Tony Iommi, together with other local celebrities, appeared at Pride of Brum awards of this year. Pride of Birmingham, organised by the Birmingham Mail and partners TSB, took place on Thursday 8 March, in the historic Great Hall of the University of Birmingham.
Brummie Black Sabbath guitar hero Tony Iommi, who was also one of the awards judges in the past years, was one of the first celebrities to sign up.
Tony published on his social media the following message: "Tony attending the Pride of Birmingham Awards last night. He was one of the judges who highlighted those who have achieved great things often against considerable odds and often without regard to their own safety. A good night."
BirminghamMail.co.uk, Iommi.com, 9 March 2018
On 21 February Tony published the following statement on his socials, which is a great opportunity for us fans, and a fantastic idea in itself:
"Tony’s having a charity lunch in support of the cancer ward where his friend and keyboard player Geoff Nicholls was treated. Tony will be undertaking a Q&A and is providing signed items for a raffle. The restaurant is a special venue and there’s a three course meal..."
Join the hospital charity for an exclusive lunch with rock legend Tony Iommi at Opus Restaurant on 20 April 2018. Tony will be on hand to entertain guests with stories from his life and career with Black Sabbath, touring the world with one of the biggest bands of all time.
Tony is Patron of Ward 19, the dedicated cancer ward at Heartlands Hospital and is supporting the Charity's campaign to raise £150,000 for an extension of cancer services at Solihull Hospital. This unit will increase the amount of cancer patients who can be treated by 170%, reducing waiting times, reducing stess and creating a calm and relaxing atmosphere for patients.
This prestigious lunch includes a three course meal and reception drinks. Tickets are £100 each or £950 for a table of ten. There will also be the chance to win some incredible Black Sabbath prizes at a raffle that will be drawn over the course of the afternoon.
To book a table of ten, please contact justine.davy@uhb.nhs.uk or ring 0121 371 4852.
To buy the ticket for the lunch with Tony (UNBELIEVABLE!!!) check this link! You can also donate to the Queen Elisabeth Hospital there. The tickets are only 10, so be quick!
Iommi.com, 21 February 2018
Interview by Dean Pedley of Midlands Rocks:
Twelve months on since Black Sabbath finished their final tour with hometown shows here in Birmingham the bands profile remains high. There was the pre-Christmas multi-format release of The End: Live In Birmingham, which documented that last performance, and also included a CD of songs recorded in the days that followed. And, as reported in our other article, Geezer Butler was at Villa Park last weekend to be awarded his star on the Broad Street Walk of Stars, becoming the third member of the band to do so. During the half time pitch side presentation ceremony, Geezer was joined by none other than Tony Iommi and Midlands Rocks was delighted to get the opportunity to have a few words with the Lord of Riffs.
MR: Tony, it’s great to see you here today to support Geezer. He’s now the third member of Sabbath to get this award after yourself and Ozzy and its recognition that is long overdue…
-- Absolutely I wouldn’t have missed this, not at all. I’m very pleased for Geezer that it’s taking place here because Aston Villa has been such a massive part of his life. He’s very shy and normally doesn’t do stuff like this but by having it take place here at Villa Park they managed to get him to come out and accept it. As I said I’m really happy for him and finally he has got his star which is much deserved.
MR: It’s been twelve months now since the final shows at Genting Arena. What was going through your mind as the tour came to a close?
-- It didn’t hit too much until the last shows really because it felt it was going to be almost like we had always done – finish the tour, go away and then get back together a few weeks or months later and start to make plans for the next one. And so it sort of felt like that but it didn’t if you know what I mean. There was that side to it where you suddenly thought “hang on a minute this is the last time we will be playing this song” and so that was when it really started to hit home.
MR: It wasn’t quite The End of course as you actually did some recording immediately afterwards…
-- Yes, fortunately for us right after the last Birmingham show we went in the studio for a couple of days to record. I thought it would be a good idea for us to set the gear up and just play in live in the studio like we used to and just tape it – good or bad. And so that’s what we did. And it was great to get a chance to do that and to be able to get Ozzy to sing some songs that he hadn’t done for a long time.
MR: The songs that were released…’The Wizard’, ‘Wicked World’, ‘Sweet Leaf’, ‘Tomorrow’s Dream’ and ‘Changes’…were not part of the set list for the final tour. Would you have liked to change the set list around more?
