“It created something”: the grim fortune of Tony Iommi’s last day at work
When it comes to talking about guitarists being pioneers, you’re ultimately looking for someone who played a significant part in shaping a particular sound or genre in order to be able to classify them as such. If we’re going to talk about pioneers in the field of heavy metal in particular, then it’s hard to look beyond the exceptional work of Tony Iommi, who, through his contributions to Black Sabbath, was undoubtedly one of the first players to really utilise technical proficiency alongside aggressive dynamics.
Any metal guitarist will acknowledge the importance of the Black Country’s finest in how he shaped the genre, but you have to ask how he stumbled upon the sound that made him so notable. Given that he was at a physical disadvantage to all of his peers, having accidentally removed the tips of two of his fretting fingers, it’s remarkable that he managed to produce a sound so raw with Black Sabbath, but his perseverance in trying to make himself sound unique was ultimately what helped him reach the level of notoriety that he did.
In 1965, at the age of 17, Iommi was working in a factory – something that would change his life in the most unexpected of ways. While he was reluctant to go to work, it was at the strong encouragement of his Italian mother that he returned to the factory and earned a living, with her supposedly scolding her son for suggesting that he would dishonour his colleagues by walking out. It’s understandable that anyone with aspirations of being a rock star would resent having to work a blue-collar job for menial pay, but Iommi had no choice but to return.
After one lunch break, where he came close to walking out permanently, he returned to the factory to work on some machinery that he had no experience operating. While pushing metal into the machine, part of the mechanism fell down with force, trapping two of Iommi’s fingers and severing the tips. “There was blood going all over the place,” Iommi recalled of the incident. “I don’t even remember how I got to the hospital. When somebody arrived with my fingertips in a matchbox, as far as the hospital was concerned, I could never play again.”
Understandably, he was distraught at the possibility that he would potentially never pick up his instrument again, but a visit from his manager at home encouraged him to do otherwise. He told the young Iommi about the story of French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and how he lost the use of two of his fingers in a house fire, and medical professionals were similarly convinced that he would never play again. However, after a period of innovation, he managed to adapt his style of play in a way so distinctive that it only required the use of his remaining mobile fingers, and this, of course, inspired Iommi to do the same.
“It really inspired me to get on with it and start trying to play,” Iommi explained. “My fingers were so sensitive and painful that I got a washing-up bottle, melted it down into a ball, and I’d sit there with a big ball of plastic on the ends of my fingers. It was very difficult because you couldn’t feel the strings, and the strings they made in those days were very heavy, and certainly very heavy for me.” While he would eventually settle on the idea of playing with a lower string gauge (thickness), detuning the guitar and plugging it into the bass socket of the amp, he would eventually discover his style that he was renowned for.
“Of course, losing my fingertips was devastating,” Iommi concluded, “but in hindsight it created something. It made me invent a new sound and a different style of playing, and a different style of music. So really, it turned out to be a good thing off a bad thing.” If he hadn’t gone back to the factory that one last time, he’d still have his fingers, but he might not have ever managed to come up with such a distinctive style as a result of his disability.
