Tony Iommi - Rock musician HARDtalk

put out the burning forests. For all. -- time for HARDtalk. The crew

are of metal, the king of the heavy riff. His band is topping the chart

again. Although looks at his bed and her all the behaviour of Ozzy

Osbourne, the guitarist, Tony Iommi has led to the full and now cancer.

Still recording and touring, what keeps in mind? - are what keeps him

Tony Iommi, will come to heart talk. How does it feel to be back on top

after all these years? Fantastic. I mean, to have a number one all over

the world - what can you say? It is just brilliant. You even managed to

knock Rod Stewart OP the top! Mark are mack. Much you think burning

home influenced what became black Sabbath -- Birmingham. A lot. This

is the background of an hour music. The industrial side of it. Being

brought up around going and not particularly very nice. We wanted

to get out but you were trapped, really. Is it was the way to be

able to get out. It eventually did get you out but for some time you

were there, practising, and learning to trade. We often think

the 60s was the swinging time, a and? I do not think so. Knights. We

touring. touring. All the power house -- for

our house stop. Was it a reaction to all that he's an up stop? Yes.

It was talking about the nice things and we came out talking

about the things that really are happening in the world - divorce -

the other side of life. Not a particularly cheap or perspective

or message to put out. It refects how you felt about?

I think so. The based on was responsible for most of lyrics. --

the bass player. I did the music side. I get blamed for that. Even

so, you were part of the bike, the scary music thing. Ozzy Osbourne

said you came up writing scary music because he grew up from it -

across the road from a cinema which showed horror films. It was that

feeling of being frightened. Are That

that in mus?I ? that in museat. A liked to have that same feeling

from the music. In in the didn't happen at all. Told me about the

accident? The acts and happen before Black Sabbath. -- the

accident. I had just been offered this job to go to Germany. You were

way out there. Absolutely. I really liked playing with them. My mother

of... Are at work and a work in a factory doing welding. Somebody

used to cut the metal and stone the down to me and I would world. One

day, these pose and didn't come so that we on the machine and I had

never worked on the machine ever. The thing came down on my hand and

as I pulled back, it took the edge of my finger off. What happened

before that, I'm sorry, I went home for lunch and are said to my mother,

I'm not going back in to work today. I am going to stop. She said, you

go back in and make sure you finish up your day and that is what

happened. She must have felt quite at about that. She probably did.

But it is strange how things happen like that stop it is weird. It i it

had not gone, my stock would change - it may create a start of play.

Explain that. It was almost serendipity. It was. It made me

invent a way of playing because I had to make these caps for my

fingers. I went to the hospital and they said, you might as well keeper,

basically. That would not except that. But all it must be a way. The

manager of the foam who own work for, brought me a break cut round

and he said, can I play it. I said I was not in just that. It did not

feel up run. Which has listen to it. I said, that was great stop and he

said, this guy plays with two fingers. And it inspired me to do

what. I made some tips myself. washing up ?I ? washing up n?

And noted it down, got a hot soldering iron and made a hole in

it until it in my finger. I just sat there for ever running down to

make the shape of a finger. Then had to to find something that would

end. At the end of the day a come up with that much so that would

grip the string and a good that. Very primitive, Robinson Crusoe

thing - but it worked. If you listen to what some of your fellow

musicians and said, the king of the heavy riff, without him, it would

not exist. It ended in to hit the metal. We knew topped the poll,

they praised the highly its dinky white he played. -- the way you

play. Let's eat some of your plane. What make that kind of playing

special and the stink it? -- distinctive?I ? distinctive... I

used to be able to play proper court in a conventional way but I

had to come up with a different way altogether because I could not play

the same way. I had to work on how to press on the strings because

they could not feel anything apart from the pain. You could not feel

how much you have been in the strings. Even today?It is still no

sign. I still use chips that are made for me now. You can afford it?

I still have to put Labour on. I have an old jacket from the 60s. --

an end there. I use that. They last about three weeks. Not everyone is

impressed by heavy metal music. For all its pervasiveness, it really

inspired a lot of music, the bulk of the music, he says, macho, speed

demon solace, and drums - it is a bit unimaginative. What can I say

to that? What you say to that?I do not know. I do not know how to

answer that. I do not cast ourselves as he be metal. A lot of

Power. You try to create some kind of vibe. It was not just the music.

It was a distinctive side. That is what unknowns people about the

music. They fill in I think it exploits their emotions. It tries

to build atmosphere and it is actually a bit, in that sense, a

bit unhealthy. I do not think it is. We have at a lot of... It depends

what bands you are on about... What we do, we have at a lot of letters

over the years, from people who said, and got the music. You have

helped me tremendously through these hard times because they went

through the songs, the lyrics, the field, and it has genuinely helped

people. And yet, you perform in a way that plays up the satanic image.

You're not a coulters? Not at all. We dabbled in it in the early days

because we were young and you're inquisitive. As far as any kind...

Win over sacrificed any body of the age or anything like that. -- we

never sacrificed. When we did the first album, the record company did

the cover and that is what done it. The inside of the cover was an

upside down Cross. So that started everybody OP. You're wearing the

Cross today the right way up. Is it disingenuous - was it a cheap

thrill or the audience was my we believe in what we didn't play.

Everything we played we have to feel it and believe it. The

audience - we have been here for 45 years. You answer that. What about

the diminish it was Mark that, again, was just something I like.