-- We wanted to do other stuff that we hadn’t played for years but you could only do what Ozzy can sing. And back in the day he sang them so high that there was no chance of that and he didn’t want to sing them in a different key. And then when we were in the studio after the tour had finished he could just let go and really go for it, which he was quite happy to do. When we were on tour he would always be worried about making sure he could get through the next show. He would be thinking if we do these songs it’s too high and I will strain my voice so we might have to cancel the next show. On tour you have to do it every other night and it was hard at our age to do that. But by doing it by going in to the rehearsal room he could do it because we had finished the tour and it wouldn’t strain his voice. So we tried to avoid that happening and that was why the set list became what it was.
MR: A few years back yourself and Geezer had the opportunity to get back together with Ronnie James Dio and play songs from Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules aswell as recording a final album – The Devil You Know – with Ronnie singing. There is still a lot of love for those records from that era of the band…
-- I know there is, people often mention those albums to me. And that tour for us was going great, the album did well and everything was looking really good. And then I spoke to Ronnie on the phone after he got ill and it was very sad. And I called him to wish him Happy Birthday and he said to me “Oh I don’t worry about birthdays anymore; I’m old enough for everybody”. Without him in this business it leaves a huge hole.
MR: Ronnie was an incredible singer wasn’t he?
-- He had such an amazing voice he could just do stuff that was so natural to him and he would never warm up. He had a different regime to everybody else, like Ozzy for example he always warms up before he goes on stage. But with Ronnie he could be sitting here talking and having a drink and then he could go straight on stage, no warm-up and sing like he was like a super hero. And certainly he is very much missed and the world of music is much worse off without him in it…there are some great singers out there but Ronnie was certainly one of the very best.
MR: So how have you spending your time since the tour finished; are you enjoying having a good rest?
-- Rest! I thought after this tour well now I will get time to just relax and do some stuff that I had always wanted to do…but it hasn’t happened yet! I don’t know what it is, the time is just flying by and I think because of all the years of not seeing my friends that often it has got to the stage now where I see them a lot. And we moved house, and we met a new group of friends and so we have the old friends and the new friends and we just seem to be doing more than ever.
MR: Are you thinking about any sort of music related activity at the moment?
-- Music wise I would certainly like to start writing again but at the moment I’m doing a lot of stuff for charities, Heartlands Hospital, which is part of the Heart of England Foundation Trust, and also Wythall Animal Sanctuary and both of those are very dear to me. I just try and help where I can and with the Hospital Trust at the moment we are trying to raise some money to buy some beds for the chemo patients. And so that is something that I very much like to be involved with; you see the nurses and the doctors they work so hard and they don’t get a lot of credit for it and when you’re in there they are all so committed and it sparks me off and so that’s what I’ve been spending some of my time doing.
Thanks to Tony for kindly agreeing to be interviewed at very short notice. Both Tony and Geezer signed a copy of the double Ultimate Collection CD which we are raffling in a charity auction to support the Heart of England Foundation Trust. Click the link here to make a donation and be in with a chance of winning!
TheMidlandRocks.com, 12 February 2018
On Sunday 3d February, Geezer Butler, Black Sabbath’s co-founding member, bass player, songwriter, and main lyricist, was immortalized on the Broad Street Walk of Stars in Birmingham. The ceremony took place at Aston Villa’s home ground, with Geezer receiving his star during the half-time of the Aston Villa vs Burton FC match. The honour was presented by Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Anne Underwood.
Tony Iommi, was on hand for the presentation, he shared the whole celebration day with his dear buddy Geezer, and later took to social media to post the following: "I was so pleased to see my dear friend Geezer Butler last night and to finally see him joining myself and Ozzy on Broad St Walk Of Stars in Birmingham. He received his award on the pitch of his favourite football team Aston Villa and it was presented to him by The Lord Mayor of Birmingham. Congratulations Geez! Tony."
The Birmingham Walk of Stars was developed to recognize those who were born in Birmingham or have lived here and have put the city on the map nationally and internationally through their work. This Walk of Star presentation is in partnership with Aston Villa, House of Metal, and Hollywood Metal.
In behalf of all Sabbath fans, we congratulate our Geezer with this fantastic award! And hats off to our brother Mohammed Osama, Geezer and Gloria's friend and superfan, who, with his tremendous dedication and hard work, achieved this Victory to Geezer! You guys rock! \m/
Bravewords.com, Iommi.com, 3 February 2018
Legend Tony Iommi is featured in a new interview with Musician's Institute in LA in October 2017, discussing his plans for the future and the late Ronnie James Dio. We already published the first part of the conversation on our site before. This is the second part - watch the video!
