Word-for-word with Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath: the complete interview, January 10, 1984

By Steve Newton

Way back in ’84 I did my first interview with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, the Riffmaster General.

Back then Sabbath included singer Ian Gillan from Deep Purple, and was touring behind its Born Again album.

At around the 1:30 mark I lost phone contact with Iommi, but we hooked back up again, thank god. 

Hello?

Hi, Tony?

Yes.

Yeah, it’s Steve Newton from out in Vancouver.

Oh hi Steve, how are you?

How are you?

Fine, thank you.

Are you in London?

No, I live north of London, in Birmingham.

How’s the tour goin’ for you guys?

The up and coming one, you mean?

Oh, you haven’t started yet?

No, not yet.

Oh yeah. You’re playing Vancouver on the 19th?

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

You’re probably sick of telling people about it, but just for the record, how did you get Ian Gillan to join Black Sabbath?

Oh, well what version have you heard? (laughs). We were just looking for a vocalist, and a lot of people contacted us.

Were you a fan of his from former band, Deep Purple?

I always liked it, yeah. Always liked him.

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

That’s right, yeah.

Why that song?

(Phone connection gets lost and I have to call him back.)

Tony?

Yeah, what happened?

I don’t know, we got cut off somehow.

Aw dear.

Anyway, I was askin’ you about “Smoke on the Water”, why you chose that song to play.

Well, it was 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.

Oh yeah. I was wondering why you guys didn’t choose “Highway Star” or maybe “Strange Kind Of Woman”?

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

Do you play it like Deep Purple played it, like Blackmore, or do you put your own…

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.

Why did your previous singer, Ronnie Dio, leave the band?

Oh, it was when we were doing the live album. He left in between that.

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

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

The other new addition to 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?

It was, really. But before ELO, he used to play quite heavy with the Move, you know.

Oh yeah.

Heavy drummer. And they used to play quite heavy stuff, you know. In fact he’s known as “The Birmingham Basher”. He was known in them days. And he’s quite a pounder. I mean, I knew he could play pretty hefty stuff, but I was surprised when I did hear him, and the way he’s improving as we’ve done the shows, you know.

Is he a permanent member of the band now?

He is now, yeah.

So Bill Ward won’t be coming back then?

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

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?

Well, we did actually, yeah. 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. And we used to record sometimes at four in the morning, five in the morning. So we started disturbing them (laughs).

Priest came over?

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…

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

Oh yeah, yeah.

What happened there?

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.

His boat?

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

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

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, as with Bev. But at that time we just met Ian, and we rehearsed and wrote the stuff, and went and recorded it really fairly quickly.

Yeah, it’s certainly got a raw sound.

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

Which is your personal favorite song on the new album?

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

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

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

Yeah?

Yeah.

Did you enjoy the late Randy Rhoads‘ guitar playing?

Yeah, he was a good player.

Yeah, I thought he was amazing.

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

Yeah, he was unreal. I really liked him

Yeah, he was a good player. Very good for a young kid as well.

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

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

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

Oh yeah.

Yeah? So you weren’t complaining about that?

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

Yeah, mm-hmm.

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.

Yes. How do you feel after 13 years and 13 Sabbath albums…

15 years.

…really? When you see a young man, like say Def Leppard strike it rich after just a few years on the hard rock trail?

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.

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

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 of today. You know, along with Zeppelin and Purple as well, really.

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

Oh, a lot of different sorts of stuff. I don’t listen to any of the new wave stuff; I don’t really like that. I listen to jazz, I like modern jazz. And of course I like some heavy bands around now, but I don’t listen to a lot of heavy stuff, because obviously we’re doing that sort of thing. I mean, you hear what’s around, but I don’t really sort of put my mind to sitting down and listening to it for hours. I listen to stuff like Flashdance.

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

Oh yeah, that’s great. Irene Cara.

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?

As far as what musically, or?

Yeah.

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

And what are some of the old Sabbath tunes that you play?

We’re doing, you know, the standards, “Iron Man” and “Black Sabbath”, “Paranoid”.

And visually, what’s the show like?

The lights are very, very good. I mean it is a huge show, really, but the actual show, production-wise is gi-normous. And we have actually cut some of it down. We did take out with us, at 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. If we were playing a place like Madison Square Garden or something the people couldn’t see at the back. So we’ve removed the big columns and used the small setup. But even the small setup’s quite big, really.

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

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.

Do you ever worry about your hearing?

Pardon?

Do you ever worry…

[Laughs at his own joke.]

…I guess not, eh?

I don’t really worry about it. If I go deaf I go deaf, really.

I was reading an interview you did with Andy Secher of Hit Parader that says when you were a kid you never thought you’d be able to play the guitar.

No.

Why not?

When I was a kid?

Yeah.

Well originally, when I was a kid and 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, the ends. 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 a cap over them, like a thimble. I’ve just got used to it over the years, now.

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

Well, a group here, the Shadows, I used to like.

Oh yeah, right.

Stuff like them, you know. And rock and roll stuff. I like stuff Django Reinhardt playing.

Oh yeah, right.

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

That’s interesting.

And that’s really what got me cracking on pushing meself to play, you know.

Just a couple more questions here for you. You always played an SG?

I’ve always played an SG shape, yeah. They’re not actually SG guitars.

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

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. AC/DC use them, and well, there’s a load of people. Stanley Clarke.

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

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. But I used to love the Strat, and then I went to the Gibson, and 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.

You use Marshalls?

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

Oh yeah. Mesa Boogie?

Yeah. Heads, you know.

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

Great, well I hope to see you there.

Yeah. I’ll try and maybe get backstage.

Bring your earplugs.

Get back and say hi.

Yeah, bring your earplugs with you.

Will do. Thanks for your time, Tony.

Well if you know, if you come along, come back, say hello.

Yeah, I’ll do that.

All right, Steve.

Best of luck.

Great, thanks very much.

Okay, see ya.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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