An Ozzy spinoff? Bite your tongue

A stretch limousine stops to pick up DJ Louis Osbourne to take him to the dance hall where he is spinning his deep house and techno beats for New York’s wild East Village crowd. As Osbourne steps into the limo, the driver asks, “So this is the son of Lennon?”

The son of Lennon? Osbourne’s pretty girlfriend, Louise Lennon, who is no relation to John Lennon, bursts out laughing. “Not the son of Lennon! The son of Osbourne ... Ozzy Osbourne!”

Osbourne’s smooth demeanor is unfazed. “I thought it was pretty funny, but I felt bad for him because I think he was disappointed,” says Osbourne, 27. “At least the Beatles are my father’s favorite band.”

A product of rock star Ozzy Osbourne’s first marriage, Louis Osbourne shares his father’s quick wit, love of music and outrageously filthy language. Seconds into a conversation, the younger Osbourne cuts to the chase: He knows his famously outrageous father and MTV sitcom family are a pop-culture curiosity, and he doesn’t mind talking about them. But when it comes to his own career, Louis Osbourne demands to stand alone. His contract stipulates that there be no references to “The Osbournes,” MTV or Ozzy Osbourne on any billing.

An up-and-coming DJ who hails from Birmingham, England, and spins electronic dance music around the world, Osbourne has held residencies in the rave party capital of Ibiza, Spain, and London’s Ministry of Sound. Last year, he played clubs in Europe, Japan, Australia and 24 U.S. cities. And he’s just getting started. He recently signed an album deal with Strictly Rhythm Records in which he will remix tracks with his own flavor and style.

In the wee hours Tuesday morning, Osbourne appeared at Las Palmas in Hollywood to spin. Shannon Sehwait, a professional modern dancer, couldn’t stop grooving.

“There’s something in his music that I can flow with,” said Sehwait, 23, of Los Angeles. “Other house DJs have harder rhythms. He has different layers.”

“I want people to come see me for the DJ that I am,” says Osbourne, who is living temporarily in Los Angeles and may settle here. “ ‘The Osbournes’ have created some publicity for me, but it hasn’t affected my skills as a DJ one bit. I’ve been doing this [bleep] for eight years.”

While his shock-rocker father has spent three decades wailing heavy metal hits, the younger Osbourne prefers all-night raves with loud thumping hypnotic house, tribal and techno music.

On a recent hot afternoon, relaxing in his girlfriend’s West L.A. apartment, Osbourne wears a red T-shirt imprinted with a Latin slogan: “When I turn, I see and learn.” The CDs laying on a coffee table come as a surprise: Coldplay, Snoop Dogg, “Duran Duran’s Greatest Hits,” Marvin Gaye and the Beatles.

“My dad doesn’t really understand dance music,” he says, still trying to recover from his London flight. “He understands the psychedelic experience of it all, the environment and the lights.

“By the same token, when I see him on stage, I always think, ‘Blimey, that’s my old man.’ ”

Osbourne says nothing illustrates the differences in their musical tastes better than the time he was floating on his back in the pool at his father’s Beverly Hills mansion, blasting house mixes. His dad ran outside yelling an obscenity-laced, unprintable and much longer version of: Turn that crap off!

“Essentially, what I do is still about entertaining people, and that’s something I do have in common with my dad,” he says. “I put a lot of energy into my performance, and I like to see the crowd putting a lot of energy into it as well.”

Louis Osbourne’s parents divorced when he was 6 and he spent most of his childhood in boarding school. He won’t discuss his older sister and mother, who live in England.

“On my mum’s side, they are not involved in the entertainment industry, and they have no voice in the media,” he says. “So what is the point if they have no voice? My dad? He’s been making a career out of his for 30-odd years. That’s different.”

As a child, Osbourne enjoyed listening to Black Sabbath and his father’s voice, but the screeching of his father’s guitar never moved him to pick one up himself. Instead, he became curious about the raves he begin reading about, and sneaked into his first party at 16.

“When you’re that age, you’re trying to get into a rebellious, youthful scene,” he says. “You know, a [bleeping] underground society. I went to that rave on my own and it just bit me.”

At 18, Osbourne dropped out of college, bought his first turntable and started working for Hard to Find Records, a well-known music store in Birmingham, England. “That’s where I learned that I could make a career out of it and give it my all,” he says. “With the technology out there, there’s so much you can do. Whenever I come out from the turntables, I’m usually drained. And quite drunk.”

Osbourne may have inherited his father’s penchant for booze and partying -- “I’m not an angel” -- but the son also credits his dad for his work ethic. For three years, Louis Osbourne has been touring the world, trying to distinguish himself from the hype of his last name.

“My dad’s always drilled into me this notion that I need to do things for myself, that I will appreciate what I have more later in life if I work for it,” he says.

“He’s always given me a lot of support and passion for life. And he’s always told me that in times of hardship, people always want to eat and they want to be entertained.”

Although the electronic dance scene has peaked in his native United Kingdom, the music Osbourne loves to play is slowly making its way to the United States and Australia. His DJ influences include producer-DJ Darren Emerson, Danny Tenaglia and Deep Dish.

“What I do is about a moment,” he says. “It’s not about making a lasting impression. But a friend of mine told me that if I’m making people happy, I’m contributing something emotionally. It may not be a beautiful painting or a gorgeous building to walk through, but it’s something.”

But these days, the DJ booth has competition in Lennon, an Irish actress who Osbourne met in a Hollywood bar six months ago. She is his first serious girlfriend in eight years. Osbourne is head-over-heels in love and is thinking of settling down.

“I come from a sitcom home now,” says Osbourne, who has appeared in several episodes of “The Osbournes.” “So, of course, I’m the marrying kind.”

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Louis Osbourne guest gig

Where: TekNoKluB at Qtopia, 6021 Hollywood Blvd. (213) 203-0857.

When: Friday, party from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Cost: $20 cover.