Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the barblas Sex Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Geezer. Butler's autobiography Into the Void From
Speaker 1: Birth to Black Sabbath and Beyond, has just been published
Speaker 1: in a paperback edition. Geezer, where are you right now?
Speaker 2: Just outside Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada?
Speaker 1: And where do you normally reside?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: Sometimes? Yeah, sometimes Park City, Utah and Lapworth in England.
Speaker 1: How do you end up in Park City?
Speaker 2: We used to. Me and my wife used to stay
Speaker 2: with friends there every Christmas and I just loved it
Speaker 2: there and love being up in the mountains and stuff
Speaker 2: fight at So we ended up buying a house there
Speaker 2: and we love living there, so we decided to buy
Speaker 2: a bigger house. That's where we how we got there?
Speaker 1: And are you a skier?
Speaker 2: Nope? But my grandkids are. They come up every every
Speaker 2: Christmas to go skiing and they come up in the
Speaker 2: build there next week to go lying on the beach.
Speaker 2: There is a nice little beach where we live and
Speaker 2: a little lake that they like to go paddle board
Speaker 2: and kayaking in.
Speaker 1: Okay, this deal in time. What's the difference in living
Speaker 1: in the UK as opposed to living in the US.
Speaker 2: Uh, mainly the weather. I just got back from the
Speaker 2: UK literally three days ago and it was bloody for
Speaker 2: a freezing It's like going from one extreme to the other.
Speaker 2: It's like fifty eight degrees. When I left the UK
Speaker 2: we landed in Las Vegas, it was one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifteen degrees.
Speaker 1: And what about the politics. We hear all about Brexit,
Speaker 1: We hear labor. You know what's going on in England.
Speaker 2: Well, labor has just got in this allegedly for the
Speaker 2: working class, but I don't ever believe it. Politicians are
Speaker 2: ever for the working class. It's just a bit of
Speaker 2: a mess over there. It's it's unrecognizable from when I
Speaker 2: used to when I grew up there in the fifties
Speaker 2: and sixties. It's more like West Pakistan.
Speaker 1: However, there are you talking because of immigration or because
Speaker 1: of other reasons?
Speaker 2: A hell of a lot of immigration. We're in Birmingham
Speaker 2: now it's it's more Muslim than Christian. So it's like
Speaker 2: thirty two. I think it's thirty three percent Muslim, thirty
Speaker 2: two say Christian, which is complete turnaround from when I
Speaker 2: when I was born.
Speaker 1: Now, wasn't Braxfast supposed to reduce immigration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but nobody ever believed that. I think only the
Speaker 2: people that voted to come out of breakfait Brexit believe that.
Speaker 2: But it's a lot of rubbish, especially if you're in
Speaker 2: the music industry. Or it made it really hard for
Speaker 2: up and coming bands to tour Europe because all the
Speaker 2: restrictions on if you were from Britain had to pay
Speaker 2: all extra taxes and stuff like that. When you touring,
Speaker 2: you costs a lot more to tour.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were growing up in Brunning here. When did
Speaker 1: you first get interested in music? Mainly when I first
Speaker 1: heard the Beatles. I mean I had three brothers and
Speaker 1: three sisters, so there was always music going on. We
Speaker 1: brothers loved Elvis and Eddie Cochran and Frank Sinatra. My
Speaker 1: other sisters like Cliff Richard, people like and my mom
Speaker 1: and dad liked loads of Irish music because they were
Speaker 1: from Dublin.
Speaker 2: So I used to get so there's all kinds of
Speaker 2: music going on. There was like Irish folk songs, Irish
Speaker 2: rebellion songs from the IRA, Elvis, Eddie Cocker and all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff going on. And then when I first
Speaker 2: heard the Beatles, that's when I started getting into music.
Speaker 1: So how did you hear the Beatles?
Speaker 2: Well, pop music wasn't allowed on the radio in England
Speaker 2: at the time, so there was this offshore radio station
Speaker 2: called Radio Luxembourg. So if you wanted to hear pop music,
Speaker 2: that's what you used to tune into every and that's
Speaker 2: what I used to do, listen to Radio Luxembourg. And
Speaker 2: then this one night the DJ says, who's a new
Speaker 2: band from Liverpool called the Beatles, and this is called
Speaker 2: Love Me Do? And it was like nothing else that
Speaker 2: I'd ever heard before, and that was zero fell in
Speaker 2: love with it. That's what I wanted to be a
Speaker 2: Beatle from then on.
Speaker 1: Okay, the Beatles hit in America year Leader, if not
Speaker 1: a year and a half lead, So you heard that song.
Speaker 1: How long until beatle media took over in the UK?
Speaker 2: It was probably that was probably in the winter when
Speaker 2: Love Me Do came out, and then by the summer
Speaker 2: it was like full on beetle maniac that put out
Speaker 2: please Please Meet from me to you, and then when
Speaker 2: She Loves You came out, it was like all hell broke.
Speaker 1: And did you like the other Liverpool? The other so
Speaker 1: called British vision was mostly the Beetles, Yeah, I like to.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody could touch the Beetles.
Speaker 2: But when the Stones came along, I love the Stones
Speaker 2: because they looked totally radical for that time, with long
Speaker 2: hair the beetles or still woar suits and everything. And
Speaker 2: when they went on stage they used to dress identical.
Speaker 2: And when the Rolling Stones came along, they were the
Speaker 2: first band to not wear the same clothes or suits
Speaker 2: and stuff like that on stage, so they were completely
Speaker 2: radical to us, and the hair was much longer. And
Speaker 2: then the Kinks came along with the Who. It was
Speaker 2: all kinds of bands.
Speaker 1: So how long after the Beatles hit did you start
Speaker 1: playing an instrument?
Speaker 2: Well, luckily enough, I was at school at the time
Speaker 2: and this kid at school was asking if anybody wanted
Speaker 2: to buy a guitar, and I said, oh, yeah, I'm interested.
Speaker 2: And this is like a battered old acoustic guitar with
Speaker 2: two strings on and I said how much you I'm
Speaker 2: for it and it is fifty pence, which is like
Speaker 2: that's seventy cents. Of course, I didn't have money at
Speaker 2: the time, so my brother lent me fifty pence which
Speaker 2: is like seventy cents or wherever, and I bought the
Speaker 2: guitar and I started playing all the Beatles melodies on
Speaker 2: the two strings, and and that's where it started. That's
Speaker 2: how it started.
Speaker 1: Okay in Birmingham in America. I've never been to Birmingham.
Speaker 1: We hear it's an industrial city. So what was Birmingham
Speaker 1: like compared to the other cities in England when you
Speaker 1: were growing up.
Speaker 2: Well, Birmingham was the that's where the industrial Revolution started
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighteenth Entry where the first factories were from,
Speaker 2: and it was eventually it became the in the World
Speaker 2: War Two. That's where they made all the planes and
Speaker 2: tanks and engines and armament at the armament factories. So
Speaker 2: it was like a massive city, just full of factories
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. And people looked at Birmingham as
Speaker 2: the industrial capital of Britain, and it was like fairly
Speaker 2: rough and ready. Where I lived, it was like opposite
Speaker 2: two big factories. So I used to hear the noise
Speaker 2: of the machines day in and day out, and you
Speaker 2: were just destined to become, you know, a factory worker.
Speaker 1: Okay, what did your father do for a living?
Speaker 2: He worked at this play It's called Tube's Investments, which
Speaker 2: was like he was. They made these great big sort
Speaker 2: of anything to do with steel or metal, and he
Speaker 2: used to pack all these big long scaffolding tubes and
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, your appearents came from Ireland.
Speaker 2: Why, I'm not sure why, but I don't think there
Speaker 2: was much. There was no work in Ireland at the time.
Speaker 2: My dad was in to try and get some money.
Speaker 2: In the I think nineteen twenties, he joined the army,
Speaker 2: the British Army, the Royal Scots Regiment and he was
Speaker 2: in the army for twelve years and eventually when he
Speaker 2: got demobed from from the army, he was looking for
Speaker 2: work and there was none in Ireland. So that's how
Speaker 2: they came to live in Birmingham, that's where the jobs were.
Speaker 1: Now there are seven kids in your family, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Was that common in your neighborhood for people to have
Speaker 1: that many kids?
Speaker 2: Well, it was quite There's a lot of Irish where
Speaker 2: we were living, a lot of Irish and Scottish. Eventually
Speaker 2: a lot of Indians, Pakistanis and Jamaicans. But yeah, as
Speaker 2: was a big Catholic area, so you know, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of big, big families around there.
Speaker 1: Well, in the book you describe a horrid scrabble living
Speaker 1: in a small house with an outhouse in the back.
Speaker 1: You know what was it like?
Speaker 2: It was freezing in winter time. I mean the tilet
Speaker 2: used to freeze up, and everything you have to get
Speaker 2: you have to buy all some water on the gas
Speaker 2: stove to pour it over the ice in the toilet
Speaker 2: and used that as to flush the toilet. You left
Speaker 2: to bile water on this gas stove so you could
Speaker 2: flush the toilet. Of course, there was no heating in
Speaker 2: the house. There used to be frost on the insides
Speaker 2: of the windows in winter. No bathroom, no hot water,
Speaker 2: so any hot water you'd have to buile. And only
Speaker 2: electricity in the living room, so you could only plug
Speaker 2: anything in in the living room unless you unless you
Speaker 2: plugged stuff into the light socket.
Speaker 1: At what age did you have plumbing in the house?
Speaker 2: We never did not until I left home. We used
Speaker 2: to go to the local the local swimming baths was
Speaker 2: a Victorian place and they used to have socialized bathing,
Speaker 2: so you could go and have a bath the local
Speaker 2: swimming baths. When my sister got married, she had a
Speaker 2: bathroom in the house, so we all we used to
Speaker 2: go down there once a week to have a bath
Speaker 2: in her house.
Speaker 1: So how large was the house that you grew up in?
Speaker 2: It was two rooms downstairs a kitchen and then upstairs
Speaker 2: three bedrooms and an attic. But it got quite a
Speaker 2: battering during World War two, so there was that some
Speaker 2: of the roof got blown off in the house, and
Speaker 2: in England it didn't. England didn't really recover until the
Speaker 2: late sixties from World War two, and Birmiham, because it
Speaker 2: was so industrial, got an absolute battering by the luff Waffer.
