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

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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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