The Tapes Archive

Metallica and Lou Reed. Elton John and Eminem. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. Those are weird musical pairings you know about. But here’s one you might not: Frank Zappa and Black Sabbath.

 June 1975, Frank Zappa picked Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” as his favorite song of the moment, beating out Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush.” 

He said at the time, “I like it because I think it’s prototypical of a certain musical style, and I think it’s well done. Also, I happen to like the guitar lick that’s being played in the background.”

A couple of years later, Zappa had a new favorite song: “Iron Man.” He told Hugh Fielder, “Are you kidding me? ‘Iron Man’! That’s a work of art. I used to like ‘Supernaut,’ but I think ‘Iron Man’ is the one now.”

But in the mid-70s, Zappa’s favorite track was “Supernaut,” and Sabbath benefited from Zappa’s enthusiasm. Sabbath bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler, a Zappa fanatic who says his “musical life completely changed” when he first heard Zappa’s Mothers of Invention at the age of 15, credits Zappa’s endorsement of “Supernaut” with changing critics’ attitudes toward the band. Zappa said it was the best riff he’d ever heard, and a lot of critics started to reconsider Sabbath. The feeling was, “Well, if Zappa likes Black Sabbath, maybe we should give them another listen.”

A year prior to this, in 1974, Zappa had invited the Sabbath members to dinner. Ozzy recounted the meeting. “Frank Zappa – who was a very techno guy – invited us to a restaurant once where he was having a party. He said, ‘The song “Supernaut” is my favorite track of all time.’ I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘This guy’s taking the piss: there’s got to be a camera here somewhere…’ All of us looked up to Zappa – especially Geezer – because he seemed like he was from another planet. At the time he’d just released this quadraphonic album called Apostrophe, which had a track on it called ‘Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.’ Fucking classic.”

In November 1976, Zappa invited Ozzy and Geezer to his Third Annual Thanksgiving dinner. Cary Baker of Triad Magazine picks up the story: The telephone rang in Zappa’s room. “Hello?” he answered. “Hi, Miles, I’ve got a newsflash for you. Last night, at the third annual Thanksgiving Banquet, I saw Ozzy and Geezer from Black Sabbath. They’re playing the Amphitheatre tonight. We had a great time and discussed the possibility of teaming up at Madison Square Garden. Of course it sounds absurd! We thought it’d be real funny if I got up there for their encore and did ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Iron Man’. I was planning to attend their show after ours tonight, ‘cause I’ve never been to their kind of concert. They’re at the Hyatt House in town. See if you can set something up.” 

Meanwhile, Zappa told Baker why he liked Sabbath. “Black Sabbath moves people,” he said. “They’re in the same boat as Grand Funk in terms of what the critics say about them. But critics’ bands like Aerosmith just don’t compare to Black Sabbath. I prefer their modality. Black Sabbath is the archetype of that style, the hard-core.”

On December 6, 1976 — the night Zappa and Sabbath were supposed to play together — Sabbath and opening act Ted Nugent had sold out Madison Square Garden, with 20,000 fans in attendance. Zappa told writer Hugh Fielder what happened next.

“I was going to jam with them and they were supposed to call me up and tell me what time their soundcheck was, but I guess they didn’t have one. So, I went down there to the show and they said, ‘What are you going to play?’ and they’d set up a mini wall of Marshalls for me. And I said “Shit, I’m not going to go out there without knowing what it’s going to sound like.’ I said I’d just watch the show.

“What happened was that Tony Iommi had some trouble with his guitar and decided to change his strings at the last minute. The audience had already been sitting there waiting for an hour or so since Ted Nugent, and they wanted me to go out there and make an announcement and calm them down. So I did. And I introduced them and then sat by the side of the stage over by Ozzy’s orange juice. I just sat there and marveled at it. I think it’s great. Especially in a place like Madison Square Garden with 20,000 people grunting and wheezing and shoving each other.”

Iommi recalled the night a bit differently. “Frank was introducing the band. He wanted to play as well. We’d put his stuff on stage, but we had a really bad night. Frank was waiting to walk on and I thought, ‘He can’t, it’s disastrous, everything is going wrong, my guitar is going out of tune, there’s noise and crackles and God knows what.’ So I said to him: ‘It would be best if you don’t play, really.’”

Sadly for us, Zappa only enjoyed the show from the sidelines rather than onstage. And now, some 45 years later, we can only dream of what might have been the night Zappa was supposed to play with Black Sabbath.