Speaker 2: So there was a bomb buildings, bomb building sites up
Speaker 2: until like nineteen sixty five around where I lived. But
Speaker 2: we used to go and play amongst all the rubble.
Speaker 1: And what about the availability, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: rationing in television, when did all that end or come about?
Speaker 2: Rationing wasn't finished until nineteen fifty five. So when I
Speaker 2: used to go errands for me, mom and I used
Speaker 2: to have to take the ration book and you'd show
Speaker 2: them the ration book and she'd mark off like butter
Speaker 2: potatos wherever, and then they like way the potatoes or
Speaker 2: the butter mark it off in your ration book and
Speaker 2: that a bit, and then you take it home and
Speaker 2: as I say, that didn't finish until nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a television until nineteen fifty seven because
Speaker 2: the local football teams in the cup final. Here comes me.
Speaker 1: So when rationing ended as a practical matter as a
Speaker 1: little kid, how did it affect you?
Speaker 2: It didn't really affect me. I mean we obviously I
Speaker 2: saw an orange for the first time. Sure, you know,
Speaker 2: finally got fruit. Him comes with cat. Uh, just just
Speaker 2: got different food. I suppose a bit more more more
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: And what about candy? You're a kid, we used to I.
Speaker 2: Used to buy candy with pocket money because because I
Speaker 2: had three brothers and three sisters, my mom and dad,
Speaker 2: I used to get quite a bit of pocket money
Speaker 2: every week so I could go across to the sweet
Speaker 2: shop and you know, stuck up on wherever sweets I
Speaker 2: could have.
Speaker 1: Okay, there are seven kids in the family. Where are
Speaker 1: you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I was the seventh, so you were the youngest? Yeah?
Speaker 1: How did the other six kids? What are they? What
Speaker 1: were their lives?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Boy? Maybe eldest sister got married when I I think
Speaker 2: one years old. She got married in I think nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty or nineteen fifty one, so I didn't really know
Speaker 2: her a lot. I used to go into the house
Speaker 2: because she lived just around the corner. Then there's another sister,
Speaker 2: more than three brothers, and then another sister, and then
Speaker 2: me and everybody used to go to work, except when
Speaker 2: I was at school that me and my sister were
Speaker 2: at school together and everybody else was working.
Speaker 1: So you have this big success as a rock store,
Speaker 1: do your family do they ask for money? Do you
Speaker 1: have to support them? Or what happened there?
Speaker 2: No fact, My family was so proud that never ever
Speaker 2: ever asked me for money. And when I finally did
Speaker 2: sees money coming in, I think after the second album
Speaker 2: did well and the twos started doing well, and I
Speaker 2: tried to buy my mom and dad a little house
Speaker 2: away from Aston and my dad was like, really insulted
Speaker 2: by it. This is what's married. Isn't this house good
Speaker 2: enough for you anymore? And no, I didn't mean it
Speaker 2: like that. I just wanted to see you getting barness.
Speaker 2: Look on the head of this household. If I want
Speaker 2: a new house, I'll buy it. I do own any
Speaker 2: money from you. And that was the attitude of all family,
Speaker 2: and we're they proud of your success. Yeah, but of
Speaker 2: course nobody expected it to like last. Everybody thought it
Speaker 2: was like a flash in the pan, which is why
Speaker 2: my mom and dad would never take any money off me.
Speaker 2: That obviously, keep your money, save it up for when,
Speaker 2: you know, when this is all over, and then never
Speaker 2: see it last very long.
Speaker 3: Now, were you good with the money when it came
Speaker 3: in or not so good? I was very careful because
Speaker 3: I knew what it was like to not have any money.
Speaker 3: And I was a bit silly really, because everybody else
Speaker 3: in the band were like found them the manager manager
Speaker 3: sence the thousand dollars tomorrow and they'd be getting all
Speaker 3: this money. And I'd say to the manager, or just
Speaker 3: keep mine, you know, from when I'm older, so I've
Speaker 3: got something to fall back on, And of course the
Speaker 3: manager stole it all.
Speaker 1: Dislead. Do you get royalties?
Speaker 2: Do a depth get them now? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you know we're living in an era where a
Speaker 1: lot of people are selling their royalties. Would you ever
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 2: I think we've sold some of the cattle out, but
Speaker 2: not all of it. It depends on what they're offering.
Speaker 2: But at this point, you own everything. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now you were a smart kid right at school?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I got enough qualifications to become an accountant,
Speaker 2: or at least apply for the job of an accountancy,
Speaker 2: which meant you had to have like certain educational qualifications
Speaker 2: just to get the just to get an interview for
Speaker 2: the job. And so that's what I thought, I was
Speaker 2: going to be an accountant.
Speaker 1: Okay, when was it evident in school that you were
Speaker 1: smarter than the average kid?
Speaker 2: Well, I did well in my exams. There was three tiers.
Speaker 2: Each year had three tiers. There was Alpha, A, and B.
Speaker 2: Alpha was the top stream, the most intelligent ones. And
Speaker 2: I was always in the Alpha stream.
Speaker 1: And did the as the kids criticize you for doing well?
Speaker 2: No, because on my mates are in the same class.
Speaker 1: And then didn't you get some kind of scholarship to
Speaker 1: go to a better school.
Speaker 2: No, you had to have a certain amount of qualifications
Speaker 2: to be able to go to college or university, but
Speaker 2: you had to spend an extra two years at school.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to leave when I was sixteen, So
Speaker 2: I left when I was sixteen, And because I applied
Speaker 2: to be an account and I went to college like
Speaker 2: twice a week, but I could never get there on time.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you're a pretty airly day guy. You're a
Speaker 1: big reader, and you're a lyricist for Black Sabbath for
Speaker 1: most of the songs. Where did you love of reading
Speaker 1: come along?
Speaker 2: I think it was just like, because it's such a
Speaker 2: big family, I used to like to get quiet time
Speaker 2: away from everybody, and there was nothing really on television
Speaker 2: or anything like that, so I used to hide in books.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't all sociable as well. Well, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I just like reading.
Speaker 1: And are you're still a reader today?
Speaker 2: I'm addict.
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 2: I have to be reading a book every day.
Speaker 1: So what are you reading now?
Speaker 2: Right at this moment, I'm reading? Oh gosh, so I
Speaker 2: keep forgetting them. That's all a lot. I'm reading a
Speaker 2: Lucy Fowley book. I love. It's like light crime stuff tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I like The Midnight Feast by Lucy Fowley.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, and we were her first book. So the
Speaker 1: Beatles cover long. You buy the guitar with two strings
Speaker 1: for fifty peens, then what's the next step?
Speaker 2: I got really good at My brother used to bring
Speaker 2: his mates around to watch me play the Beatles melodies
Speaker 2: on these two strings. Of course, they loved it. So
Speaker 2: my brother eventually gave me enough money to go and
Speaker 2: buy an eight six string guitar, like a proper guitar,
Speaker 2: which was at eight pounds, which was about twelve dollars.
Speaker 2: And that's when I started really taking it seriously and
Speaker 2: started learning chords, learning all the Beatles songs. Then eventually
Speaker 2: some salts when Tamla Motow and stuff all sold, stuff
Speaker 2: things like that, and then when the Cream came out,
Speaker 2: I got really serious. Then that's when I bought an
Speaker 2: electric guitar Fender and started by taking it really seriously.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you say you're learning these Beatles songs, do
Speaker 1: you own the records or you just hearing them on
Speaker 1: the radio.
Speaker 2: Now, when we brother used to love the Beatles as well,
Speaker 2: so he used to give me the money to go
Speaker 2: and buy the Beatles records and we listened to them together,
Speaker 2: and then when he was at work, I'd like sit
Speaker 2: down and learn the cords.
Speaker 1: And how many records did you? Did you own a
Speaker 1: lot of records or was money limited?
Speaker 2: Oh? Money was very limited, very scarce, sort of sort
Speaker 2: of limited to each Beatle single. Every time an album
Speaker 2: of the Beatles came out, we'd have that. I bought
Speaker 2: Stone albums, so it's mainly the top three, the Stones,
Speaker 2: Beatles and Kinks. And then eventually when I when I
Speaker 2: went to work, I loved the Mothers of Invention and
Speaker 2: bought their stuff. Then the Cream came along, Hendrix and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth. Then Miss Sister used to like
Speaker 2: Jerry and the Pacemakers, those kind of bands swinging blue jeans,
Speaker 2: Billy J. Kramer.
Speaker 1: So you say you were really influenced by Queen? How
Speaker 1: did your first year a Queen?
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, there was a poster right opposite where I
Speaker 2: used to live saying the new supergroup from Eric Clapton,
Speaker 2: because Eric Clapton is from John Male's Blues Breakers, And
Speaker 2: there was this big post saying it's like the first
Speaker 2: time I'd ever heard the the expression of supergroup. And
Speaker 2: they had Eric Clapton, who heard of Jack Bruce, who
Speaker 2: I hadn't heard of, Ginger Baker, who had never heard
Speaker 2: of and they were playing at one of the local gigs.
Speaker 2: So I went to see him and I just loved it,
Speaker 2: love what I was hearing.
Speaker 1: So did you buy the album Fresh Queen?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And uh, what are some of your favorite songs? On
Speaker 1: that album. If you remember Oh.
Speaker 2: God, Sunshine of Your Lovers on that.
Speaker 1: Now that was on the second first one was I
Speaker 1: Feel Free a NSU.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel Free of that because that there, that
Speaker 2: was a single in England, they were on top of
Speaker 2: the pops. Wow.
Speaker 1: And so you knew clapt In from the Bluesbreakers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, from John Miles Bluesbreakers, which is I mean, that's
Speaker 2: my first band. It was a mixture of John Myles,
Speaker 2: was the Blues Breakers, songs, Beat All Stones, Eddie flyd
Speaker 2: Sam and Dave, just a mixture of everything that was
Speaker 2: going on at the time.
Speaker 1: So you heard Queen and you started taking it seriously.
Speaker 1: What did that look like?
Speaker 2: It meant buying a better guitar, which is what I did.
Speaker 2: I bought himself a Fender tally Cast and started really
Speaker 2: getting down to it, proper amp and just really taking
Speaker 2: everything seriously and desperately wanting to turn professional and do
Speaker 2: that for a living.
Speaker 1: And what did you what was your first ear?
