In the past week the youth supplement of the newspaper Clarín published an interview with the legendary violent man Tony Iommi, that was a fundamental part of the great Black Sabbath.
The truth is that today, the original Black Sabbath line-up, with Dio on vocals, returns under the name Heaven and Hell, and on May 7th he will perform in a show at Luna Park in Buenos Aires. Pablo Raimondi managed to meet Iommi and talk about the old times, the change that his music originated in those years, and how an accident that caused him to lose the first joint of his fingers did not prevent him from playing or continuing to create sounds.
The words of iomi, then:
How did they achieve the particular sound of Black Sabbath and to what extent did your accident influence it?
The accident occurred in a steel mill, where he worked. A machine sliced off the first phalanx of the middle and ring fingers of my right hand. In the hospital they told me that I would never be able to play again. He was devastated, but he wasn't going to accept that. I made some plastic prostheses to make up for the lack and glued them together, loosening the tension on the strings and thus creating a different way of playing, a new sound.
Why did you put Heaven and Hell on your first album with Sabbath?
We named it that so there would be no trace of Black Sabbath, people will know who we are, I hope. By introducing ourselves as BS, we would have to play old material and that we have already been doing for many years (referring to the meeting of the original four between 1997 and 2006). It felt good to do everything that we haven't done since the 90s.
- Are there bands as influential today as Black Sabbbath was in its time? What groups do you listen to?
-I think Metallica influences people. I'm not listening to many new bands (think)…. Nightwish!
-Gothic music?
-I went to see him with my wife and my daughter, who likes them, I had never heard them. I liked the sound they make. To be honest, it was really nice to hear something different.
-What difference is there between working with Ozzy and with Dio?
-It's totally the opposite, Dio is more like a current singer, more professional. Ozzy is very good, he is almost an actor, an entertainer. Ozzy usually keeps up with the choruses.
-Are there any chances that you will meet with Ozzy again?
-Yes. We didn't break up, we just gave ourselves time. I'm still talking to Ozzy. Until December we will be very busy, it may be at another time.
Source: Clarín