The Tapes Archive

Tony Iommi: Hello?

Steve Newton: Hi, Tony?

Tony Iommi: Yes.

Steve Newton: Steve Newton from the Georgia Straight, out in Vancouver.

Tony Iommi: Hello, Steve, how are you?

Steve Newton: How are you?

Tony Iommi: Fine, thank you.

Steve Newton: How’s the tour going for you guys?

Tony Iommi: The up and coming one, you mean?

Steve Newton: Oh, you haven’t started yet?

Tony Iommi: No, not yet.

Steve Newton: You’re playing Vancouver on the 19th?

Tony Iommi: We already done one half of the tour. We’re done, and we’ve finished before Christmas.

Steve Newton: Just for the record, how did you get Ian Gillan to join Black Sabbath?

Tony Iommi: Oh, well what version have you heard?

Steve Newton: Were you a fan of his from former band Deep Purple?

Tony Iommi: I always liked it, yeah. Always liked him.

Steve Newton: I understand you do one of his old songs, “Smoke on the Water”?

Tony Iommi: That’s right, yeah.

Steve Newton: Why that song?

Tony Iommi: Well, it’s really probably one of Ian’s more known ones, you know, as far as him being associated with what he’d done before. And he wrote the song anyway, so.

Steve Newton: I was wondering why you guys maybe didn’t choose “Highway Star” or maybe “Strange Kind Of Woman”?

Tony Iommi: Well, we could have done, but I think, I think “Smoke On the Water” is more of a known song than those, really.

Steve Newton: Do you play it like Deep Purple played it? Like Blackmore? Or do you guys put your own…

Tony Iommi: Well, I try and play it more like it was done originally. I mean, I obviously do put me own bits in, but I try and keep it more to how it was done.

Steve Newton: Why did your previous singer Ronnie Dio leave the band?

Tony Iommi: Oh, it’s, he was only doing the live album. He left in between that.

Steve Newton: Was he not getting along with the rest of the band members?

Tony Iommi: Oh, there was just a bit of a conflict, I think. He was doing his actual solo album while we were doing the live album, really, you know. And we wasn’t too happy about that situation.

Steve Newton: The other new addition to the Black Sabbath is Bev Bevan, an original member of ELO. Was that much of a transition for him, going from sort of a pop-rock band to a full-blown heavy-metal one?

Tony Iommi: It wasn’t, really before ELO, it was, he used to play quite, he was heavy with The Move, you know.

Steve Newton: Oh yeah.

Tony Iommi: Heavy drummer. And they used to play quite heavy stuff, you know. In fact he’s known as the Birmingham Basher, and he’s quite a pounder. I mean, I knew he could play pretty hefty stuff. I was surprised when I did hear him, when he actually did, the way he’s improving as we’ve done the show, isn’t it?

Steve Newton: Is he a permanent member of the band now?

Tony Iommi: Yes, he is now, yeah.

Steve Newton: So Bill Ward won’t be coming back then?

Tony Iommi: No. Bill, it’s unfortunate, you know, but he did have a problem and, with alcohol, you know. And I wouldn’t like to see Bill have to go through coming on the road and, with his alcohol problem, you know, his drinking problem.

Steve Newton: What’s the story behind the song “Disturbing the Priest” on Born Again? You guys actually disturbed a priest when you were recording that, didn’t you?

Tony Iommi: Well, we did actually, yeah. Right next to where we were, we recorded at a manor house, and right behind the manor house was a church and a cemetery. And that was virtually like, just outside the door, really. We used to record sometimes at four in the morning, five in the morning. So we started disturbing them.

Steve Newton: Priest came over?

Tony Iommi: Well, we did have a few comments from around the village, actually. I mean we were, I think we disturbed the village, I dunno about the priest. And we were letting bombs off and stuff like that, and…

Steve Newton: Yeah, I was, I wanted to ask you about those bombs. You played a few explosive tricks on Ian.

Tony Iommi:  Oh yeah, yeah.

Steve Newton: What happened there?

Tony Iommi: Well, we done a few really. I mean, actually, they’re quite dangerous. It was daft, but, we’ve blown a couple of things up. Including his boat.

Steve Newton: His boat?

Tony Iommi: His boat, yeah. His boat got blown up. He brought his boat with him and that went, went up.

Steve Newton: Your bassist Geezer Butler says that Born Again has much the same feel as your very first album.

