Tony Iommi was never loved by his father. He was an only child and grew up in a house where his parents fought frequently. He modeled a scary personality: he would get upset at anything, get under the blanket and turn on a little light. To feel isolated and safe. He also slept with the lamp always lighting his small room in a popular neighborhood of Birmingham. A psychologist would have something to say about how a fearful child years later put together the darkest and spookiest sound ever heard in rock at that time. “That environment of my childhood affected me a lot. It was difficult to manage. When you see that your family fights and other things happen… It was very difficult, yes,” Iommi tells this newspaper by phone.
There is a broad consensus about the musical transcendence of Iommi (Birmingham, England, 76 years old): he was the creator of the heavy metal sound with his guitar when that term did not even exist. He founded Black Sabbath in the late sixties with Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Bill Ward (drums) and Geezer Butler (bass). The first four albums of the quartet (Black Sabbath and Paranoid, both in 1970; Master of Reality, 1971, and Vol. 4, 1972) form the basis of a dark and dense sound that dozens of bands have recognized as a canonical influence. To name a few: Queen, Judas Priest, Elton John, Pearl Jam, Guns N’Roses, Iron Maiden, Metallica… Even a guy so little metalhead Like Justin Bieber, he has recognized himself as a Black Sabbath fan.
Context and coincidences helped Iommi arrive at this murky sonic framework. First there was a toxic childhood with a working-class family in a dark post-World War II Birmingham. Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward defined Aston, the area of Birmingham where the band was born, this way: “If you grew up there you had three options: work in a factory, start a rock band or go to jail.” Iommi had been working since he was 15, when he left school. Plumber, warehouse cleaner, nut driver… Meanwhile, he played in local bands. At the age of 17, it happened: while working his workday in a sheet metal factory, he put his hand between a piece and the welding machine and cut off the tips of the middle fingers of his right hand. Lots of blood and bones sticking out. His career as a guitarist had barely started and he could already call it a day. During his convalescence and under a cloud of depression, his foreman at the factory intentionally gave him a record by Django Reinhardt, a virtuoso jazz guitarist that he did not stop playing despite having two incapacitated fingers. That was the main incentive for Iommi.
The damaged hand was the right one, whose fingers had to move along the neck, since Iommi is left-handed. He had to put prosthetics on his injured fingers by melting a plastic bottle and then adding a leather protection. And learn to play again. He chose lighter banjo strings, which he combined with guitar strings. With this new dynamic of manipulating the guitar, together with the combination of the thickness of the strings, he achieved that serious and expansive sound that was later called heavy metal.
Having told the story, the question is appropriate: do you think that if you had not had the accident in your hand you would never have achieved that darkness coming from the guitar? “That’s the 10 million dollar question,” laughs Iommi, speaking from his residence on the English coast. “You never know. What is clear is that the accident made me work harder, fight for something I believed in, and overcome challenges. Now everything has advanced technically, but then playing the guitar without the pads of two fingers was complicated. “I couldn’t do what the other guitarists did, so I invented my style and that great sound came out.” There was another inspiration, this time cinematic. “I loved horror movies. And Geezer too. There was a cinema in front of our rehearsal space and they played Boris Karloff tapes. “I liked the music of intense scenes and I wanted to create that threatening sound inside my guitar.” Ozzy Osbourne’s anguished voice completed the piece.
There was a lot of talk at the time about the influence of drugs and a certain tendency towards the occult of the band. Iommi, who continues to play with a huge crucifix hanging from his neck, acknowledged in his memoirs, Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath (2012, only in English), his interest in necromancy and that he had a time in which he devoured the books of Lobsang Ramp, a Tibetan monk specialized in occultism and paranormal phenomena. In his autobiography, the guitarist recounts an episode: “I left my body. It was weird. It floated around the room and looked down at me from the ceiling. And I could leave the room, go through walls and go to the roof. It seems crazy, but I even went to the beach once.” He assures that he has not practiced it for many years, as well as drug consumption. “Oh god, decades ago. I don’t even remember when I left it. We had never taken cocaine or other drugs until we arrived in the United States. [para la grabación de Vol. 4, 1972], where other bands from there offered us. At first it influenced our music because it opened our minds a little. But as time goes by and you continue using it becomes a problem: it no longer opens your mind and traps you.” He also quit smoking. But keep drinking. “I always did that, I never gave it up: wine, champagne… Whatever.”
