d have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of 60, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn’t have put money on me. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time. A lot of it ain’t gonna be pretty. I’ve done some bad things in my time. I’ve always been drawn to the dark side, me. But I ain’t the devil. I’m just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time.”

So reads the quote on the inside flap of the new rock and roll autobiography, “I Am Ozzy,” the title of which is embossed in black and purple on the cover. If you’re at all familiar with the voice of the “Prince of Darkness,” then it’s easy to imagine hearing the words in that thick, Birmingham drawl.

But when he’s talking to you one-on-one about the book, it’s a bit disarming.

Ozzy Osbourne will be in Huntington Beach next week to sign his book at Barnes & Noble, and he took some time to tell me firsthand about the new volume, one that I found all but impossible to put down.

The tale of the blue-collar knock-around who grows up to become one of the most iconic figures in entertainment history is fascinating, and despite how much many of us know from following Ozzy’s saga over the years, what we experience in the book is jaw-dropping.

The stories are funny, outrageous and wince-producing as well as stark and harrowing — particularly when it comes to Ozzy’s legendary substance-abuse battles.

The book drips with so many twisted tales of maniacal excess, even the most casual reader may wonder: How is this guy still alive?

“I wonder that sometimes myself,” Ozzy said seriously. “It got really bad at certain points in my life. I didn’t treat my first wife well, and I also treated my current wife, Sharon, badly for a long time. I’m lucky to have a friend today, let alone a family. I’m just one of the lucky ones. I’ve lost a lot of friends in the business over the years — Bon Scott, John Bonham — most of these friends died from drugs and alcohol. But I escaped, and that’s no small feat. Once that stuff gets a grip on you, as I tried to relate in the book, it’s hard. And even though I get called a ‘survivor,’ I always told my kids, as I’ll tell my grandkids, ‘Don’t think for a minute that you’ve inherited something from me that will let you outlive drug problems. I’m just very lucky.’”

Has his family, almost equally famous for the groundbreaking reality MTV show featuring their home life, read the book yet?

“Sharon’s read it,” Ozzy said. “I think she liked it. I’ve never asked the kids. They got copies, but I don’t know if they’ve read it yet. They lived through portions of it, of course, and I’ve told them stories over the years, so they know a good deal of it going in.”

And how on earth did the Blizzard of Oz remember so much, given the booze-and-pill fog that shrouded so many years?

Ozzy said there was a process.

“The guy who wrote it with me, Chris Ayres, he’d have me, say, describe my life as a child. Whatever stuck out in my mind, then he’d want to go deeper. And we would. Just thinking and remembering. Then I’d look at the transcript and remember more and add details. It’s amazing what sticks with you. I was really pleased with it at the end of the day.”

Ozzy has a reputation for being sometimes incoherent and indecipherable, but in conversation today, he is nothing short of focused, self-effacing and very smart — his personal philosophy has clearly been affected by what he’s been through in life, especially the relationships he’s had.

In the book, Ozzy fondly recalls playing with his musical soul mate, Randy Rhoads, and recounts in typically blunt details the plane crash that took the young guitarist’s life.

Ozzy snaps into conversation overdrive when asked about Rhoads, speaking with passion and obvious pain from the 1982 accident (which also injured Ozzy, who was sleeping in the tour bus at the time — the private plane clipped the bus before crashing into a house).

“I think about him a lot,” he said. “The day before yesterday, some guy gave me some amazing footage of us playing at our first show in New York City, at the Palladium. I have no idea where this footage came from, and it was amazing seeing Randy like that. We still talk to his family and that was a great period of my life. I wish he was here today, and he was so perfect for me at that point in my life. He was the first guy to sit down and work things out with me, to suggest things like, ‘Maybe change this song to this key so you can sing it in your range.’ That never happened in Black Sabbath. A great man.”

Does Ozzy get tired of getting asked about the future of his former band, Black Sabbath?

“Not at all. I mean, it made my life change for the best, and we’ll see what happens. But what’s more interesting to me is that now, young kids come up to me and go, ‘Wow, Sabbath is really happening, man!’ That was 40 years ago! If my father had said to me, ‘Well this is a good band,’ well, just for the fact that my father liked it meant I wouldn’t have liked it. But it’s changed today. A lot of these kids’ fathers loved Sabbath, and so it gets passed along.’”

To that end, I wonder if Ozzy listens to any young metal bands today.

“I’m so busy with my own music that I really need to start listening to more up-to-date stuff.

Now and again I do, but not much. See, if I start liking it, I start inadvertently stealing it — not on purpose, it just happens!”

“I Am Ozzy” wends its way from the early years in Birmingham through the success of Black Sabbath, his monumental solo career, the reality TV show, truckloads of tabloid controversy, the 2003 ATV accident that almost killed him — there are so many interesting stories that it’s hard to quite take in that this is just one life we’re reading about.

Did he leave anything out? Ozzy chuckled.

“What was legally OK to put in the book, I put in the book! I’ve never been one to shy away from the truth.”

But it’s a lot quieter today for Ozzy. His kids are out on their own, and he spends a lot of time painting while listening to old Beatles records on his headphones.

That’s quite a different picture than one expects of Ozzy Osbourne. But that’s what so interesting about him — he’s much more than the stereotyped creature that’s been fed to the public over the years.

In Ozzy’s voice, there is honesty, irony and the sort of appreciation that seems reserved for survivors. Sure, he may be a little crazy, but like a heavy metal fox. He’s still here, isn’t he?

Ozzy Osbourne will sign his memoir, “I Am Ozzy,” at 7 p.m. Feb. 3 at the Barnes & Noble at Bella Terra.

This is a wristband event. Please, no memorabilia. Please call (714) 897-8781 for more information.

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at chris@chrisepting.com .