Tony Iommi:
"When we did Heaven and Hell - it was a time when Ozzy had to depart from the band and we had to get somebody else. And then we tried Ronnie. And I never met Ronnie before; actually, I met Ronnie at a party, but that was it. And when Ronnie went over to the house - because we used to have a house, we all lived together - and God, when he started singing... Bloody hell... I couldn't believe what was coming out of his little body. That voice was so good.
At that point with Ozz we haven't done much because we were all stoned and out of it, and he was worse than us. He lost interest in it. So we needed something to happen, otherwise we would have just broken up. We had to have somebody new coming - and it was Ronnie. I'm not knocking Ozzy - he's brilliant at what he does - but Ronnie was a different singer altogether."
Loudwire.com, 3 January 2018
As the last show of Black Sabbath’s final tour is immortalised with a new film and their legacy is celebrated with a vinyl boxset of their first eight albums, we talk tone and perseverance with Tony Iommi...
On 4 February 2017, Black Sabbath walked off stage at the Genting Arena in their home city of Birmingham after the last show of their final tour. That heavy and emotional finale is captured on the forthcoming DVD, Blu-ray and album, The End. But they didn’t go their separate ways that night. Instead, the band spent another three days together, finishing by going full circle with Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler playing together in a room as they had began 49 years previously.
The band finished playing together in a room as they had began 49 years previously.
“It was actually my idea to do that,” Tony Iommi tells us as we meet in the grand Rocket Room of London’s Hospital Club. “I thought it would be nice to play some different tracks that people enjoy and that we’re not playing on stage; let Ozzy sing them at ease as opposed to singing them every night. He wouldn’t be able to do them every night, but as one-offs he can. Purely because some of them are high. It was really nice to be able to do that. And I’m so glad we did do it for another reason: because on the last night we’d have all just disappeared after the show.”
The intimate session at Angelic Studios in Northamptonshire with touring drummer Tommy Clufetos can also be seen on The End and sees the trio blasting through songs such as Wicked World and The Wizard from their seminal, self-titled 1969 debut album. Ozzy can even be found dusting down his harmonica for the latter as well as the unusual sight of Iommi and Butler on keys for a performance of ballad Changes from 1972’s Vol 4.
“I hadn’t played the piano for years and certainly Geezer hadn’t,” laughs Tony. He said, ‘I don’t wanna do it, I can’t remember it!’ But it was alright!”
With The End released on 17 November and the band’s eight-album boxset The Ten Year War out now, there are no keys in sight when we meet. We’re here to talk guitar wisdom with Tony…
Changing Laneys
How Iommi went back to his roots for his final tour rig.
“I had a totally different rig altogether for the last tour. I went to Laney and asked them if they would build a better (more reliable) version of the original amps I had years ago in the early days. They thought about it but they had only made a limited amount because they were expensive. Laney put a lot of effort into it to build the amps how I wanted. Which was great. I didn’t realise it was going to be as involved as it was. They had a group of people to build these amps but they’d never seen [the originals], they were too young. So they had to be shown how to build each part. It was a lot more than I thought. They put a lot of effort into it to build them how I wanted. Which was great. They built me 10. I didn’t use all 10, of course. Pete Cornish built me a new pedalboard to work with these amps because the last system I had was another Iommi version of an amp. The pedalboard had to be different to drive those amps because I drove two different amps at the same time. I’d switch for solos. For this one it was different, it was straight on like it used to be. No fiddling around... I didn’t want all these graphic [EQs] here and there. I just wanted to plug in and play.”
Tone’s tone
So what exactly does the godfather of heavy look for in his sound?
“It has to be beefy. I try and make it half and half because it’s not the greatest sound to play solos with but it’s a good sound for chords and riffs. So I try to make the best of both worlds and tune into a sound that will cover them both. Ideally, I always want a bit more distortion on the solos, or a bit more raw, I should say. But we went with these amps; straight on. And it worked. I liked them. And we didn’t use loads of effects, I only used the wah-wah and a chorus and delay.”
Rick-rolling
The right tone is about more than just old gear.
