Ozzy Osbourne has confirmed that he unsuccessfully tried to get Jimmy Page to appear on his new album “Patient Number 9”.

Due on September 9, “Patient Number 9” features guest appearances by several other legendary guitarists, including Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

Speaking to Metal Hammer magazine, the BLACK SABBATH frontman said that the LED ZEPPELIN legend never got back to him when approached to record a guest solo for the record.

“I don’t even know if he plays any more, but I thought getting Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page meant having the greatest guitarists on the planet,” Ozzy said. “But I never heard from him. Maybe he’d lost his phone or something.”

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS drummer Chad Smith, who plays on “Patient Number 9”, previously talked about Page‘s non-appearance on the LP this past April during an appearance on the “Talk Is Jericho” podcast. At the time, he said: “We tried to get Jimmy Page — we tried to get the holy trinity — but I don’t think Page plays anymore too much, unfortunately.” (Clapton, Beck and Page are all former members of THE YARDBIRDS).

Ozzy‘s new album features a number of other big names, including METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo and GUNS N’ ROSES bassist Duff McKagan, BLACK SABBATH‘s Tony Iommi, Zakk Wylde, Josh Homme of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE and Mike McCready of PEARL JAM.

Back in December 2020, Page told Total Guitar magazine that he had been using the coronavirius downtime to reconnect with his instrument.

“Under the circumstances of having a lockdown and isolating, I picked up the guitar and made a point of playing the guitar every day,” he said. “Whereas before the lockdown, it had gotten to the point where I was always complaining that I didn’t have enough time to play the guitar because there was all this other stuff that was going on.

“It’s surprising how many things there are, even with LED ZEPPELIN, so I was not finding enough time to play the guitar as much as I would like,” he explained. “It was there, but not being played. I thought, that’s not going to be the case. I’m now going to play it. I don’t want to make it sound like I’d locked the guitars away. That wasn’t the case. But there were so many things that kept getting in the way of playing — or playing the way that you need to if you’re exploring the instrument still.”

When the interviewer pointed out to Page that a lot of people would love to see him play again, the guitarist responded: “That was the idea before we locked down. But — but — there’ll be a time when we’ll be able to play, so the thing to do is to think how you’d do it if you did do it, and have some surprises up your sleeve, you know?

“I did think about it,” he confirmed. “But I thought, I better do some serious practicing first (laughs), because it’s been a long time since (LED ZEPPELIN‘s concert at) the O2. I hope we’ll meet up one day, when I’m doing this mythical show one day.”