Speaker 2: It was a bird golden eagle and I've never seen
Speaker 2: one since, and I've never heard of one since.
Speaker 1: I never heard of that. And where did you get
Speaker 1: the money for the stratocaster in the air with the telecaster.
Speaker 2: From the money I saved up from work going to work,
Speaker 2: and I think my mom helped me out with some
Speaker 2: of her savings. And from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have the telecaster, you had the you're
Speaker 1: working on it. What is the next step, You try
Speaker 1: to form the band?
Speaker 2: No, I was in the band. The first band was
Speaker 2: called the Rooms, which is after some science fiction person.
Speaker 2: I can't remember his name. There it was a book
Speaker 2: by It's a book called The Rooms science fiction. We
Speaker 2: took the name from that, and then eventually we changed
Speaker 2: the name. The drummer and the bass player left, so
Speaker 2: it got formed another band and call that the Rare Breed.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, you got your fifty pence guitar, your brother
Speaker 1: buys you a better guitar. Where along the line do
Speaker 1: you form a band?
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty five, Oh, I bought at Huffma, Colorado. That
Speaker 2: was my first electric guitar and it was like, I
Speaker 2: think it's about thirty dollars or something. That was my
Speaker 2: first real guitar that you could plug in. And so
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five, who formed the best mate from school?
Speaker 2: It was band called the Rooms. Then the drummer left.
Speaker 2: Basically left.
Speaker 1: So where where you formed that band? Where did you rehearse?
Speaker 2: There was this a school hall that we used to
Speaker 2: rehearse at the local school hall.
Speaker 1: And then did you have any kids?
Speaker 2: We've got one of this girl that fancied me had
Speaker 2: a birthday party and she wanted us to play at
Speaker 2: her birthday party. So that was that was very for
Speaker 2: the ski. I think we were all about sixteen at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: And did you have any peeing gigs with this band?
Speaker 1: And how often did you play?
Speaker 2: I get paid? I think eventually we did, but we
Speaker 2: get like, I think five ten pounds at the most,
Speaker 2: just enough to put petrol in the car to get there.
Speaker 1: Oh and how often would you play?
Speaker 2: Just weekends at that particular time because we all had jobs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the two members of the band quit and
Speaker 1: then the next step is.
Speaker 2: Got another a singer, and we started doing more heavier
Speaker 2: stuff like the cream and stuff like that. When we
Speaker 2: became the rare Breed and we started building up a
Speaker 2: bit of a following, and I really wanted to I
Speaker 2: hated going to work, couldn't stand it. Eventually fired from
Speaker 2: work for turning up at four o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and I just says, that's him. I'm just going to
Speaker 2: lost my job, so I'm just going to do this
Speaker 2: professionally or as much as I could do. And the
Speaker 2: rest of the band didn't want to do it professionally.
Speaker 2: So the singer got a job on a ship going
Speaker 2: to Australia. So who he left And that's when I
Speaker 2: got into Ozzie And that's when Ozzie joined the band.
Speaker 1: So how did you know Arsie? How did you meet ars.
Speaker 2: I used to see him. He used to be a
Speaker 2: skinhead and he used to go to all the salt clubs.
Speaker 2: There was two major clubs in Bermiham at the time
Speaker 2: and used to have all these all nighters. There was
Speaker 2: the salt place called Midnight City. I used to have
Speaker 2: all the salt bends. I'm not mid Gino Washington people
Speaker 2: like that. And then there's the surf side, the Penthouse,
Speaker 2: which is the blues people with long hair used to go.
Speaker 2: That's where I used to go. And then every Sunday
Speaker 2: they used to finish at about five o'clock of a
Speaker 2: Sunday morning both places, and I'd see I was walking
Speaker 2: at home on one side of the road and I'd
Speaker 2: be on the other side. Never the twain should meet
Speaker 2: because he was the skinhead and hippie. And then when
Speaker 2: we were looking for a singer for the Rare Breed,
Speaker 2: I went to the local music shop to see if
Speaker 2: they knew any singers, and I saw this advert saying
Speaker 2: Ossy Zig needs a gig and he had his address
Speaker 2: on it large road, which was right around the corner
Speaker 2: from where I lived. So I thought that looks promising.
Speaker 2: So I went round to his house, not knowing that
Speaker 2: it was the uh, the skinhead that I used to see.
Speaker 2: And his sister said, I was not in at the
Speaker 2: moment watching your address. I said Victoria Road and she said,
Speaker 2: that's only two streets away. I'll be he'll come rent
Speaker 2: tonight when he comes home. So then that night there
Speaker 2: was a knock on the door. My brother went to
Speaker 2: open the door. He came. My brother came and said, hey,
Speaker 2: there's there's something at the door for you. I said,
Speaker 2: what do you mean something?
Speaker 1: It is?
Speaker 2: You'll see when I went to see who it was,
Speaker 2: and there was Ossie Skinhead with his dad's work gown on,
Speaker 2: chimney brush over his shoulder, a sneaker on, a dog leash,
Speaker 2: and no shoes on. And I said, yeah, what do
Speaker 2: you want? She is on Ossie the singer. I said,
Speaker 2: what kind of stuff are you into? And this is
Speaker 2: whatever you're into, I mean and and he says, and
Speaker 2: I've got my MPa and you're in. And that was it.
Speaker 1: Okay, certainly those of us were fans aware of Assi,
Speaker 1: but Ozzie had his MTV show. You know, we see
Speaker 1: different sizes of Assie. Some level, he's like a cartoon,
Speaker 1: but there's an artistic sense inside when you meet him
Speaker 1: back then, what is ours like.
Speaker 2: A complete lunatic. It just got out of prison and
Speaker 2: he was up for anything. He'd do anything for a
Speaker 2: laugh or it been to anything, and it was just
Speaker 2: really great to get on with, great to be around.
Speaker 2: He lasted two gigs in the Radberry and he says,
Speaker 2: this isn't for me. I own to sing this stuff.
Speaker 2: So he left and I'll just say to the rest
Speaker 2: of the band, okay, I'm leaving as well. So eventually
Speaker 2: me and Ozzie got together and we were looking for
Speaker 2: a drummer.
Speaker 1: Right wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. So you do the two gigs with Ozzie.
Speaker 1: You're playing blues Insvilo and stuff you're playing? What are
Speaker 1: you actually playing that he doesn't agree with.
Speaker 2: He liked what we were doing, but we weren't very good.
Speaker 2: He thought, you know, that he could do better. He
Speaker 2: didn't like the fact that the guitarist and the bass
Speaker 2: player didn't want to know about going professional.
Speaker 1: And why did Ozzie have his own pa?
Speaker 2: Do you know? I've absolutely no idea. I think he
Speaker 2: must have been in a band before I knew him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he leaves the band. You leave the band.
Speaker 1: You don't have your job as an accountant anymore. What
Speaker 1: gone to your head.
Speaker 2: That I need to make some money somehow? And somewhere
Speaker 2: at the time I was getting I was on benefits,
Speaker 2: getting doll like every week, which only lasted six weeks
Speaker 2: in those days, and then they'd throw you off. So
Speaker 2: I just I was desperate to find get some money.
Speaker 2: And I got a little bit saved up, which kept
Speaker 2: me afloat for a while. And me and obviously got together,
Speaker 2: and he had he'd got a band together with this
Speaker 2: rhythm guitarist who used to play slide slide guitar and
Speaker 2: this bass plan so the bass player, this black kid
Speaker 2: on bass. So I said, okay, let's have a go,
Speaker 2: and the Black kids said, I don't be in this band,
Speaker 2: so I'm leaving. So I said, okay, I'll switch to
Speaker 2: bass then, and that's how we got together, and then
Speaker 2: we needed a drama.
Speaker 1: Well where before you get to the drummer? How did
Speaker 1: you learn how to play bass?
Speaker 2: I just picked it up. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it was from when I when I had my first
Speaker 2: two string guitar and I used to play the melodies
Speaker 2: just on the two strings, So I got used to
Speaker 2: playing melodies on just melodies on strings. So when I
Speaker 2: got the bass, it sort of lent itself to that
Speaker 2: the way you know, the two strings thing became a
Speaker 2: four string thing, and I went from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you the type of prits on? People are
Speaker 1: a musical They can pick up any instrument play. Other
Speaker 1: people have to really work at it. Where are you
Speaker 1: on the spectrum?
Speaker 2: Bass? Is like I was born into play bass. I
Speaker 2: just knew what to do since I picked the base up.
Speaker 1: And did you ever take any lessons?
Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nobody took lessons about them.
Speaker 1: So you've got as you need a drummer, So tell
Speaker 1: me about getting the drummer.
Speaker 2: Well, Tony Iomi and Bill Ward had just been busted.
Speaker 2: They had a band up in the north of England
Speaker 2: in Carlisle. They'd been busted for drugs and they were
Speaker 2: back home in Birmingham, and they just so happened to
Speaker 2: live literally two streets away from where I lived. And
Speaker 2: so Ozzie knew Tony used to go to school with him,
Speaker 2: and Ozzie said, told me about Tony and Bill being
Speaker 2: busted and coming back home to Aston in Birmingham, and
Speaker 2: he says, let's go and see if if Bill if
Speaker 2: Tony can give us the address of Bill Ward, the drummer.
Speaker 2: So we went around to Tony's house and it just
Speaker 2: so happened Bill was there. We said, speak to Bill Ward.
Speaker 2: Billboard came out and he says, yeah, what do you want.
Speaker 2: He says, we're looking for a drummer for our band.
Speaker 2: And he says, what kind of stuff you're doing? This
Speaker 2: is cream Hendrix, that kind of thing, blues, a lot
Speaker 2: of blues stuff, and he says, we all give it
Speaker 2: a go, but on one condition, Tony Iomi comes with
Speaker 2: me and we went okay, and that's the way we've formed.
Speaker 1: And what happened to the original guitarist.
Speaker 2: We did a gig with We went back up north
Speaker 2: to where Tony and Bill had built up the reputation,
Speaker 2: but we couldn't use We couldn't let them know that
Speaker 2: it was Tony and Bill. The police would have arrested them.
Speaker 2: So we just made up a name of the for
Speaker 2: a band, and we called it the Polka Talk Blues Band,
Speaker 2: and we went back up to Carlisle and did two gigs.