“Analogue is a lot warmer sound-wise. And they’ve tried to do it with the digital stuff and even now they can do it in analogue and convert it to digital. But there are pros and cons for both. The thing with analogue was if you wanted to cut a bit out you’d have to splice the tape and then put bits in. Now you just have to press a couple of buttons. With our last album [2013’s 13] Rick Rubin wanted it to sound like the early days and he said, ‘Can you get any of your original amps?’ It was 50 years ago - where are we going to store amps for 50 years? We arrive in the studio and they’ve got a rack full of amps in there and I said to the engineer, ‘What’s all this?’ He said, ‘Rick ordered them.’ ‘Why?’ All these old vintage Marshalls and about three Laney Klipp amps, which I had never used but he assumed I had. So I got in there and said, ‘I don’t need these.’ But he said Rick’s ordered them, so at least give them a try. I tried them and I didn’t like them. I said to Rick, ‘Just because they’re vintage amps, it doesn’t mean they sound good.’ So we had this little thing about what we should sound like. He even phoned this bloke up who he said knew how to get my sound. I said: ‘I’m the one who got the sound. Why were you calling someone else about how to get my sound?’ In the end I used my own amp that I designed [TI 100]. Not the new ones - I wish I’d had those then.”
Never say die
Sabbath believed in their music when nobody else did.
“I think we’ve always had to deal with that. Ever since we started, the first day we had to deal with it. The same with producers. I remember when we first came to London, we played at the Speakeasy Club and we’d never played anything like that before. This guy was coming along from a record company and thought we were really crap. We never really appealed to anybody. So we’d plod on until we found the right thing and somebody would like it. We knew nothing about recording so all we did was just walk in and play. The first album was like doing a gig for us. Eventually, it clicked and Phonogram got [producer] Rodger Bain involved, who was very new to them and it was like his test project I think. We knew nothing about recording so all we did was just walk in and play. The first album was like doing a gig for us. Literally, it took that long. We didn’t have weeks to work on it - it was a case of in and out. So we’ve always had to push but it makes you strong, it makes you believe in what you do. It makes you work harder to achieve whatever it is you’re trying to. You have this drive that pushes you on to do it.”
Hanks a lot
We might have Marvin and the Shads to thank for the evolution of heavy music!
“The Shadows were the only band that really appealed to me [in the early 60s]. There was rock ’n’ roll but I liked the idea of an instrumental band and they had a real sort of demonic sound in some ways - Frightened City and stuff like that had an eerie feeling to it. I really liked what they were doing and they had a nice guitar sound for what they did. So I really tried to get that and I did to a point. Bill and myself, when we got together we were playing Shadows songs in the early band we were in, with Cliff Richard stuff and rock ’n’ roll. We wanted this more raw, basic sound, so I got into playing blues and jazz. And from that it went into what we are playing now. I never ever classed us as heavy metal in the early days. It’s just that I gave up in the end. Everyone said, ‘You’re heavy metal.’ ‘Okay, we’re heavy metal, call us what you want.’ It was always heavy rock to me.”
Chemistry test
Successful bands are a team.
“Geezer is irreplaceable... very important, because he would follow me and know what I was going to play. I never had any doubt at all that Geezer would play the right thing. Those kind of players don’t exist so much. I got a bit annoyed, certainly through the 80s period, that it became more about the posse of bands coming out. Having the bass down here and just hitting one note. Not players to me. Geezer would come up with a melodic part and he was the ideal bass player for us. I think we brought out the best in each other. Because none of us were brilliant musicians but as a band it worked. We weren’t technically great but we played and we enjoyed what we did. We created a sound, and we created basic riffs that people liked. Well, we liked them anyway! I’ve played with other people who have been technical and I learned through the period of being on my own and bringing in drummers and bass players that however good you are, it doesn’t mean to say you can play what we played. And it proved a point because some of these musicians were great players but you’d say, ‘Can you play War Pigs or Black Sabbath?’ and they couldn’t get it. No feel. And the amount of times I’d have drummers come in to play and they’d say, ‘We know all of Sabbath’s stuff’ and they’d play. ‘Stop! It’s nothing like it. The feel’s not there.’ But technically they’re great. That really did open my eyes. It’s simple… but it’s not.”
Harping on
Iommi is known as a riff master, but Sabbath were frequently experimental too...
