After Boston’s singer, Brad Delp, committed suicide, the other band members organized a tribute concert for him. A fan, Tommy DeCarlo, recorded a tribute song to Delp on his MySpace page, which made its way to the band’s attention. They invited DeCarlo to join them on stage at the tribute concert, and then offered him a permanent spot with the band.
I saw DeCarlo with the band during their 2008 tour, just after he’d joined them; the story that they shared was that he’d had to take a leave of absence from his day job (at a Lowe’s hardware store, IIRC) to tour.
In the movie, they showed a page from an advertising booklet the store had printed, and Neil’s picture is in it. If you freeze-frame that segment, it says that he was setting up the store’s computer system.
Regarding the Ozzy ate a bat’s head onstage story, the bat was actually dead, thrown onstage by a fan. Ozzy thought it was a toy and went to get a rabies shot after the concert. Ozzy also ate the heads off three doves at a meeting with recording executives. He was drunk and did it to shut up a PR rep.