Iommi appears as the only member of Black Sabbath who has been in the group’s 55 years of life, since 1968. The guitarist has lived through times of glory and performances for a few, when hard rock was in the doldrums. Perhaps the most striking thing has been the carnival of singers: in addition to the two most appreciated, Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio (with whom he recorded the proud Heaven and Hell, 1980), Ian Gillan, Rob Halford, Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin have also given voice to his compositions. Iommi’s new release is dedicated to the latter’s stage, Anno Domini 1989-1995 (available from May 31), which includes four albums that he recorded during the period in which Tony Martin was the voice of Black Sabbath: Headless Cross (1989), Tyr (1990), Cross Purposes (1994) and Forbidden (nineteen ninety five). “They are albums that were difficult to find, they were not even on digital platforms, so now we recover them. It was difficult for Tony Martin. Before him there had been Ozzy, Dio and Gillan, three singers with great reputations. I signed Tony because I really liked his voice, but he was unknown to the general public. It was a big challenge for him and he had to learn as he went, but he did it. There are the records to prove it.”
The talk continues with a reflection on everything that has changed the music industry since he started, where the vinyl record was the only format and the songs were constructed as a seven, eight or nine minute adventure: totally different from the present. Iommi does not sign up for the defeatist and nostalgic discourse: “Music is constantly changing, since the time of jazz. I am trapped in an era and it is difficult for me to get out of it, but I understand that young people listen to other music. There have to be new ideas that youth contribute. That seems fine to me”. What do you think, for example, of Taylor Swift? He laughs before responding: “Well, it seems like everything is Taylor Swift right now. You know, it’s another generation of people who love what she does. No problem. I am not particularly interested in what she does, but it is clear that she is doing very well.”
The guitarist was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2011, which kept him convalescing for a while. Today he says he has it under control: “Thank you for asking. Yes, I go regularly for check-ups, blood tests and all that. And they tell me that everything is fine.” He emphasizes in the book that “the best thing” he has done in his life was marry Maria Sjöholm, Swedish singer of the group Drain STH. He did it in 2005 after three failed marriages. Iommi has a daughter, Toni-Marie Iommi, 30, from a previous relationship. with a musical career as a singer.
Black Sabbath’s music was ignored for a long time, perhaps because of its working-class origins and its harshness. Today, their city surrenders to the gang. “Things have changed, fortunately. We have our own bridge in Birmingham called Black Sabbath, a bench in a square with our statues, a bus, which is black… When we went to the United States, they asked us: ‘Where are you from?’. From Birmingham. ‘That’s in London, right?’ And we had to explain to them… We put Birmingham on the map. It is good that it is recognized now.” Even the Birmingham Royal Ballet has put on a show featuring the music of Black Sabbath. Iommi was the final guest some night.
After the logical ups and downs, he assures that his relationship today with Ozzy Osbourne is “very good.” They call each other every week and get together from time to time. There is, however, nothing planned regarding a meeting on stage. The last one was in August 2022 at the ceremony of the Commonwealth Gameswhich were held in Birmingham: Iommi and Ozzy got together with two other musicians to play Black Sabbath classics Hombre de Hierro and Paranoid. “You can never say that Black Sabbath won’t return to the stage. What you can say is that Black Sabbath will never do a big tour anymore, but we could organize a special concert at some point. The first time Ozzy left was in the seventies, and it was already said that the band was over. But then Ozzy came back, and he left again. Same with Dio. And we go on. It’s been like this all our lives, and we’ve always continued. So you can never say this is over.”
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