“I did like to experiment a bit and I’ve always been one to try and do something different from what we’d already done. Even from the early days of doing an instrumental when we did Laguna Sunrise. Then Supertzsar was another one. At first somebody said, ‘You can’t put Laguna Sunrise on the album with all the heavy stuff.’ Why? And it was the same with Supertzsar. And I’d done it at home. I had a harp and I couldn’t play the harp but I could play a couple of notes on it. So I put this riff down and thought, ‘I’ll try that harp on this.’ We were always experimental all the way through. Right down to sounds, because you had to make your own sounds in those days. Then I had a mellotron and put the choir [parts] down and it sort of worked. I played it the others and they said, ‘Oh yeah we like that.’ But the thing was we then had to get proper players in. So we had the choir come onboard. We got this harp player from the philharmonic and she asked, ‘Well, what would you like me to play?’ And I said. ‘I’m playing this [mimics rudimentary harp playing]’ I was so embarrassed. So I said, ‘Just play what you think will go with it.’ But it was all experimental. We were always experimental all the way through. Right down to sounds, because you had to make your own sounds in those days. You couldn’t buy a keyboard and press a note that came up as a different sound. You had to make them and it took time to do it.”
Wheels of confusion
Always record your riffs…
“You had to remember riffs back in the old days. When we did get a tape machine it was a big reel to reel but in the early days we’d have to keep playing the same thing so we’d remember it, because you’d forget. We’d rehearse again the next day and everyone would come in. You’d ask, ‘Does everyone remember it?’ ‘I think so…’ and you’d have to try and drum it into yourself but you might play it slightly differently. That’s always the thing if you don’t tape it down, just that little inflection in how you play it can make the song sound different. Just pulling back too much or being too impatient with certain bits, it doesn’t sound the same. You’ve still got to play it the same to get that feel. It’s down to feel really. If you hold one note longer than it should be, it makes the tune different. I’ve done it myself many times. I’ve gone in thinking, ‘Well, this is how it is’ and I’ve started playing it but, fortunately, I’ve had a tape of it. Then when I’ve listened back to the tape I thought, ‘Oh blimey I’m not playing that right now’, when I thought I was.”
The thrill of it all
What the guitar means to Iommi, 49 years after forming Sabbath.
"Being able to play an instrument releases something in you that you wouldn’t normally be able to do. It’s a way of expressing your inner self. But I don’t sleep with the guitar now, when I did in the early days, mind! It has always meant something very special to me, and it brought out parts of me that you couldn’t bring out normally from within. Being able to write music, being able to play an instrument releases something in you that you wouldn’t normally be able to do... that I wouldn’t normally be able to do. And the guitar did that for me. It taught me a lot really. When I feel like it, I go and play now. And at the moment I’m really far away from it because there’s so many other things going on, the last thing I want to do is pick up a guitar! But when I do pick it up, I really enjoy it. And I liked it when I could sit with the band and come up with ideas and come up with riffs. Or at home I come up with riffs. Then I’m in my element.”
MusicRadar.com, 22 December 2017
Right before his appearance at the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards, legendary Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi took part in a conversation at the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood, Calif. During part one of the interview, Iommi talks about his early days as a musician, cutting off his fingers in an industrial accident and his road to forming Black Sabbath.
The story of Tony Iommi’s missing fingertips has become stuff of heavy metal legend. We even cast Iommi’s right hand to create the official 2017 Loudwire Music Awards ‘Hand of Doom’ trophy. While speaking with interviewer Ryan J. Downey, Iommi recalled the accident in gruesome detail.
“I’d be on a line and they’d pass stuff down to me and I’d weld it, and then it’d go on to somewhere else,” Iommi sets up the scene. “One day, the person that would be sending me the thing to weld never turned up, so they put me on this giant, huge press — a guillotine-type press. I don’t know what happened, I must have pushed my hand in. Bang! It came down. It just took the ends off [my fingers]. I actually pulled them off. As I pulled my hang back, it sort of pulled them off. It was left with two stalks, the bone was sticking out the top of the finger.”
Iommi continues, “I went to the hospital and they cut the bones off and then they said, ‘You might as well forget playing.’ God, I was just so upset. I wouldn’t accept that there wasn’t some way around it, that I couldn’t be able to play.”
Iommi speaks about crafting his own prosthetic fingertips by melting down a soap bottle, but being unable to grip his guitar strings. After gluing various types of cloth to the plastic tips, to no avail, the future Black Sabbath legend had his eureka moment after cutting up an old leather jacket. “It worked, but then I had to persevere for a long, long time to get used to working with them… and it was painful.”
