Popoff - Black Sabbath FAQ: all thats left to know on the first name in metal

Black Sabbath FAQ

Copyright 2011 by Martin Popoff

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2011 by Backbeat Books

An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation

7777 West Bluemound Road

Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices

33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

All images are from the personal collection of the author unless otherwise noted.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Book design by Snow Creative Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Popoff, Martin, 1963

Black Sabbath FAQ : all thats left to know on the first name in metal / Martin Popoff. 1st pbk. ed.

p. cm.

Includes .

ISBN 978-0-87930-957-2 (alk. paper)

1. Black Sabbath (Musical group) 2. Rock musiciansEnglandBiography. 3. Rock groupsEngland. I. Title.

ML421.B57P66 2011

782.421660922dc22

[B]

2011015823

www.backbeatbooks.com

For Ronnieinspiration, encouragement, comfort, and rock giant to me since 1975

Black Sabbath was the first! The pioneers, the originators. They were the first heavy metal band and the first metal band to reach #1 in the UK and then also, with Paranoid, #12 in the U.S. They were the first band to record in dropped tuning, and of course everyone would follow in their wake; indeed, its impossible to exaggerate their influence over the whole metal scene since 1970.

I grew up with Sabbath. My older brother, Dave, introduced me to their groundbreaking first album when I was eleven years old. Listening to that opening track, Black Sabbath, on their eponymous debut was a life-changing experience. Nothing could prepare me for the unique atmosphere of entering the nightmarish world they conjured. Drama and power were equally, intensely mixed, through a mean and dark riff emphasizing the flattened fifth, accentuated by those moody verses, with a singer who sounded as though Satan himself was on his tail.

Moving forward less than a year, Sabbaths second album, Paranoid, features one of my all-time favorite rock songs, War Pigs, which helped Sabbath achieve success in the U.S., very rare for a none-too-commercial band. As it turned out, the younger generation of Americans related to what Black Sabbath were saying with their antiwar stance at the time of the Vietnam War.

Stepping back, my brother had been learning to play the acoustic guitar since 1968, but in 71 he went to see Sabbath at the Birmingham Town Hall and later told me, The minute Tony Iommi hit that first power chord to War Pigs on his cherry red Gibson SG with that incredible sustain and feedback, I knew I had to buy an electric guitar. After this revelation, Dave went out and bought a cheap secondhand SG copy for 14, and this eventually became my first guitar, the guitar I formed Diamond Head with in 1976.

I recall struggling to play along to Children of the Grave from my favorite Sabbath album, Master of Reality. Unfortunately my guitar was in standard tuning (I did not know of anything else at the time), and that whole pioneering album is detuned a semitone, while, as well, the bottom E string is tuned down another whole tone, to C. So I could never find the chords or play along or figure out the secret as to why Sabbath sounded so much heavier than all the other bands.

I mean, theres a riff in the ultraheavy Sabbath Bloody Sabbathits a crushing song anyway, but when it gets to the 3:19 mark, it goes through the floor, finding a whole next level of heaviness like a punch in the stomach; unbelievable, and again, that section features Tony utilizing the same dropped tuning before anyone else had discovered it.

Advance through the 70s, and the release of every Sabbath album was an event in our household. In 1974, Dave took me, fourteen years of age, to see the mighty Sabbath in the flesh on the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tour, at the Birmingham Odeon, home turf for us and Sabbath both. I am sure this experience had a big effect on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Seeing them live was a huge thrill; it was a wall of sheer power, harnessed by a front man who could work the crowd. When most singers were content to look cool, Ozzy was a good-time guy who wanted everyone to enjoy the evening, shown through his own enthusiasm for the cause. As well, Ozzy had a real talent for adding a melody line on top of a riff, which is something I very much appreciated and used extensively in Diamond Head.

Deep into the years of my Sabbath fandom, in 1978 my favorite riff was the one driving the verse of Symptom of the Universe, a crushing, relentlessly heavy song from the Sabotage album. I of course wanted to out-heavy it with Diamond Head and came up with the riff for Am I Evil? It was my challenge for the title heaviest riff in the world. Thanks partially to its Sabbath inspiration, that song has become a live favorite and a metal classic in its own right and was the first song Metallica covered as a B side, their version showing up on the bands 12 Creeping Death single from 84.

In 1983, Diamond Head were lucky enough to be invited to support Sabbath on a three-week European tour promoting their shockingly grinding Born Again album, although by this time it was no longer the classic lineup, featuring instead Ian Gillan on vocals and Bev Bevan on drums. The first date in France was rained out, and so we all set off toward the Toros Monumental, Barcelona, opening to ten thousand crazy Spaniards packed into a huge bullring. I had a terrible gig, as my amp sounded thin and had no sustain; I rushed back to the amp and turned everything up full, including my distortion pedal, but it still sounded weedywhat a nightmare. I found out afterward it was because all the backline power was coming off a generator that was not giving off 240 volts. The people at the front of the stage began throwing chunks of orange shale at us, which they were collecting from the floor of the bullring. One of them hit our bass player full in the face and he shouted down the mic, Fuck off, you Spanish bastards! Another went into our keyboard players brand-new Yamaha DX7. I hated the gig, and it was one of those moments where I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. It did not happen again, thankfully, and the rest of the tour was a noticeable improvement. Its a weird feeling meeting your heroes, but it was awesome to be on the road with the Sabs and getting to know Tony and Geezer, if just a little.

Fast-forward: In 1992 I was asked, Would you like to write a song with Tony Iommi? I immediately said, Oh my God, yes, please. Our record company guy, Pete Winkelman, knew Tonys manager and arranged for me to go meet him. I arrived at his huge house in Solihull, West Midlands; the man in black welcomed me into his palatial home and made us both a cup of tea. I could not help but notice all the gold discs on the walls and asked Tony, How many albums have Sabbath sold? to which Tony nonchalantly replied, Oh, about sixty million. We sat down with our guitars and I began to wonder if I was out of my depth here, but was relieved when, when I produced my cassette with riffs on it, Tony delved into his drawer of cassettes and pulled one out too. We listened to each others offerings and I was reassured to hear that Tonys tape did not sound any better than mine. After agreeing which riffs we liked best, we set about writing the song Starcrossed (Lovers of the Night). Diamond Head vocalist Sean Harris and I had been listening to Soundgardens