Eddie Van Halen’s favourite Black Sabbath song
Formed in 1968, Black Sabbath became one of the most influential rock bands in the world, taking the genre to darker and heavier places. Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward recorded their first album, also called Black Sabbath, in just eight hours. It took the world by storm and went on to influence all kinds of bands to come.
Over the decades, many artists took from Black Sabbath, maybe not directly, but the heavy sound and twisted blues of Tony Iommi would become a massive building block that people used when putting together the kind of sound they wanted to achieve. One of the musicians who was a fan of the band was none other than Eddie Van Halen.
Eddie has never been a stranger to a powerful riff; the likes of ‘Hot For Teacher’ ‘Panama’ and ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ are instantly recognisable and packed with energy. In an interview, Eddie said riffs are “just the power. It just engulfs you. You just feel it, you know? It makes you vibrate.”
Given how riff-heavy their music was, it’s hardly a surprise that Eddie was a fan of Black Sabbath. He will likely have focused on many songs when homing in on his sound, but one Sabbath song that really stood out to him was ‘Into The Void’ which features on the 1971 album Master Of Reality.
Eddie and Tony Iommi developed a good relationship over the years; Eddie even helped Iommi write ‘Evil Eye’, a song from the 1994 Sabbath album Cross Purposes. They warmed up before they started writing the music by playing ‘Into The Void’. Eddie had been playing it wrong, so Iommi had to show him the right way.
“He said, ‘I’ve been playing it like this all these years’,” recalls Iommi, “And, of course, I showed him how to play it. I didn’t ask him how he played any of his because I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Those earlier days of rock and heavy metal were fast-moving, as bands would constantly wear their influences on their sleeve but then try to expand upon what those influences did. Eddie Van Halen is an excellent example of this, as the Sabbath influence can be heard in the energy of Van Halen’s music, but he expanded on it with his tapping and shredding technique.
The bands went on tour together in 1978 when Van Halen supported Sabbath, and Iommi recalls how blown away he was by the guitar player. “I can’t remember if I heard the record first or saw them live,” he said, “I must have heard the record knowing they were on tour with us. But God, he was an amazing guitar player. I’d never heard anything like it. Like, ‘Bloody hell, what’s this?’ Well, he was the first to do that. As a band, they were so alive and fresh. They were so good.”
Eddie Van Halen is the personification of ‘70s rock, a constantly evolving genre that never lost its roots. His Sabbath influence can be heard in the complex sound he created in Van Halen, and the influence of riffs such as ‘Into The Void’ will undoubtedly have been drawn on for some of the Van Halen classics we know and love.