The guitarist goes on to talk about the first bands he ever performed with. “The first gig I ever had was just me with a drummer and a piano player and they were about 30 years older than me. It was in a pub and I wasn’t even old enough to be in the pub,” Iommi recalls. After reminiscing about other pre-Sabbath bands he played in, such as the Rockin’ Chevrolets and the Rest — the latter of which featured Bill Ward on drums — Iommi describes wanting to create a “bigger sound” than he had been hearing in rock music.
Having played the final show at the end of The End tour, Tony Iommi sat down with Classic Rock to reveal what he'd learned during Black Sabbath's long career... One of the standout features of Classic Rock 243 is The Gospel According To Tony Iommi, in which the legendary Black Sabbath guitarist looks back over his band's long and storied career, and reveals what he's learned. Here are just five highlights...
Always believe in the impossible --
I lost the tips of two fingers in an accident on the day that I was due to leave my job in a sheet metal factory to turn professional. I was only seventeen years old, and the doctors told me there was no point in trying to continue playing the guitar. But I wouldn’t give up and eventually I found a way. All through my life I’ve had that same attitude. If band members left, then I never gave up. You find somebody else and you carry on. And eventually of course we all came back together.
I’ve no idea where those riffs come fromI’m just grateful that they do. They come out of the air; I don’t sit down and work them out. They just arrive. It’s all very strange. I can sit down and two or three different riffs will come along in ten minutes. Some of them will be crap but most are usable. I’m useless at most other things, but if there’s one thing I can do in life then it’s write riffs.
The last Sabbath show was weird --
The feeling built as we crept towards to the final gig at the Genting Arena, but it didn’t really sink in till the day of the show. Looking out at the audience during the last few songs, people were crying. Those people idolise you and love what you do. In a way it felt like we were letting them down. It was a shame.
Sabbath’s earliest gigs were crap --
How we got from those days to what the band eventually became, I’m really not sure. We would play places where nobody was interested. Or we’d turn up and people would think that we were playing pop, when of course we weren’t. I recall a gig at a place called the Toe Bar in Egremont and this bloke shouted out: “Your singer’s crap.” That was really embarrassing. Of course, we improved as the years went by, but we certainly had to teach people – and ourselves – about what we were doing, because it was so different. It was a very steep learning curve.
Has anyone got the Black Zeppelin tape?
We were really good mates with Led Zeppelin, especially Robert Plant and John Bonham who came from the Midlands. Zeppelin had wanted us to be on their label, Swan Song, but we couldn’t make it work out. During the recording of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album [1973], Zeppelin came into the studio for a jam. John wanted to play Supernaut but we jammed instead. We were in the middle of recording so it fucked up the session. I know that it wasrecorded, and I’d love to hear it. The tape must be around somewhere.
You can read the full version of this feature in The Gospel According To Tony Iommi, in the latest issue of Classic Rock. Buy it online HERE.
Loudwire.com, Teamrock.com, 15 December 2017
It's the end of an era, one that no self-respecting metal fan will ever forget. Starting in 1968, Black Sabbath provided the blueprint for metal. Black Sabbath made their way around the world for "The End" tour, playing 81 dates in all, but fittingly they wrapped up their concert career at the Genting Arena in their hometown of Birmingham, England, bringing their career full circle. For those who love these sorts of things, their final show started with "Black Sabbath," the very first track opening their very first album and it helped set the bar for what was to come. For a live album, the sound is impeccable with Geezer Butler's bass pulsing through the opening number and the nimble guitar mastery of Tony Iommi ripping through the frenetic finish to "Fairies Wear Boots" and pumping through your headphones with sharp precision.
A good sign of a great live album is when you can close your eyes and almost feel like you're there. By the time listeners get to "Into the Void," the energy is so electrifying, you'd swear you were close enough to feel the visible sweat dropping from Osbourne's brow, or hanging right in the midst of the chanting crowd, riding the undeniable groove Black Sabbath are laying down. The mid-section of the show - with "Into the Void," "Snowblind," "War Pigs," "Behind the Wall of Sleep" and "Bassically/NIB" - feels like the band really hit its stride and found that perfect synergy with the crowd, finishing out the latter track to rapturous applause.
