Just over 20 years ago, Weezer made their big return from self-imposed exile when they released their Green Album. A couple of decades later, Weezer continue to endure as an actual literal stadium-rock band. The group released their new LP Van Weezer earlier this month, and they’re now getting ready to hit the road with Green Day and Fall Out Boy on the Hella Mega Tour. This month, Weezer main man Rivers Cuomo is on the cover of Guitar World, rocking a new hesher look that suits him nicely. In the accompanying interview, Cuomo mentions that “Hash Pipe” — the lead single from the Green Album, the song that returned Weezer to rock-radio playlists — could’ve instead gone to Ozzy Osbourne.

Talking to Guitar World, Cuomo says that he sent “Hash Pipe” to Osbourne:

Once, I think it was in 2000, [Osbourne] asked if I had any songs for him, and I just happened to have written “Hash Pipe.” I sent it to him, but he didn’t end up using it. In another reality, it might be interesting to hear him singing that song.

It absolutely would’ve been interesting to hear Ozzy Osbourne singing a Rivers Cuomo song in the early ’00s. Elsewhere in the interview, Cuomo also mentions that “Blue Dream,” one of the songs from Van Weezer, uses the riff from Osbourne’s 1981 classic “Crazy Train” and that Weezer shared songwriting credit with “Crazy Train” writers Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, and Bob Daisley:

They get half the song, or something like that. It’s kind of like a sample, really, but we played it.

The song existed with another riff. The song was good, but the riff was… It was OK, but it wasn’t the greatest guitar riff of all time, which I felt like it should be. Coincidentally, at the same time, our manager said, “Hey, you guys should sample the ‘Crazy Train’ riff in a song.” I know he was thinking, “What’s going to get people talking? What is going to confuse the internet?” He had no idea what I was making, but it just seemed like the perfect suggestion. So we tried it. The tempo fit, and it all just seemed to come together.

Van Weezer is out now on Crush Music/Atlantic Records.