Speaker 2: The rhythm guitarists, I mean, the slide guitarist just didn't
Speaker 2: fit in whatsoever. He kept playing the slide guitar over
Speaker 2: absolutely everything that we were doing. And we had a
Speaker 2: sax player as well. I forgot about him, and he
Speaker 2: used to keep The only thing he knew how to
Speaker 2: play was Take five by what's his name, Dave brew Becker.
Speaker 2: So every time he came to a sax alo, he'd
Speaker 2: played Take five. So we knew that wasn't going to last.
Speaker 2: So we got back to birmiham Tony m He says,
Speaker 2: I'm not playing with them too, they're out the band.
Speaker 2: So he says, yeah, okay, fine, So that the four
Speaker 2: of us got together. I played them I quite a
Speaker 2: few records blue stuff, and I said this is what
Speaker 2: we should be playing, and John Mail all this blue stuff,
Speaker 2: bb King, Albert King, all that kind of muddy waters,
Speaker 2: Howling Wolf say let's play this stuff, and I tell
Speaker 2: you and yes it's good, sounds good, but we need
Speaker 2: another name. So we changed the name to Earth. Billboard
Speaker 2: came up with the name Earth and became a blues band.
Speaker 2: And what do you do for gigs? We used to
Speaker 2: go still go back up north of Scotland and Carlisle
Speaker 2: play all these really really rough places. You used to
Speaker 2: have to dodge the bottles and everything every night and
Speaker 2: be careful that somebody didn't break your arm. And we
Speaker 2: built up a really big following up there. And we
Speaker 2: came back to Birmingham and there's this guy in Birmingham
Speaker 2: called Jim Simpson and he used to manage a lot
Speaker 2: of the Birmingham bands and he had this club called
Speaker 2: Henry's Blues House and it was in a pub in
Speaker 2: the middle of Birmingham and we just we said, let's
Speaker 2: go an audition for Jim Simpson, so if he's interested
Speaker 2: in getting us gigs, because he was quite a big
Speaker 2: night it was nim around Birmingham and we auditioned for him.
Speaker 2: This is yeah, you can play here every week at
Speaker 2: Blues House and I'll get you some gigs. So he
Speaker 2: used to get us like all these little club gigs
Speaker 2: around around England and eventually we built up a big following.
Speaker 1: Then why do you think you built up there far?
Speaker 1: What was special about the Beard?
Speaker 2: Because we were good. We were really good Ozzie singing
Speaker 2: Tommy and we're one of the best guitarists ever, Bill
Speaker 2: Ward one of the best drummers ever, and me on
Speaker 2: bass one of the worst bass players. It just worked.
Speaker 2: We were really good.
Speaker 1: And at what point do you start writing original macterial.
Speaker 2: We got booked at this place in Derbyshire and we
Speaker 2: turned up and everybody was like in like wedding again,
Speaker 2: wedding attire suits and the women had these long dresses on. God,
Speaker 2: this is a strange gig. So we started playing and
Speaker 2: the promoter came out, what are you doing? What are
Speaker 2: you playing that stuff for? This is what you mean?
Speaker 2: She plays played some of your singles. I mean, we
Speaker 2: haven't got any singles. And it was a completely different
Speaker 2: earth it was. It was a total band that used
Speaker 2: to play weddings and stuff. So we got booked the
Speaker 2: wrong place, so we just says, right, that's it. We've
Speaker 2: got to start writing our own stuff. And like we
Speaker 2: just you know, we can't keep playing these same places
Speaker 2: all the time getting mis booked. And so that's when
Speaker 2: we used to play this place in Literfield in just
Speaker 2: outside Birmiham called the Pokey Hole Club and it was
Speaker 2: the Blues Club. And the morning of the gig, we
Speaker 2: wrote the song Black Sabbath and we said, we did
Speaker 2: the usual gig that night and two like people were
Speaker 2: used to hearing, you know, the usual twelve bar blue stuff,
Speaker 2: and we just said, I said, let's do that song
Speaker 2: that we wrote today, and so we tried it and
Speaker 2: the crowd went absolutely mental and we realized that, you know,
Speaker 2: we were on the right track. So what hey to,
Speaker 2: what we were doing was good enough to keep writing,
Speaker 2: and that was it. Never looked back.
Speaker 1: How did you literally write there are four guys in
Speaker 1: a room. How did it come to be?
Speaker 2: We used to have this rehearsal room swimming baths in
Speaker 2: Aston and it was owned by the council and so
Speaker 2: from nine o'clock to twelve o'clock before the swimming baths opened,
Speaker 2: the dlarrus rehearsing there for free. And this one day,
Speaker 2: I just bought this that LP called the Holts this
Speaker 2: Planet Suite, and I loved the Mars that was on it.
Speaker 2: When we were rehearsing, I was playing that on the
Speaker 2: base and Tony went, oh, that sounds good and he
Speaker 2: goes down. That's that's how Black Sabbath came about the song.
Speaker 1: And Okay, at this point, was the being still called
Speaker 1: Black Earth or was it now Black Saba.
Speaker 2: Because that song went down so well, which was called
Speaker 2: Black Sabbath because we've been mistaken for the other Earth,
Speaker 2: I said, let's just let's just call the band Black
Speaker 2: Sabbath then. So that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, you wrote that song, you got a good response.
Speaker 1: How did you end up breaking the rest of the songs?
Speaker 2: Well, that gave us the confidence to start writing, and
Speaker 2: we still hated to do these really crap gigs. It
Speaker 2: was one in Switzerland that we had to play for
Speaker 2: two weeks and we had to do like eight forty
Speaker 2: five minutes spots every day, but we only had enough
Speaker 2: material for one hour. So the only thing we could
Speaker 2: do is start writing our own stuff to fill in
Speaker 2: the time. And we used to play at the Star
Speaker 2: Club in Hamburg, which is the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You'd have to play eight forty five minute spots. So
Speaker 2: to fill in all the time, we used to write
Speaker 2: our own stuff, use it as writing because there's never
Speaker 2: any audience the place. In Switzerland, I think we've got
Speaker 2: two people in every day, and Hamburg, you Star club
Speaker 2: in Hamburg, you'd only get people in of the weekend
Speaker 2: when there was a headliner that act on. The people knew,
Speaker 2: so we had all this time to ourselves, but we
Speaker 2: still had to play. So we used to just jam
Speaker 2: and eventually write most of the first album most of
Speaker 2: the second album.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're saying you're playing in these clubs it's today,
Speaker 1: and literally nobody.
Speaker 2: Is there, Nobody whatsoever was maybe the one in Zurich
Speaker 2: was a couple of prostitutes and an occasional lunatic would
Speaker 2: come in and do these really stupid things to try
Speaker 2: and put us off playing. I mean, one guy used
Speaker 2: to stand on his head in front of the stage
Speaker 2: while we were playing. Another guy came in playing a
Speaker 2: flute all the way through our set, just things like
Speaker 2: and another guy came in clapping and laughing all the
Speaker 2: way through our set. And that's only get two prostitutes
Speaker 2: and three lunatics.
Speaker 1: Okay, why were these clubs ping you at all if
Speaker 1: there was no one there?
Speaker 2: Well, the guy the one in Switzerland, he was nuts.
Speaker 2: He thought he was a doctor, the guy that owned it,
Speaker 2: and he used to have to call him doctor and
Speaker 2: completely mental. He used to come in with his doctor's bag,
Speaker 2: nothing in it. And it was quite a big club,
Speaker 2: but we had to play opposite the bar. He wouldn't
Speaker 2: let us plan on the stage. So yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: like these Star club used to play. I mean we'd
Speaker 2: only get like ten quid a week, which is nothing,
Speaker 2: maybe twenty pounds a week, which is like thirty dollars
Speaker 2: a week. But we didn't have any money, so we'd
Speaker 2: do anything to you know, you'd have to survive.
Speaker 1: So what late lessons did you learn in Zurich and
Speaker 1: at the Star Club? And we read all about the
Speaker 1: Beatles and the people they met in town and drugs
Speaker 1: and women. What was it late for you guys? Well?
Speaker 2: Very garcity of women. The Star Club was okay because
Speaker 2: that was like on the Big Barn, which was there
Speaker 2: all prostitutes and brothels and h gay bars. Everything was there,
Speaker 2: and any kind of life was there. And I used
Speaker 2: to get like transvest i to grapy beards. We're being
Speaker 2: the club next door to ours, and it used to
Speaker 2: be you just suddenly went from a very closed Irish
Speaker 2: Catholic upbringing just seeing all kinds of things going on.
Speaker 2: Because there was no money and I was a vegetarian.
Speaker 2: I practically staff to death. Only had I only ever
Speaker 2: could do once a week and that was usually fries
Speaker 2: pomfrets is the gall and then so yeah, it was
Speaker 2: tough going. But what we realized, if we could survive that,
Speaker 2: then we could survive anything that was like the lowest
Speaker 2: of the low that you could get, and anything.
Speaker 1: Else was like heaven. Okay, so you left Hamburg, you
Speaker 1: came back to Birmingham. What was the next step after that?
Speaker 2: Well, just at that particular time, just before we went
Speaker 2: to the Germany, we'd recorded the first album.
Speaker 1: When you went to Zurich, Did you have a record deal?
Speaker 2: Not at that particular time, but between Zurich because we
Speaker 2: played Hamburg three times the Star Club, So we did
Speaker 2: Zurich and when we can't got back to England, the
Speaker 2: manager had got us a record deal and we literally
Speaker 2: went into the studio for one day. Did the album
Speaker 2: that we'd sort of perfected while we were in Zurich
Speaker 2: and then straight back to Germany to the Star Club.
Speaker 1: Okay, was this the scene manager who was booking the gigs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the ones where it's a you can get
Speaker 2: the when you do the gig, they'll give you the
Speaker 2: money on the night, and then you go and get
Speaker 2: the money and go to try and get the money,
Speaker 2: and I know we sent it to your manager. So
Speaker 2: it's like we were literally when we got to Zurich,
Speaker 2: we were starving. We went to try and get the
Speaker 2: money off this bloody lunatic doctor and it's oh no,
Speaker 2: it's sent it to your manager. So we didn't have anything,
Speaker 2: any money. We had to borrow some money off these
Speaker 2: prostitutes to try and get some food. Uh yeah, that's
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: Was Okay, So was this your big dream to get
Speaker 1: a record deal? Did you think you were going to
Speaker 1: be successful?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that's what you're in a band for, to
Speaker 2: go a record deal. That's like the pinnacle of your
Speaker 2: all you could ever hope for. And we didn't know
Speaker 2: anything about record deals. We didn't know. We didn't know
Speaker 2: you got paid to upfront or things like our We
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about publishing. You didn't. We didn't realize
Speaker 2: you got paid for writing songs. We were totally green,
Speaker 2: real ultra thicicos, and we were just happy to go
Speaker 2: in the studio and be able to listen to what
Speaker 2: we were doing for the first time in our lives.
