TONY IOMMI: Everyone Knows It's BLACK SABBATH And No One Is Shouting Out For 'Paranoid'

April 23, 2007

Michael Senft of The Arizona Republic recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler (BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN AND HELL). A few excerpts follow:

On how SABBATH originally hooked up with singer Ronnie James Dio:

Butler: "(In 1979) there was no enthusiasm in the band. Ozzy wasn't into it anymore. Tony (Iommi) and I went to America to start work on a new album with Ozzy, but he never turned up. We didn't know if he would come over from England or not. So Tony mentioned Ronnie. He said, 'He used to be in RAINBOW, he's got a great voice and he's really enthusiastic. Do you want to do some jamming with him while we wait for Ozzy?' "

On how the idea for the HEAVEN AND HELL tour came about:

"At Ozzfest, Tony and I would often play songs from 'Heaven and Hell' during sound checks, just to break the monotony. We got to talking last year, saying it was a shame we couldn't play those songs live again. And coincidentally the record company got in touch with us about putting together a best-of collection from the Dio albums."

On SABBATH's "The Dio Years" compilation, which has three new tracks in addition to a dozen tunes from the four Dio-fronted albums:

Iommi: "The record company asked me if I had any old rarities laying around. I had a couple of fragments, but I didn't have anything complete. So I suggested we record some new songs. I met with Ronnie while he was on his last solo tour in England and he liked the idea. So we sat down and wrote some new songs. It was like all the problems we had before had never happened."

On the decision for the band to call itself HEAVEN AND HELL rather than BLACK SABBATH:

"If we went under BLACK SABBATH, people would be expecting to hear 'Iron Man', 'Black Sabbath' and 'War Pigs', so we changed the name of the band. Everyone knows it's BLACK SABBATH and no one is shouting out for 'Paranoid'. Not that there's anything wrong with the old SABBATH stuff, but it's a challenge to play something we haven't touched in so long."

Butler: "We've been playing Ozzfests for 10 years now, and the set list didn't seem to change. It gets stale and boring doing the same eight songs every time."

On HEAVEN AND HELL's future plans:

"We don't have plans to do anything else, but we don't want to make any firm plans at all. That always got us into trouble in the past."

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