The Black Sabbath album that Tony Iommi called “pretty crap”
All stripes of heavy metal tend to come back to Black Sabbath. Regardless of where any heavy metal band gets their start, it’s never easy to replicate the same flavour of gloom that Tony Iommi was able to create from his droning guitar strings. Then again, even Iommi has a few Sabbath albums that he prefers over others.
Throughout their history, Sabbath’s sound has changed more than a few times, usually depending on who the singer is. Towards the end of the band’s run in the 1970s, it was becoming clear that their time with Ozzy Osbourne was drawing to a close, with Osbourne not taking care of himself on the road and being relegated to the side of the stage.
After Osbourne’s solo career started to see modest success, the band got a one-of-a-kind replacement in Ronnie James Dio. Ushering Sabbath into the next generation, Dio would stick around for a few more albums before a shuffling cast of vocals took the lead.
While Iommi has remained the one consistent element of every Sabbath album, a particular era never sat well with him. Talking about the band working their way into the ’90s, Iommi confessed to having a hard time keeping Sabbath afloat, telling Louder, “The 1990s were not much fun for me. There were a lot of line-up changes, and it became hard to drive Sabbath onwards.”
Though the band were able to make the album Forbidden at the time, Iommi didn’t stand by the record after the fact, calling the record “pretty crap”. Working with then-newcomers Body Count throughout the record, Iommi was hesitant to work with Ice-T, recalling: “We were pushed into a corner. Somebody at the record company suggested we work with Ice-T. My reaction was: ‘Who the hell is he?’ But we met up, and he was a nice bloke.”
While Ice was an avid fan of metal, most of the songs fell into the uncanny valley for a lot of fans, either being too hip-hop influenced for rock supporters or not lyrical enough to satisfy hip-hop lovers. Though multiple elements pointed to the album going wrong, Iommi thinks bringing Ernie C in behind the board was the worst idea.
Though Ernie may have been a fairly great guitarist for Body Count, Iommi thought that he didn’t know Sabbath’s strengths at the time, explaining, “Ernie C ended up producing Forbidden, which was a terrible mistake. Ernie tried to get Cozy Powell to play these hip-hop-style drum parts, which, quite rightly, offended him.”
It wasn’t long before fans were aching for the Sabbath of old to come screaming back with either of their classic vocalists. Through some legal trouble, though, Iommi was able to craft new material with both Osbourne and Dio later down the line, crafting the album 13 with Sabbath while rechristening the Dio era of the band Heaven and Hell for the album The Devil You Know. Regardless of what moniker they would fit under, Sabbath made it out of the nu-metal era sounding just as unholy as they did when they started.