Speaker 2: And we were only in the studio for two days.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were in the studio the record was cut.
Speaker 1: When you heard the record, were you happy with the record?
Speaker 2: I loved it, Yeah, But we didn't hear it until
Speaker 2: the week before it came out, so we didn't have
Speaker 2: a clue it was going to sound like. The only
Speaker 2: thing that we heard was there was a single called
Speaker 2: Evil Woman on it, and that's the only thing that
Speaker 2: we heard before the album. We never heard the album.
Speaker 2: We heard the single and literally not until a week
Speaker 2: before the album was released.
Speaker 1: And the album comes out. How long does it take
Speaker 1: do you realize it's catching.
Speaker 2: Har It went in the charts straight away. We did.
Speaker 2: We were going up to it. We had a gig
Speaker 2: in Manchester and we were in the van going up
Speaker 2: to this gig and there used to be there used
Speaker 2: to be a countdown of the album charts every Saturday
Speaker 2: that count down the top thirty albums on the radio,
Speaker 2: and we always used to listen to the album charts
Speaker 2: and we had the radio on in the van and
Speaker 2: the guy at number twenty seven what we couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: We nearly crashed the van and we're all like celebrating
Speaker 2: in the van. We never thought it was going to.
Speaker 1: Be what was driving adoption? How did people know about
Speaker 1: it to buy it?
Speaker 2: Because of the we built up this whole following around
Speaker 2: England and we didn't realize how loyle these fans were
Speaker 2: going to be. You know, it's one thing building up
Speaker 2: people coming to see you in clubs, and it's another
Speaker 2: thing for those people to go and actually buy your album.
Speaker 2: And of course we used to say, you know, after
Speaker 2: all the gig gigs we we do, so this is
Speaker 2: from our new album which will be out in February,
Speaker 2: and you don't really think anything much of it, and
Speaker 2: then eventually people take notice of what you're saying and
Speaker 2: they went out and bought it.
Speaker 1: Okay, the first black sat with the album. At that time.
Speaker 1: In terms of heavy hard rock music, Zeppelin was about
Speaker 1: at the extreme and then Sabbath comes out and it's
Speaker 1: heavier than that. Were you conscious of the fact that
Speaker 1: the music got a certainly heavy quality. Were you just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is just what we're doing.
Speaker 2: It was just what we were doing. I mean we
Speaker 2: were obviously we were aware of led Zeppelin because they
Speaker 2: were from to Plenty and Bonham were from Birmiham, just
Speaker 2: outside Bermiam, and we knew them. We used to see
Speaker 2: him at the clubs all the time, and so you
Speaker 2: know that gave us confidence when we heard the first
Speaker 2: Zeppelin album that what we were doing could be successful
Speaker 2: as well. And we didn't think, oh, let's get heavier
Speaker 2: than led Zeppelin or anything like that. It was just
Speaker 2: a lot of the fact was Tony's. A lot of
Speaker 2: it was down to Tony's having to wear thimbles on
Speaker 2: his fingers because he had two of the ends of
Speaker 2: his fingers were cut off, so he had to wear
Speaker 2: these thimbles, and eventually he had to tune the guitar
Speaker 2: down so he could feel the strings through the thimbles.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't because if he kept it up to pitch, he'd
Speaker 2: play with these thimbles and it had knocked the thimbles
Speaker 2: off and he couldn't play. So he tuned the guitar
Speaker 2: down three semitones and that let him get more grip
Speaker 2: on the strings, and that's how the whole sound came about.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're driving in the band to Liverpool. You
Speaker 1: hear the album's number twenty seven. What changes.
Speaker 2: Not a lot at that time, because it was still
Speaker 2: getting like thirty dollars a night. We'd been booked for
Speaker 2: them solidly for six months. It didn't matter that the
Speaker 2: album was in the charts. We were still like getting
Speaker 2: thirty dollars a night. But it gave us the confidence
Speaker 2: to realize that what we were doing, we were on
Speaker 2: the right path. And more importantly, the record company wanted
Speaker 2: it wanted to give us a follow up deal, and
Speaker 2: by the success of the first album, we were able
Speaker 2: to record a second album. So that's the main thing
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the first album comes out, you're not starting
Speaker 1: to play larger rules, you're not making any more money.
Speaker 1: It's like nothing has changed.
Speaker 2: Not live now, because you know, we were contracted for
Speaker 2: like six months worth of gigs before the album came out,
Speaker 2: so it's like for pittance every night. But we were
Speaker 2: just happy to play and build up the following and
Speaker 2: eventually the venues were getting bigger, and promoters would say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to put them in a bigger venue and
Speaker 2: give them more money. And that's the way we just
Speaker 2: built it all up.
Speaker 1: And we're along the line. You recorded the second album.
Speaker 2: I think it was gosh, we were given five days
Speaker 2: to do the second album, so I think it must
Speaker 2: have been about May. I think May of nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: And where did those songs come from from?
Speaker 2: Mainly from jamming. We had a lot of it from
Speaker 2: the long sessions that we had to play at the
Speaker 2: start and Zurich, so things like war Pigs. We already
Speaker 2: had written for the second album and just jamming, just
Speaker 2: rehearsing and coming up with new songs. We had everything
Speaker 2: written except for Paranoid.
Speaker 1: And how do you read panoid?
Speaker 2: By accident? It was we went in to record the
Speaker 2: second album and the producer said, you've got to come
Speaker 2: up with another three minutes. Because in those days, an
Speaker 2: album wasn't class as an album unless it was I
Speaker 2: think it was over forty minutes or something. You had
Speaker 2: to have forty minutes worth of material for it to
Speaker 2: be classed as an LP. And this is just short
Speaker 2: of like three minutes, you've got to come up with
Speaker 2: something quick. So we're mean, I think me and Ozzie
Speaker 2: and Bill went out to get a sandwich. We came
Speaker 2: back in and Tony. Tony had come up with the
Speaker 2: riff to Paranoid. Oh that's that's good. And as he
Speaker 2: came up with the vocal lines straight away, I scribbled
Speaker 2: down the lyrics and we wrote and recorded it in
Speaker 2: about two or three hours.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you end up writing the lyrics for
Speaker 1: the sots?
Speaker 2: As he hated writing lyrics so and I mean, if
Speaker 2: you ever hear some of the rough demos of stuff,
Speaker 2: his lyrics left Quorral a lot to be desired, and
Speaker 2: he didn't in those days. He didn't have the patience
Speaker 2: to finish off. He come up with his one line
Speaker 2: that'd be a good, really good idea, but he'd never
Speaker 2: finish it up. So he's left to me to finish
Speaker 2: everything or come up with something from scratch.
Speaker 1: Well, like you're talking about Paranoid, the whole thing was done.
Speaker 1: Did you literally just say, okay, I'm going to scribble
Speaker 1: down lyrics And it was the.
Speaker 2: Easy Yeah, wrote them down, showed them to as he
Speaker 2: he literally was reading them as he was singing, singing
Speaker 2: the song in the studio anyway, but does mean anyway?
Speaker 2: I explained what paranoid meant and he was all okay
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: But since you wrote a lot of the lyrics, what
Speaker 1: was your process? And you scribbled them down? But other
Speaker 1: times you'd go home and think about it. How did
Speaker 1: you do it?
Speaker 2: Well? I had to wait for Arsie to come up
Speaker 2: with the vocal melody. He'd always come up with a
Speaker 2: vocal melody and then maybe either on the spot or
Speaker 2: when I'm at home. We didn't have anything to record
Speaker 2: things on back then, so he used to have to
Speaker 2: stick in my mind his vocal melody, and then I'd
Speaker 2: write the lyrics to what I thought was the vocal melody,
Speaker 2: and then he say, no, that's too many words there,
Speaker 2: so I'd have to change that. Too many syllables on that,
Speaker 2: so I'd have to change the syllables. And that's the
Speaker 2: way we worked. But you go home with the melody
Speaker 2: in your mind. How long does it take to write
Speaker 2: the lyrics? Well, in those days, straight away, because I
Speaker 2: was young and the world was my eyester. I just
Speaker 2: had lots of ideas and there was lots of things
Speaker 2: going on in the world that were new to me.
Speaker 2: And the one thing I wouldn't do is write the
Speaker 2: usual love song I just broke up with my girlfriend
Speaker 2: kind of thing. It had to be something, uh, political
Speaker 2: or mental depression, anything like that, anti religion.
Speaker 1: Did you have any idea when you recorded there we
Speaker 1: wrote up that Iron Man and Paranoid I would become
Speaker 1: such classics.
Speaker 2: No, you never do, because it was like the second album.
Speaker 2: You don't know whether it's going to be a total
Speaker 2: flop or do better than the first album. And it
Speaker 2: just really took off. I mean, Paramoid was like the
Speaker 2: first proper single that we'd written as a single and
Speaker 2: it just took off in England.
Speaker 1: Mental So since you played off the gigs had been
Speaker 1: booked before the first album came out. Second album comes out,
Speaker 1: how does your life change?
Speaker 2: Well, by that time we were getting other managed, other
Speaker 2: managers coming in saying, look, if you keep it, if
Speaker 2: you keep this guy that you've got managing, you're not
Speaker 2: going to go anywhere. The guy just doesn't know how
Speaker 2: to manage it. Professor, a successful band, you're always going
Speaker 2: to be like on the roaming around England trying to
Speaker 2: get giegs, and we said that to our manager, you know,
Speaker 2: he's still capable of managing us, and yeah, I've just
Speaker 2: booked you an American tour, so oh that's good. Great,
Speaker 2: I've got you a deal in America for your albums,
Speaker 2: and which turned out to be like one of the
Speaker 2: worst deals of all time. I think two weeks before
Speaker 2: we're supposed to go to America, he said, there's a
Speaker 2: big anti satanic thing going on in America, so I've
Speaker 2: canceled your tour. We found out that it never He
Speaker 2: didn't realize you had to have visas to get to
Speaker 2: work in America. So the guy was like hopeless, and
Speaker 2: so all these other managers piled in then trying to
Speaker 2: get us to sign with them, which eventually we did.
Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of things, especially the first album, but
Speaker 1: all of the early albums get literally terrible reviews.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Did you care about that or just say they're not right? Well,
Speaker 1: the first album, I mean.
Speaker 2: We read that. You know, you always have to read
Speaker 2: your review just to make sure that people knew that
Speaker 2: your album was out. And I always remember this one
Speaker 2: review saying this is like people that can't play their
Speaker 2: instruments can't write lyrics. Trying to be a third rate
Speaker 2: cream and the guy couldn't even lick Eric Clapton's boots
Speaker 2: their guitar. It was like the worst review you could,
Speaker 2: really bad personal stuff, and and most of the reviews
Speaker 2: were like that. The Rolling Stone review is the same,
Speaker 2: say how awfully arts and everything. But we didn't care
Speaker 2: because we've been through the stuff that we've been through
Speaker 2: to get to do those albums. We didn't care what
Speaker 2: anybody thought about us because as long as we we
Speaker 2: survived what we survived, and you know, you could we
Speaker 2: were Uh, you couldn't bring us down.
Speaker 1: So how do you end up making a deal with Donald?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was one of the he's He sent up
Speaker 2: one of his heavies to Birmingham. It came up in
Speaker 2: a rolls Rice and Don had this big reputation at
Speaker 2: the time. He was I think he was managing the
Speaker 2: small faces, Roger Stewart and all those kind of people.
Speaker 2: And he says, Don Arden wants to meet you. Who's
Speaker 2: Don Arden? You know he told us who was managing
Speaker 2: and everything is really this guy that you've got now
Speaker 2: can't manager. So took us down to London, picked us
Speaker 2: up in his rolls Rice in London. He's heavy and
Speaker 2: sat down with Don He said, told us exactly what
Speaker 2: we should be doing, how much we should be getting,
Speaker 2: how all kinds of things like everything that you'd want
Speaker 2: to hear, and how it's going to make us massive
Speaker 2: worldwide touring band sold millions of albums so that sounds great,
Speaker 2: and he went, okay, sign this then what sign this
Speaker 2: paper to say that you're I'm your manager, And well,
Speaker 2: we've got to think about it first. You are to
Speaker 2: sign now with the duels off the table and said,
Speaker 2: well you can't sign now how much commission you're going
Speaker 2: to get and we'll talk about that later after you've
Speaker 2: signed the thing. So we just went, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to see somebody else, so we left. We went to Chrystalis,
Speaker 2: who managed ten years after in Jeth Roads All and
Speaker 2: they were really interested. The fixed up a gig for
Speaker 2: us at the Marquee Club in London, which is like
Speaker 2: the big club that he in London to play at,
Speaker 2: and people from Chrystalis came to see us and as
Speaker 2: we started playing incomes Don Arden with all his heavies
Speaker 2: and everything, and we go oh no and missus, no,
Speaker 2: we can't, we can't sign with him and he says,
Speaker 2: we're going to sign me Chrystalis, and god knows what
Speaker 2: Don Harden said to Chrystalis, but they went, sorry, we
Speaker 2: can't sign we can't sign you.
Speaker 1: So it's.
Speaker 2: Been got at. So a couple of weeks later, his
Speaker 2: body is heavy. It comes to see us. This is
Speaker 2: I've left Don Arden and with this other guy called
Speaker 2: Patrick Muon there and he's great. He's a young guy,
Speaker 2: he can do like everything. He's not going to rip
Speaker 2: you off for anything. We didn't know that the the
Speaker 2: heavy guy was like one of the biggest criminals in
Speaker 2: England and eventually he was the only Englishman to ever
Speaker 2: join the mafia. And so we went to see Patrick Moune.
Speaker 2: He promised us to the earth, got us out that
Speaker 2: Jim Simpson contract and took us to America and everything
Speaker 2: went great after that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so told me about the first tour of an Aerica.
Speaker 2: Well, we started off because we've been doing quite well
Speaker 2: because Paranoid just such a big hit in England. We've
Speaker 2: been playing like the big theaters and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and some outdoor festivals, so everything was coming up in
Speaker 2: the world. We got to America, we had to play
Speaker 2: this tiny little club on Staten Island. I mean, what
Speaker 2: the houses. We were always like to think America, America,
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden. And here we were in this tiny, little,
Speaker 2: horrible little club on Staten Island called Anganos. But the
Speaker 2: night before that, we'd played this university end of term
Speaker 2: gig in New Jersey. We plugged all our gear in,
Speaker 2: and of course all our gear blew up because we
Speaker 2: didn't know the American electricity. It was different from me
Speaker 2: English electricity. Everything was blowing up, blown to bits. So
Speaker 2: our very first appearance in America lasted about five seconds.
Speaker 2: So we end up at this tiny little club Staten Island,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're signed to that manager, the new manager.
Speaker 2: What the hell's this come?
Speaker 1: All the way here?
Speaker 2: You're blown up. America's supposed to be all this great,
Speaker 2: big place and everything. We're going to be really successful.
Speaker 2: We're playing this little club and this is yes. But
Speaker 2: everybody in the club are all the top agents and
Speaker 2: promoters in America. I mean, we did the gig and
Speaker 2: suddenly all the whole of America opened up for us.
Speaker 1: Then you remember who the agent was that you signed with?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I can't remember it now. I can't remember
Speaker 2: off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was one of the big ones. So now
Speaker 1: you have success across America, you have success in England.
Speaker 1: Things are finally kind of working or there are still
Speaker 1: any spots where there are holes in the game.
Speaker 2: Everything was incredible, more than you could ever imagine. America
Speaker 2: had taken us. You know, I loved us and that's
Speaker 2: the pinnacle of success. It's like, because all you've ever
Speaker 2: heard it since we started was, you know, you nobody
Speaker 2: unless you make it in America. Everybody used to say
Speaker 2: that to us. No matter what you're do in England,
Speaker 2: if you're not big in America, you're nothing. And we
Speaker 2: were big in America, and it's like it's sort of
Speaker 2: pinch yourself kind of thing. It didn't seem real. And
Speaker 2: then the hard work began. It was like, because we
Speaker 2: had to do we were in Europe, do America just
Speaker 2: took months to you just spend all the time either
Speaker 2: on the road or writing or in the studio. As
Speaker 2: soon as you're finished in the studio, you're back on
Speaker 2: the road and then you'd be over to the States
Speaker 2: and keep building euro Upe in America, keep at tour
Speaker 2: after two after two, and it was great until we
Speaker 2: sort of wondered where our money was. And it was
Speaker 2: not until what the mid seventies when we kept asking
Speaker 2: for our accountants somebody to you know, show us what
Speaker 2: was coming in and what was going out. And I
Speaker 2: managed to kept saying, I'll have a word at the
Speaker 2: accountant and he'll send you the accounts so you can look.
Speaker 2: The next thing, We're got a massive, big tax build
Speaker 2: from the inland revenue in England. We got the how
Speaker 2: is this we haven't earned this money tax people, Oh,
Speaker 2: yes you have. It's like we've seen about a tenth
Speaker 2: of what we were being taxed on. And we realized
Speaker 2: then that the manager has like ripped us off.
Speaker 1: Okay, then what.
Speaker 2: Then spent a year trying to get out of that contract.
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers were involved in it. We've had to eventually
Speaker 2: we had to buy him out, buy the manager out
Speaker 2: for a million dollars, which is like ridiculous amount back
Speaker 2: in the mid seventies, and we had to borrow it
Speaker 2: from the record companies like against future albums just to
Speaker 2: pay him off. We were in court for about three
Speaker 2: months with all these lawyers involved, and I think the
Speaker 2: lawyers ripped us off more than the management did, and
Speaker 2: so we were left with no manager, absolutely no money.
Speaker 2: We just had to start all over again.
Speaker 1: So what did you do for a manager?
Speaker 2: We had to manage ourselves very badly and we got
Speaker 2: this the tour tour manager then became looked after the
Speaker 2: like the agencies booking tours and stuff like her, and
Speaker 2: just had to go like that.
Speaker 1: But you eventually ended up with Donnardon anyway, right.
Speaker 2: At the end of the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So how did that happen?
Speaker 2: We needed somebody to take the lift all the stuff
Speaker 2: off us because it was just like the music was suffering.
Speaker 2: We would you'd like, we'd start, we'd go into a
Speaker 2: studio and then you get a summons to appear in court.
Speaker 2: And eventually what used to take is five days or
Speaker 2: two weeks in the studio I became like six months.
Speaker 2: We shoul have to keep appearing in court all the
Speaker 2: time against all these people that were suing us. And
Speaker 2: Don Arden said that he could get us out of it,
Speaker 2: and that was unfortunately when the end of the Aussie
Speaker 2: era came about.
Speaker 1: Okay, did Don Arden give you a percentage? Did he
Speaker 1: tell you what it was going to be? Did he
Speaker 1: rip you off?
Speaker 2: He didn't actually book any sus because Ozzi was fired
Speaker 2: from the band and Don wasn't interested in managing Black
Speaker 2: Sabbath without Ozzi.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Don Arden all the will he never even
Speaker 1: managed to Black.
Speaker 2: Not Know England. No, I think he started on that.
Speaker 2: I think it was the Never Say Die tour. We
Speaker 2: just were like, we need a manager, and we went
Speaker 2: like halfway through the Never Say Diet got done involved.
Speaker 2: He agreed to manage us. He had incredible success with
Speaker 2: the l built them like one of the major bands
Speaker 2: on the Earth at the time, and then we found
Speaker 2: out that Jeff Lynn sued him for thirty five million
Speaker 2: dollars but neither so he agreed to manage us. We've
Speaker 2: done a tour with Van Halen and Warner Brothers were
Speaker 2: putting all the publicity into Van Halen and completely ignoring us.
Speaker 2: So we thought, you know, we've got to get a manager.
Speaker 2: We went back to Darn and that was going okay,
Speaker 2: and so as he got fired in the band, Don
Speaker 2: Arden says, well, I'm not managing with that, and that
Speaker 2: was the end of Don Arden.
Speaker 1: And okay, a couple of things as he left the
Speaker 1: band came back and then got fired. How hard was
Speaker 1: it to decide to fire them?