Tony Iommi: Well, it did to us, because it related a lot for us the feeling of when we’d done the first album. The feeling of the band was really, the vibes were great, really exciting. We were excited about doing it, and we’d done it quick in comparison to the last few albums we’ve done, which have taken a while. We’ve done this album pretty quick. I mean, the next album will probably show better because we’ll have been with Ian and worked with him a bit, you know. ‘Cause we just met Ian, and we rehearsed and wrote the stuff, and went and recorded it really fairly quickly.

Steve Newton: Yeah, it’s certainly got a raw sound.

Tony Iommi: So hopefully the next one, now, we’ll have worked with each other a while. We can improve from there now.

Steve Newton: Which is your personal favorite song on the new album?

Tony Iommi: I like “Disturbing the Priest”. “Zero the Hero”, I like. “Trashed”, I like.

Steve Newton: What do you think of the music Ozzy Osbourne’s made since leaving Sabbath?

Tony Iommi: Yeah, I think he’s done some good stuff, I really do.

Steve Newton: Yeah?

Tony Iommi: Yeah.

Steve Newton: Did you enjoy the late Randy Rhoads‘ guitar playing?

Tony Iommi: Yeah, he was a good player.

Steve Newton: Yeah, I thought he was amazing.

Tony Iommi: Yeah, I hadn’t actually heard him in person, but I just heard him from what I’d heard on the radio, you know.

Steve Newton: Were you surprised that Ozzy used old Sabbath songs for his live double album?

Tony Iommi: Yeah, that was surprising. Because there was no need to really do that. Because he’d established his self in his own right, really.

Steve Newton: Do you guys collect any royalties for having co-written the songs on that album?

Tony Iommi: Oh yeah.

Steve Newton: Yeah? So you weren’t complaining about that?

Tony Iommi: No, that was, I just didn’t think he needed to do that though, really.

Steve Newton: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Tony Iommi: I mean, it’s not the money so much. I mean, we do this because we like it as well, you know. I mean, obviously, the money you know. But I don’t think Ozzy would’ve needed to have done that, really. ‘Cause his owns songs stood up as on their own, really.

Steve Newton: Yes. How do you feel after 13 years and 13 Sabbath albums when you see a young man, like say Def Leppard strike it rich after just a few years on the hard rock trail?

Tony Iommi: Well it’s, good luck to ’em really. I mean, obviously there’s gonna be new people come out all the time, but I don’t know a lot of their stuff, what they’re doing. I mean, I must admit I haven’t sat down and listened to a lot of the stuff they’ve done.

Steve Newton: Do you feel Black Sabbath paved the way at all for popular ’80s heavy metal bands like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?

Tony Iommi: I would say so, yeah. I mean without sounding big-headed or whatever you want to call it. I think, obviously, we must have had some influence on a lot of the people. You know, along with Zepplin and Purple as well, really.

Steve Newton: Just kind wondering, what kind of music do you like to listen to when you’re not playing with Sabbath?

Tony Iommi: A lot of different sorts of stuff. I don’t listen to New Wave stuff. I listen to, I like jazz. And I like course, you know, some heavy bands around now, or, but, I don’t listen to a lot of heavy stuff, because obviously we’re doing that sort of thing, so you don’t like to. I mean, you hear what’s about, hear what’s around, but I don’t play, I don’t really sort of put my mind to sitting down and listening to it for hours. I listen to like, even stuff like Flashdance and stuff like that.

Steve Newton: Oh yeah? Yeah, I got that record. I like that one.

Tony Iommi: Yeah I do too, yeah.

Steve Newton: Yeah, that song “Maniac”.

Tony Iommi: Oh yeah, I like, that’s great.

Steve Newton: I just want to ask you a little bit about your live show. You have those big Stonehenge monuments and stuff? What’s the live show like?

Tony Iommi: As far as what musically, or?

Steve Newton: Yeah.

Tony Iommi: Oh, we’re doing selections from, you know, the past albums and stuff like that, up until now to Born Again.

Steve Newton: And what are some of the old Sabbath tunes that you play? People might…

Tony Iommi: We’re doing, you know, the standards, “Iron Man” and “Black Sabbath”, “Paranoid”, and…

Steve Newton: And visually, what’s this show like?

Tony Iommi: The lights are very, very good. I mean it is a huge show, really, but the actual show, production-wise is ginormous. And we have actually cut some of it down. We did take out with us, first, to America, we took out a full rig of the Stonehenge, but the columns that we were using were too big. They were gigantic things. I mean, they are actually bigger than the Stonehenge itself. And so we had to cut them down ’cause the people behind the stage couldn’t see. So we had to, we’ve removed the big columns and used the small setup, but even the small setup’s quite big, really.

