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The Tapes Archive

#59 Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) 1984

The Tapes Archive
The Tapes Archive
In this episode, we have Black Sabbath’s guitarist and the godfather of heavy metal, Tony Iommi.
At the time of the interview in 1984, Iommi was 36 years old and was promoting Black Sabbath’s Born Again album and tour.
In the interview, Iommi talks about Ian Gillian joining Black Sabbath and blowing up his boat, thoughts on Ozzy Osbourne remaking old Sabbath tunes, the Born Again live show, Randy Rhoads, and how he really did disturb the priest. 
The interview is conducted by a new Tapes Archive contributor, Canadian music journalist and author Steve Newton. During his four decades as a freelance music writer, he has interviewed everyone from AC/DC to ZZTop. We highly recommend that you head over to his Patreon page patreon.com/earofnewt and check out over 340 of his exclusive interviews. For only $5, you get full access. We are not paid for this endorsement; we truly feel it’s money well spent.
Link to Newton's Patreon page: https://bit.ly/3WQBr9S
For zero money, you can head over to Newton’s website, earofnewt.com, where he has posted more than 3,000 of his interviews, album reviews, concert reviews, and horror movie reviews.
Link to Newton's website: https://bit.ly/3ij9GIa
00:00 - Intro
01:44 - Start of Tony Iommi Interview
02:07 - Ian Gillian joining Black Sabbath
02:21 - Playing Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water
03:02 - Why Ronnie James Dio left Black Sabbath
03:22 - The addition of Bev Bevan from ELO
03:58 - If former Sabbath drummer Bill Ward will be back
04:13 - The story behind Black Sabbath’s song Disturbing the Priest
04:50 - Blowing up Ian Gillian’s boat
05:18 - The comparison between Black Sabbath’s debut album and Born Again
06:10 - His thoughts about former bandmate Ozzy Osbourne’s music
06:22 - What he thought of Randy Rhoads
06:34 - On Ozzy remaking old Black Sabbath songs
07:06 - Black Sabbath’s influence on other bands
07:46 - What music does he listen to
08:11 - A very surprising favorite song of Iommi’s
08:23 - Talks about Born Again’s live show.
09:33 - Iommi plays a bit of a joke on Newton
09:58 - Why growing up he did not think he would play the guitar
10:26 - His main influences on guitar
10:48 - How he doesn’t actually play a Gibson SG
11:58 - His current amps
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