Speaker 2: It was heartbreaking because you know, we're all growing up together,
Speaker 2: we forward against the odds together, we built we perform
Speaker 2: miracles from getting making the band successful, and it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: It's like you know, cutting your arm off.
Speaker 1: Well, how bad was it? Did you have to fire them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely needed a change of lifestyle. At the
Speaker 2: time he was we were all into we were all
Speaker 2: doing drugs and getting boozing and stuff like that, but
Speaker 2: we could still function. Whereas Ossie it's sort of it
Speaker 2: wasn't functioning anymore. And we got this house in bel
Speaker 2: Air to write an album. Ozzie just wasn't interested in
Speaker 2: the music that we were doing. And eventually Tony says,
Speaker 2: Ozzi's got to go. It's just not interesting in the
Speaker 2: band's not going to go anywhere. Keep on like this
Speaker 2: and this isn't Actually I was a party the other
Speaker 2: night and I got talking to this guy called Ronnie
Speaker 2: James Doer, and he's got an absolutely brilliant voice, and
Speaker 2: I think we should give him a go. H. So
Speaker 2: Tony made came to the decision to get rid of
Speaker 2: Ossie and we we hated doing it, but it had
Speaker 2: to happen for our sake and his sake, and and
Speaker 2: it all worked out great in the end. And Ronnie
Speaker 2: James Doo came along and we'd written he sang to
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that we'd written and it was brilliant,
Speaker 2: absolutely just exactly what he needed. And that was the
Speaker 2: end of the Aussie era.
Speaker 1: What did as he see when he got fired?
Speaker 2: But he couldn't believe it. I mean, it's like a
Speaker 2: ton of bricks coming down on him on his own.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had each other, but Ozzie didn't have anybody.
Speaker 2: And luckily that's when Sharon came along and saved him.
Speaker 1: And when he ultimately had success as a solo career
Speaker 1: pretty much right away. Did that surprise you?
Speaker 2: It surprised me how fast it too himself around? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And we were like totally really glad that he was
Speaker 2: successful and he turned his whole life around. It was
Speaker 2: great because he was successful and we were successful. We
Speaker 2: were had one of the biggest selling albums ever of
Speaker 2: Sabbath era, and he probably became bigger than Sabbath.
Speaker 1: And how was it working with Riley James Deal.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic for the first two albums, it's great. He
Speaker 2: was the ultra professional. He'd just get down to everything.
Speaker 2: The pressure was taken off me because he could write
Speaker 2: his own lyrics, so I could concentrate on the music
Speaker 2: part and you know, the bass parts and everything. He
Speaker 2: was great for the first two albums, and then by
Speaker 2: the time he came for the live album, he got
Speaker 2: his own solodeal unbeknownst to us, which didn't get down
Speaker 2: very well with us.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to earlier era. At one point,
Speaker 1: Bill Ward says, they're kicking.
Speaker 2: You out of the bear. When I'm there, I have
Speaker 2: no idea. You have to ask Tony and Bill. And
Speaker 2: because Bill came to the house one day and she's
Speaker 2: got some bad news, You're out of the band. Great.
Speaker 2: I think I was just like losing interest basically, and
Speaker 2: we've just we've been through so much. We got rid
Speaker 2: of the management. We had no money to show for
Speaker 2: selling zillions of albums and millions of tours, successful tours
Speaker 2: and everything, and we had, like I think I had
Speaker 2: about five thousand dollars in the bank or something, and
Speaker 2: massive tax bills, and I was just disillusion with the
Speaker 2: whole thing. And I think I just that rubbed off
Speaker 2: and everybody else in the band they just thought I
Speaker 2: wasn't interested anymore, which is probably true. At the time,
Speaker 2: I just needed a break from everything.
Speaker 1: So you were okay with it getting kicked out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like, oh, thank God for that. I
Speaker 2: don't have to make the decision myself. They made it
Speaker 2: for me, and yeah, I was just like, I think
Speaker 2: I had the most relaxing three weeks I've had in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up back in the bit?
Speaker 2: The phone me says where are you? Do you mean?
Speaker 2: Where am I rehearsal? Where are do you kick me? At?
Speaker 2: The band who kicked you out? Nobody would admit that
Speaker 2: they were the ones that kicked me out, So I
Speaker 2: just turned up rehearsal as if nothing had ever happened.
Speaker 1: And to what degree did that affect you going forward?
Speaker 2: Well, I realized that the band was it wasn't like
Speaker 2: four school kids all having a laugh together. It was
Speaker 2: like serious, and it sort of lost the friendship part.
Speaker 2: It became more of a business than four blokes just
Speaker 2: having a laugh together, and just I don't know, I
Speaker 2: think the friendship suffered a little bit because you. You
Speaker 2: never think that you people that close to it are
Speaker 2: gonna stab you in the back, which is what I
Speaker 2: felt like when they said I was fired. But so
Speaker 2: a little bit of that, a little bit of the
Speaker 2: brotherhood sort of it was diminished.
Speaker 1: So you had this run with the deal, which was
Speaker 1: very successful. Then he gets a solo deal that ends
Speaker 1: with Sabbath. You end up working with a bunch of
Speaker 1: different people, including Ian Gillen. We've been in deep purple.
Speaker 1: You know what was it like, constantly cycling through different people.
Speaker 2: It was horrible by this time after Ronnie left, because
Speaker 2: we'd got Sandy Perlman managers for Heaven and Hell and
Speaker 2: Mob Rules. He came in and managed us after Don
Speaker 2: refused to manage us because obviously wasn't in the band,
Speaker 2: and Sandy got all our business affairs sorted out. It
Speaker 2: was not the best thing ever happened to us. We
Speaker 2: got all our royalties properly sorted everything, all that tax
Speaker 2: sorted everything, just put us on a different level so
Speaker 2: we didn't have to worry about finances anymore. And then
Speaker 2: uh that there is like a big thing with because
Speaker 2: Sandy Ploman managed Blue Icycles as well, and that came
Speaker 2: to an end because he says, it's like you are
Speaker 2: the manager. So he managed Blue Icacle because it is
Speaker 2: too it's too much of a conflict. And he says,
Speaker 2: what I've made my sort of name managing Blue Icycle,
Speaker 2: so I've gotten to staying with them. So incomes Don
Speaker 2: Arden again. He says, I've got the proposition for you. Says,
Speaker 2: how about having Ian Gillan in the band. He says,
Speaker 2: he's left Deep Purple and he's looking for a band
Speaker 2: and he's he's approached his manager's approached me and asked
Speaker 2: about join in Sabbath. So he says, well, yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: give it a try. And this is what we did
Speaker 2: well that ended up having a short run. Why the
Speaker 2: whole thing was a fiasco. I mean the Stonehenge but
Speaker 2: it was ridiculous. Everybody thought spinal tap and copied. So
Speaker 2: because of the whole Stonehenge fiasco.
Speaker 1: For those people who are tell us about the Stonehenge fiasco.
Speaker 2: Well, because Don Arden had this, we put on spectacular
Speaker 2: shows like with E l O had E l O
Speaker 2: had a flying saucer landing on stage at their gigs.
Speaker 2: It's like heap are on the most spectacular shows you
Speaker 2: could imagine and and he was doing with Ossie as well.
Speaker 2: But Ozzie was going out with these incredible shows, and
Speaker 2: Don Harden came up with this idea of having Stonehenges
Speaker 2: the backdrop and the sun gradually as we were playing,
Speaker 2: the sun would gradually rise behind the Stonehenge like normal
Speaker 2: Stone Enge. And of course they got all the dimensions
Speaker 2: ron So when we finally went on tour with it,
Speaker 2: it was too big to put it in any of
Speaker 2: the gigs, so we had to leave it on the
Speaker 2: docks in New York. So that was a total fiasco.
Speaker 2: Then Ian Gillan, halfway through the tour heard from Deep
Speaker 2: Purple they were getting wanted him back in the Deep
Speaker 2: Purple band, so he wanted to go back to Deep Purple.
Speaker 2: And that was the end of that.
Speaker 1: So when did the original Sabbath, you know, when did
Speaker 1: you all basically say this is all?
Speaker 2: Well I did. Then it was like I never I
Speaker 2: just didn't agree with the girl and singing in Sabbath.
Speaker 2: I agreed with it, thinking that it was going to
Speaker 2: be a Gil and Iomi, but that kind of thing,
Speaker 2: not Black Sabbath. But the record company insisted that it
Speaker 2: comes out as a black Sabbath album, and I never
Speaker 2: really never believed in it really, and so nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four came around were me and Tony and Bill are
Speaker 2: auditioning different singers and it's just like I just had
Speaker 2: enough of this. I'm out of here, and I left.
Speaker 1: Okay, and tell me about the solo album.
Speaker 2: For me, Well, I've been writing lots of different stuff
Speaker 2: and I decided I'm just going to do go on
Speaker 2: my own so on my own boss, and I'll do
Speaker 2: what I want musically, which is what I do it
Speaker 2: just for the pleasure of writing my own stuff.
Speaker 1: To what degree was that fulfilling and successful? Because it
Speaker 1: wasn't as commercially successful as certainly the peak of Black Service. Oh,
Speaker 1: the solo stuff didn't do anything. I think it hardly
Speaker 1: sold anything.
Speaker 2: It was just nice to be able to play, to
Speaker 2: do exactly what I wanted to do instead of having
Speaker 2: to listen to everybody everybody else's opinions or wherever. So
Speaker 2: it was very fulfilling for me. So I didn't need
Speaker 2: the money at the time. It was more like a
Speaker 2: hobby and something that I'd always always wanted to do,
Speaker 2: and it's up to me to be able to do it.
Speaker 2: And that's what happened.
Speaker 1: You end up working with Osi and Asthmosis. How does
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, me and I and our kids were very very close.
Speaker 2: He'd come up to my house, him and Sharon with
Speaker 2: the kids to play with my kids, and we got
Speaker 2: into his action. We got on holidays together as families,
Speaker 2: and so we were really close. And he was having
Speaker 2: problems with Bob Daisley's bass player at the time, and
Speaker 2: he tried other bass players and he just wasn't getting
Speaker 2: along with them, and he just asked me one day
Speaker 2: if I'd do a tour with him. Yeah, fine, you know,
Speaker 2: just as friends. And that's what I did, just out
Speaker 2: of friendship.