Steve Newton: How do you feel when people say that you play too loud? Because…

Tony Iommi: Well, I don’t take much notice of that because if they like it, they’ll like it loud, most of the kids. I mean, we’ve played loud ever since I’ve known, so.

Steve Newton: Do you ever worry about your hearing?

Tony Iommi: Pardon?

Steve Newton: Do you ever worry about? I guess not, eh?

Tony Iommi: I don’t really worry about it. If I go deaf, I go deaf early.

Steve Newton: I was reading a interview you did with Andy Secher of Hit Parader thing, and says when you were a kid you never thought you’d be able to play the guitar?

Tony Iommi: No.

Steve Newton: Why not?

Tony Iommi: When I was a kid?

Steve Newton: Yeah.

Tony Iommi: Well, I originally, when I was a kid, I started off, I wanted to play drums, really. That’s what I wanted to play. And then I had a guitar and I really got interested in it. But I did have this accident, I dunno if you knew. I took the end of me fingers off. The two middle fingers were cut off. And I was told by all surgeons and everything that I’d never be able to play again. I couldn’t accept that. And I just went out and had a go, really. I mean, I could never, I can’t feel the strings with my fingers, the two middle ones. So I have to wear, like, a cap over them, like a thimble. I’ve just got used to it over the years, now.

Steve Newton: Who were your main influences on guitar when you were starting out?

Tony Iommi: Well, a group here, The Shadows, I used to like.

Steve Newton: Oh yeah, right, uh huh.

Tony Iommi: Stuff like them, you know, and rock and roll stuff. I like stuff Django Reinhardt playing.

Steve Newton: Oh yeah, right.

Tony Iommi: I particularly related to him because he’d done the same thing. He only had two fingers.

Steve Newton: That’s interesting.

Tony Iommi: And that’s really what got me cracking on pushing myself to play, you know.

Steve Newton: Just a couple more questions here for you. You always played an S.G.?

Tony Iommi: I’ve always played an S.G. shape, yeah. They’re not actually S.G. guitars.

Steve Newton: Oh, what kind of guitar is it you’ve got?

Tony Iommi: Got a guitar I’ve made here in Birmingham by a company Jaydee Guitars. He makes quite a few now, but we started off this company years ago. It was under John Birch guitars then. And I used to be a partner in the company. I put a lot of the money into it, you know. And we designed them, and I used to test all the pickups and come back with ideas. And now there’s a lot of people use ’em now, and AC/DC use them, and well, there’s a load of people, Stanley Clarke.

Steve Newton: You never cared much for the Strat, or the Les Paul?

Tony Iommi: Well, I did have a Strat, my first guitar that I really liked. It wasn’t the first guitar I had, but the first guitar that I always wanted, really, was a Strat. And I, ’cause I’m, being lefthanded, it was hard for me to get one, you see, in them days. And I had a Strat, and in fact I used a Strat on one of the tracks on the first album. And then I went to the Gibson. I’ve used Gibsons really ever since. I’ve tried Les Pauls and I’ve had Les Pauls, I’ve still got some Les Pauls somewhere. But I don’t really use them because I like the sound of them, but you can’t get high enough, for me anyway. I mean, if you’ve got long fingers, which I haven’t now, but if you have perhaps they’re good.

Steve Newton: You use Marshalls?

Tony Iommi: I used to use Marshalls. I still got some Marshalls. I’m using Boogies at the moment.

Steve Newton: Mesa Boogie?

Tony Iommi: Yeah. That’s , you know.

Steve Newton: Okay, well best of luck till you get out to Vancouver here.

Tony Iommi: Great, well hope to see you there.

Steve Newton: Yeah. I’ll try and maybe get backstage.

Tony Iommi: Bring your earplugs.

Steve Newton: Get back and say hi.

Tony Iommi: Yeah, bring your earplugs with you.

Steve Newton: Will do. Thanks for your time, Tony.

Tony Iommi: Well if you know, if you come along, come back, say hello.

Steve Newton: Yeah, I’ll do that.

Tony Iommi: All right, Steve.

Steve Newton: Best of luck.

Tony Iommi: Great, thanks very much.

Steve Newton: Okay, see ya.

Tony Iommi: Bye-bye.

Steve Newton: Bye.