The back portion of the set allows for more improvisation, as the band deftly maneuvers between "Supernaut," "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Megalomania." Meanwhile, "Rat Salad" gives way to a showcase of Tommy Clufetos' drum skills, showing exactly why he was a stellar choice to take over behind the kit after the band failed to come to contractual terms with original drummer Bill Ward. The drummer's solo is masterful, complimenting the fine work he'd done behind the kit throughout this special show.As expected, "Iron Man" killed with great crowd participation. "Dirty Women" gave Iommi one of his best showcases of the night with a scintillating guitar solo you never want to end, and "Children of the Grave" came pulsing through the speakers with such amazing vitality that once again you find yourself caught up in the moment. Finishing out the collection, Ozzy Osbourne leads a soccer chant, then rallies to crowd to "go crazy" before rocking through the classic "Paranoid" with an emotional conclusion filled with elation.
“It will never be 'The End' for me. I’ll always be a part of Sabbath and Sabbath will always be a part of me,” says Butler in the album booklet. Thanks to The End concert release, it never has to be the end for fans either. Just put on this concert album and relive the glorious final statement from the band, who went out on top with one amazing final show.
Hats off to the producer / sound engineer extraordinaire Mike Exeter, long time friend of Tony Iommi's, and collaborator with Black Sabbath since the 90s. His exceptional mixing work is what made this Live album finally sound for a masterpiece it is. The live album "The End. 4 February 2017 Birmingham" was released on 17 November 2017 in various formats as CD, vinyl LP, DVD, Blue Ray, and Deluxe package boxes with booklet, guitar picks and metal Henry pin.
Loudwire.com, 18 November 2017
Before making his appearance at the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards on 24 October 2017, to accept the Courage Award, Tony Iommi sat down with Ryan J. Downey at a Musicians Institute exclusive conversation in Los Angeles on Monday (October 23). Speaking for about an hour before taking questions from the audience, the legendary Black Sabbath guitarist and heavy metal pioneer talked about his childhood and his relationship with music growing up, the accident that ultimately led to the birth of metal, the formation of Black Sabbath as well as the band's chart-topping comeback with Ozzy Osbourne, 13. That's what the conversation was about, shortly:
Turning back the clock to over a half century ago, Iommi discussed growing up in the industrial city of Birmingham, England which was plagued by gangs and he later saw music as a means of escaping that lifestyle. Bullied as a kid, Iommi was once chased down the road by a spider-wielding neighbor, leading to an accident where the future icon tripped, scarring his face after sliding on the gravel. With a scar on his upper lip, he made the decision to mask it by growing a mustache, a distinctive facial feature he's retained to this day. In response to the bullying, Iommi took up Judo three-to-four times a week and practiced karate as well. Though once music entered the picture, these training sessions became increasingly infrequent and ultimately fell by the wayside altogether as he became enamored by guitarist Hank Marvin from the instrumentalist group The Shadows. Iommi called them the top instrumental band in England, joking that the country only had one to begin with.
While fans can't imagine the Black Sabbath legend without his Gibson SG, the guitar wasn't the musician's first dream. With ambitions to become a drummer, Iommi faced two problems that prevented him from putting sticks in his hand: his house was too small for a kit and he was unable to afford one anyway. Fortunately for all of us, it was the guitar that became his calling card as he listened to The Shadows, learning their music by ear and he commented that guitar playing comes from the inside rather than what's written and that you have to play what you feel. For all those who have slaved over a guitar trying to capture the inimitable mood and magic of Iommi's riffs, there lies your hurdle.
In the '60s when Iommi first picked up a guitar, he didn't have limitless choices or the ability to pull a Gibson or Fender off a wall at a local music shop, but had to order the rare left-handed guitar from a catalog for £30. He would later have a variety of options when Sabbath eventually made it to the U.S. and he was able to peruse a finer selection in New York.
Of course, what conversation with Tony Iommi would be complete without bringing up the would-be-fortunate machine accident that resulted in the severing of a couple fingertips on the guitarist's fretting hand? We all know the tale, but hearing it told straight from Iommi's mouth is an altogether surreal experience. Working as a welder in a factory, which he commented was "a good job if you like jobs," Iommi recalled his co-worker failing to report to work, so he was put to work behind a metal-bending press on his last day on the job before leaving for a tour of Germany. Returning home for lunch and hoping it would be for good, Iommi was implored by his mother to finish the job and during the waning hours of his shift the accident happened. When the guillotine-like press came down, a less than attentive Iommi neglected to withdraw his hand fully from the chopping block and the press severed two of his fingertips. He described the gruesome scene with bones protruding from the ends of his fingers, which were then cut off as he sought urgent care at the hospital. "Of course my mother got total blame for that," he quipped, able to laugh about the injury after nearly half a century of rock stardom.