Speaker 1: And how did Black Sabbath end up informing?
Speaker 2: I think Sharon had the idea of having Sabbath and
Speaker 2: Ozzie doing a gig together, and that's how the Ozfest
Speaker 2: thing came about, and we did that. It all came
Speaker 2: from his He did a farewell gig in custom Maser
Speaker 2: in California, and the original Sabbath got finished off his
Speaker 2: show and it's supposed to be his like final farewell
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, and we just got
Speaker 2: together from then on.
Speaker 1: How did you end up playing that gig. Find me.
Speaker 2: Well, we were on tour with Ozzie with Ronnie James
Speaker 2: Doo at the time, and Ozzie and Sharon had got
Speaker 2: in touch with us and says, we'd love you to
Speaker 2: as he's finishing his career at custom Maser and he'd
Speaker 2: love you to come and do the final Uncle with
Speaker 2: me Tony and Bill and the original Sabbath just going
Speaker 2: on stage and finishing his career off. And went, oh yeah, great,
Speaker 2: we're up for it. We mentioned it to run and
Speaker 2: he went ballistic, I'm not doing that. I'm not supporting
Speaker 2: that clown and all this kind of stuff, and so
Speaker 2: we start, okay, well we're doing it, so running, Okay,
Speaker 2: Well that's it finished. That's the way that that finished.
Speaker 2: Something really stupid, pathetic.
Speaker 1: Okay, needless to say, it's not ours's last gig, and
Speaker 1: then you continue to work with ours. He is Black Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Is there any kind of plan or is it just
Speaker 1: organic or is it just when ours? He calls what
Speaker 1: what's going on there?
Speaker 2: It's just we had such a good time at the
Speaker 2: the quote unquote farewell gig that he says, you know,
Speaker 2: if we ever want to do this again and one
Speaker 2: off thing or festival or just a tour whatever that
Speaker 2: to do it. Nothing stopping us, and that's the way
Speaker 2: we've always treated it ever since.
Speaker 1: Well, eventually you're king to an end? Is would you
Speaker 1: ever do it again?
Speaker 2: If I was capable, if the rest of the band
Speaker 2: were capable. But there's absolutely no way we'd gone tour
Speaker 2: again because we're not not capable of it anymore physically.
Speaker 1: And how come Bill Ward? Wasn't I the end run
Speaker 1: of service?
Speaker 2: That's something you should ask, not me, because I would.
Speaker 2: We started doing the the last album together, thirteen album,
Speaker 2: and it was the original band, and that's that's what
Speaker 2: we all agreed to h It was supposed to be
Speaker 2: like the final album of the original band. And everything
Speaker 2: was going great in rehearsals right in the album. Then
Speaker 2: we had a break. I went to Hawaii, came back
Speaker 2: from Hawaii and Bill found me, I've been fired. What
Speaker 2: do you mean, what's why you fired? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I just come back from Hawaii. I don't know what's
Speaker 2: gone on, and so I've still I never did get
Speaker 2: a proper answer why Bill was out the band and
Speaker 2: what was.
Speaker 1: It like working with Sharing?
Speaker 2: It was great, it's always been great for working with her.
Speaker 2: She had to overcome being one of the few women
Speaker 2: managements in this horrendous music industry. She was very, very tough,
Speaker 2: but she had to be to be a successful woman
Speaker 2: even now in this industry on the management side.
Speaker 1: When do you get married the first time?
Speaker 2: When? Did what?
Speaker 1: When did you get married the first time?
Speaker 2: Married?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, you god? First marriage is nineteen I think
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one and you were in the band.
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to get married?
Speaker 2: Because I've been going with my girlfriend from school days
Speaker 2: on and off for since I was like fifteen, and
Speaker 2: it's one of those silly things that you do.
Speaker 1: And why did that mirror a gend?
Speaker 2: Probably mainly due to being away on the road all
Speaker 2: the time, and she was seeing other people and I
Speaker 2: was seeing other people. Just didn't come to a natural end.
Speaker 2: And then when I met Gloria with me forever wife,
Speaker 2: it was just like the lover felt for her was
Speaker 2: like just beyond everything I'd ever felt.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Gloria?
Speaker 2: At the airport in Saint Louis of all places? She
Speaker 2: was waiting for her friend to come off the plane
Speaker 2: from Canada. I just landed in Saint Louis. Come out.
Speaker 2: I saw her there and it's like love at first sight.
Speaker 2: And there was the limo driver was waiting for me,
Speaker 2: and I sit to the limo driver, wait till she,
Speaker 2: wait till she leaves, and follow her. It sounds really corny.
Speaker 2: And she went outside. In those days, she could part
Speaker 2: right outside the airport and her port. She had a
Speaker 2: red Porsche which is part right next to the limo.
Speaker 2: So she got in the red Porsche. I said to
Speaker 2: the limo driver, if she stops for a red light,
Speaker 2: I want to speak to her, and luckily enough stopped
Speaker 2: at a red light when the window down and invited
Speaker 2: her to the gig and she was like what. I
Speaker 2: don't think she'd ever heard of Black Zibberth at the time,
Speaker 2: and I said, come to the gig tonight and she
Speaker 2: did love ever since.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were into her first sight? Was she
Speaker 1: into you?
Speaker 2: I think she was sort of the hell, who's this
Speaker 2: kind of thing? She didn't know anything, who was or anything.
Speaker 2: I think it was just she was just intrigued by
Speaker 2: by this English bloke with long hair and in her band.
Speaker 1: You end up living in Saint Louis, what's that.
Speaker 2: Well, her family lived in Saint Louis, so we got
Speaker 2: a house there. We had I still had a house
Speaker 2: in England, so it was great for being on the
Speaker 2: road because you know, it's just Central America in America USA,
Speaker 2: and her family was there, and eventually we had our
Speaker 2: first baby, who was born in Saint Louis hospital, and
Speaker 2: it's just convenience to live in Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: So, okay, do you ever play the bass anymore?
Speaker 2: I played the bass three weeks ago with the Foo
Speaker 2: Fighters at aston Villa Football Stadium.
Speaker 1: Is it the type of thing if someone calls you
Speaker 1: up to play, do you have to rehearse or you
Speaker 1: just you can say, okay, I'll pick up my basin
Speaker 1: on there.
Speaker 2: Well, they said I just wanted to do Paranoid, so
Speaker 2: you know, I know that sort of backwards, so I
Speaker 2: didn't have to rehearse that.
Speaker 1: And the other three original members of the Sabbath do
Speaker 1: you have contact with them? With Osie practically every day
Speaker 1: now Tony occasionally we email and Bill Ward isn't on
Speaker 1: the internet and I hate the phone, so I have
Speaker 1: to if I want to speak to Bill Ward, I
Speaker 1: have to send an email to his wife, who passes
Speaker 1: it on to him.
Speaker 2: Then he gives her the reply and she she sends
Speaker 2: it to me.
Speaker 1: And what do you talk about with Tony and ours
Speaker 1: in these days?
Speaker 2: Just use your friendship things obviously, because we've just been
Speaker 2: did this custom for are a local football club in
Speaker 2: England has just come out with that and Adidas a
Speaker 2: new football kit. So me and Assi did an Addi
Speaker 2: Das commercial back in England for the Aston Villa's new kid.
Speaker 2: Tony talked to him about what hotels he likes, stuff
Speaker 2: like that, And.
Speaker 1: Do you listen to new music?
Speaker 2: Not really, I'd rather listen to an audio book because
Speaker 2: when I'm driving from here in Nevada to Utah, which
Speaker 2: is a seven hour drive, which I love doing, I
Speaker 2: always listen to audio books. Occasionally listen to new music,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. Some of it's totally above way
Speaker 2: over my head. But the grandkids love like things like
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift. I took the grandkids to Tyler Swift concert,
Speaker 2: which was incredible. So yeah, things like do you listen
Speaker 2: to the old music? What Sabbath stuff, Sabath stuff or
Speaker 2: even the other stuff. I listened to loads of sixties stuff,
Speaker 2: things that I used to hate back then the same
Speaker 2: great now it's like nostalgic. Give me an example, like
Speaker 2: Tamla motown stuff and things that are pretended that I
Speaker 2: didn't like because it was a bit too girly. Noah,
Speaker 2: love like Motown, stacked otis reading, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I love that, all soul stuff.
Speaker 1: How olden do you recognize these days? Not a lot.
Speaker 2: I've never been sort of the one to be recognized.
Speaker 1: Hum.
Speaker 2: But then it's always like when I'm in an awkward
Speaker 2: position that somebody will recognized me. When I've had the
Speaker 2: shower for a week or something and just go out
Speaker 2: to put the bins out to something, somebody be passed it.
Speaker 1: And do you care about legacy? Do you care if
Speaker 1: people in younger generations know about Black Sabbath and the
Speaker 1: music you made, or you say, well I did that.
Speaker 1: I'm doing something different now.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's fantastic to you know, still be recognized by musically.
Speaker 2: Still people look up to the stuff that Sabbath did.
Speaker 2: It's it's always seemed to be cool to like Sabbath,
Speaker 2: no matter how old you are. That's a good thing.
Speaker 2: And how was it playing paranoid with It's fantastic I
Speaker 2: mean there's like fifty thousand people there at the football
Speaker 2: ground and that I came on and the place is
Speaker 2: spent wild, especially being back in Aston where Sabbath was born.
Speaker 2: And you missed the stage at all, and I don't
Speaker 2: until I'm on it. Then I thought, I just go
Speaker 2: on it and like something takes completely takes over me.
Speaker 2: I'm like throwing me base up in there and all
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. Then I come off like, oh, Gord,
Speaker 2: me back.
Speaker 1: So any specific plans anything you want to do in
Speaker 1: the next coming years.
Speaker 2: I would love to write a novel. That's sort of
Speaker 2: my ultimate ambition, but I've started it. Every time I started,
Speaker 2: I get to about page eighty and completely run out
Speaker 2: of ideas. So I'm just gradually building all these ideas
Speaker 2: up one by one and hopefully within a year or
Speaker 2: two I'm going to get down to it finally do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Geezer, thanks a lot for talking to me and
Speaker 1: my audience telling your story. Thank you, Bob, and maybe
Speaker 1: see on stage somewhere down the road. Yeah, throwing your
Speaker 1: base in the air. That teos until next time. This
Speaker 1: is Bob Love six