And never even knew about it to be on us when it first did it. I did

not understand or back. We were 19 the use. Would you explain for

people-watching. What was behind that. Black Sabbath was the sop but

-- the first on that had that. Apparently they are the notes you

never use. But I never knew that. To me it was creating music and

that's all I do, I create music. I do not tried to create anything to

upset anybody, destroy people. It has helped more people. We are not

satanist, certainly not. For some quite... You talk about a nurse who

killed herself and paradise was playing beside her. That is right.

We never knew what the reason was. There is always going to be

something they will find. Does it bother you? You hate for anybody to

have killed themselves. There is not saying it was ours. It is

saying that at paradigm on the turntable. Ozzy Osbourne was

talking about a guy that killed all those women, he had the lyrics

written on the wall. Ditch you thank you had gone too far? No, the

lyrics are about what was going on in the world. You have to talk to

the geezer. He would write about what he had seen and what we felt

we were going through, people we were bumping into, the type of

people. You say the lyrics you wrote but you were part of that,

part of building the environment, their image, the sound which was so

important - that creates some responsibility, does it not?

you're looking into it that deep, yes, we look at it as music. The

lyrics written because geyser or was said to me, he has to write

powerful lyrics to go with the powerful music. It was your fault,

You could have Rolls-Royces, Lamborghini is, quite a lifestyle.

You look back on that lifestyle with a tete with affection? I can't

change it but there are things, certain things, you could have done

differently. What things?A lot of the staff. Give me some examples.

The drugs side. If I'd known that, I would have not done that to that

extent. Ozzy Osbourne described cocaine as a cancer to the band.

was, absolutely. How much long-term damage did it do? As far as the

band is concerned, I think it did a lot of damage. Initially we thought

it was great and helping us be creative. At the end of the day,

when it came to the point where we had to replace ourselves, we were

in a bad way. He was certainly in a bad way. We had to fire him, which

was awful. Did you do that face to face? Actually, the drum up told

him. We were going to it all tell him to go there but Bill step in

and told us - -- told him without us. It was a terrible thing. He got

to the stage where he was not into it any more and he was doing too

much of everything, we all doing this stuff. He was worse than us, a

few stages ahead. What were you doing? Cocaine, way ludes, all of

the stuff around at that time. Not acid or anything like that. Indeed

some things starting off as a practical joke that you look back

upon now th?I ? upon now th practical joke. Spraying one of

York band members gold which may have killed him? Another one got

third-degree burns on his legs after setting fire to his legs.

Beale was the drummer, he was the one we picked on and he liked it,

to be honest. If he did not play out that day, he would ask why we

did not pick on him that day. was different to the kind of

practical jokes that you would have done in the school yard back in

Birmingham when you were kids. This different scale. It got really

silly. When we sprayed him caught, we were laughing at the time but we

did not realise how silly that was. A gifted the drugs make you lose

respect? Probably, yes. I think it does in the end. You do get taken

over by them. It depends upon what you do. Does it make you want to

sort of reach out to some of the younger musicians now and say to

them, if you knew what I knew, you would not be touching this stuff.

It's like what my parents would have said to me. You have to

experience certain things sometimes. However much I said not to do these

things, don't do this or that, are they going to do it? I don't know.

You think you were setting a bad example to the fans and the people

buying your music? They still bought the music and half the time

you were composing while of your face. I don't think it was a bad

example. It was a personal thing brass. We did not share it or give

people things. We did it for Russ, experimentation. Trying stuff. We

once we hit America, I never did anything until America. Then it

went berserk. You spoke about firing Ozzy Osbourne which you did

at the end of the 70s. He has obviously come back to the band

after a long period away. At one point you were having a legal

dispute over the ownership of the name Black Sabbath. He said as a

kid he was a real pain at school. I get the impression it's been quite

a complicated relationship? school, the school we went towards

a tough school. Ozzy Osbourne was younger than me. That was always

the case when I first went to the school we were picked on by the

older kids, that's just the way it was. So you pick on him?We did not

pick on him, he was a pain and a nuisance. He is funny now when we

look at it. But at that time he was. You would probably give him a clip

around the ear. But years later, that and nor in quality deduce some

favours when you had a little pain that you were not thinking about

doing anything about? I'm talking about the diagnosis. Yes, yes, that

knocked me for 61 were found out I had cancer. Ozzy Osbourne made you

get it checked out? We were working at his house in Birmingham. We were

riding the album. I was getting some preening in my groin. He said

to me, you don't look well. I did not feel well and I told him what

was happening. He told me to go and get checked out and organised a

doctor. I told him I would sort it out. I did. I saw a doctor in her

Los Angeles. They wanted to cut something off to see what it was.

There may told you? Back in England, they told me. I went to the

hospital to have a prostate problem. I had an operation. While they were

Cutting they took out a lump and they told me that it was not

Prostate cancer but they found lymphoma in that lump. I was very

disappointed. I said, oh no. What is lymphoma? I kind of new. When

you before you'd lost one of Ozzy Osbourne replacements. He had

stomach cancer. Did you think you would get the same thing? Yes, I

did, absolutely. Ronni was complaining about his stomach. I

told him to see the doctor. He said yeah, yeah, I will after the tour.

Of course it was too late for him. After the tour, it had spread.

think the cancer had an effect to the band, playing a part in this?

think it brought us closer together than we ever have been. It kind of

suddenly reality about what may happen. Everybody called together