You're probably wondering where Black Sabbath fits into this picture. It's now. Prior to teaming up with Geezer Butler (who was originally a guitarist!) and Ozzy Osbourne, Iommi joined a band near Scotland and pulled in his former The Rest bandmate and remarkable skinsman Bill Ward. The two would later return to Birmingham, scouring local advertisements in music shops, where they came across one that read "Ozzy requires gig." Iommi thought to himself that it couldn't be the same Ozzy from his school days and was puzzled as he never knew him to be a singer, to which he smirked, "I was right, wasn't I?" The pair of musicians, in need of a singer, answered the ad and went knocking on Ozzy's door, where his mother answered. "Forget it, I know him," Iommi said to Ward. Fatefully, Ozzy, who was linked up with Butler at the time, came looking for a drummer and Ward said he wouldn't accept without Iommi joining and one of the most esteemed lineups in the history of recorded music was born.
This lineup would endure a number of early problems, like Butler playing bass lines on a Telecaster at a gig and later a three-string bass. "Oi, your singer's crap," shouted someone at a show, which featured Butler in a hippie dress, Iommi and Ward sporting leather jackets and a barefooted Osbourne. Confusing didn't even touch what was going on and the befuddling wardrobe selection would manifest itself again in 1975 on the front and back covers of Sabotage.
Doctors told him, "You might as well forget playing [guitar]," and a glum Iommi refused to accept his new fate and insisted there had to be some way to combat this devastating mutilation. The lightning bolt of inspiration struck when his factory manager handed him an EP from Django Reinhardt, who also dealt with an accident to his hand. Determined to once again play the guitar, plastic bottles were melted into a ball and a hot soldering iron bored a hole through it, allowing the condensed ball to be laid over the damaged fingertips. Days went by as Iommi rubbed the caps down to make the shape of a finger and when they were ready, he attempted to play again, but his ambition was met with agonizing pain and he was incapable of performing string bends, which was all too problematic when wailing on the blues. After trying to wrap the caps in various textiles, the guitarist decided to cut up his leather jacket and glued bits of the material over the caps and a grip on the strings was now attainable, though fretting the instrument still proved to be difficult as he lacked the ability to feel the guitar's neck. Still in the rudimentary phase of customizing his guitar to counter his injury, Iommi filed the frets down on his guitar, minimizing the amount of physical pressure required to play. The standard gauge strings also proved to be troubling and he then went in pursuit of lighter gauge strings, settling on ones typically used on a banjo, surprisingly enough. He'd later attempt to secure lighter guitar strings through various companies, but was laughed away and told they'd never sell — oops.
As they honed their sound (and, mercifully, their appearance), Black Sabbath weren't initially met with rave reviews recognizing the musical revolution that would soon follow as Iommi's heaving riffs would live in eternal glory. Rolling Stone slagged the band's haunting 1970 debut and Sabbath struggled to obtain gigs in their home country, but had built up a dedicated following in Germany, often playing upwards of seven 45-minute sets a day. The band would stretch their material to its absolute limits, jamming onstage (which is how "War Pigs" came to be) while Iommi would play extended solos during one set and Ward would get his turn in another. The club organizers weren't overjoyed by this and put the kibosh on the excessive and over-indulgent musicianship, not that it wasn't standard practice for some of the world's leading rock acts ... but Sabbath had yet to reach that point.
The history of Sabbath from this point on is well-documented and Ryan J. Downey fast forwarded the conversation to the band's 13 album, which was their first studio record to feature Ozzy since 1978's fateful Never Say Die. For decades, Iommi had been the band's leader and pointman when it came to recording new albums and he gleefully relinquished this role as Rick Rubin was tasked with the production. His vision was to mentally transport the band back to the time of their debut record, gathering them all to listen to it before the writing sessions started.
Rubin was not bent on just a mental throwback, however, and asked Iommi if he could get his old amplifiers used from Sabbath's heyday. The guitarist declined, pointing out that he now has his own amp, which houses his perfected tone. Unswayed, Rubin insisted on vintage and had a stack of amps at his house for Iommi to plug into. However, he stressed to Rubin that just because they're "vintage" doesn't mean they sound great — they're just old, underscoring the subtle and sarcastic wit that lies beneath the collected and dignified persona of heavy metal's godfather.
Thanks to the Musicians Institute College of Contemporary Music, and Ryan J. Downey for hosting the conversation series with Tony Iommi in Los Angeles.
Mi.edu, 26 October 2017