“One classic song after another”: the hard rock album Tony Iommi hails as a masterpiece
After the psychedelic rock craze dissipated and the countercultural movement entered its final days, a new, much darker form of music emerged: heavy metal. A direct descendent of the work of Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Iron Butterfly, and other hard rock acts, this fresh sound was more muscular than the deeply blues-inflected work of those above and had a more ominous edge, fitting for the death of the hippie dream. One man who had a significant hand in popularising it was Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi.
In the late 1960s, Mountain and Vanilla Fudge bridged the gap between hard rock and metal and established some of the latter’s musical tenets. However, we’ve been led to believe that Iommi’s band, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin added even more to the mix and popularised it as a concerted cultural force.
It’s an interesting point, as, in reality, all three bands sounded different. Black Sabbath undoubtedly had the most sinister and heaviest sonic character of the three, centred on Iommi’s unique playing and sludgy de-tuned riffs. As for Deep Purple, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore saw himself as something of a second coming of Jimi Hendrix. He poured a heavy dose of theatrical atmosphere into that frenetic playing style, which keyboardist Jon Lord complimented. Taking clear cues from Vanilla Fudge, their sound, no matter how metallic, was most closely related to hard rock.
Then, Led Zeppelin were not just a heavy rock band. While classics such as ‘Communication Breakdown’ and ‘Black Dog’ proved widely influential thanks to Jimmy Page’s crunching, rich playing, the band always refuted the notion that they were metal pioneers and pointed to the fact it only accounts for a small portion of their work. They mostly drew upon folk and traditional music to create their distinctive sound. Frontman Robert Plant even claimed that the crown of metal pioneers should go to Deep Purple.
All three of those bands have distanced themselves from the idea of pioneering metal, mostly because they hate the groups that followed in their wake. Also, as all admire the other’s work, they agree that they consider their sound hard rock and not heavy metal. Despite the familiar narrative, they maintain that metal came after them and that they didn’t start it. It’s all about context, and for all of them, heavy metal didn’t exist when they were at their peak.
Iommi, an avowed fan of Deep Purple, considers them one of the supreme hard rock groups. His favourite album by the group is 1970’s In Rock, the record that produced classics such as ‘Black Night’ and ‘Speed King’.
“I always liked Deep Purple, and my favourite album of theirs is In Rock,” he told Classic Rock in 2024. “It has one classic song after another. They always used to come up with great riffs, and Speed King is hard to beat.”
“It’s a great, energetic song that shows every member of the band doing what they did best,” Iommi added. “[Ian] Gillan’s vocals and the keyboards of Jon Lord… They were such great musicians.”
Iommi had such great admiration for In Rock and Deep Purple that he invited their frontman Ian Gillan to replace Ronnie James Dio on 1983’s Born Again. On paper, it was a perfect acquisition, with one wailing vocalist replacing another. However, Iommi would later call it an “awful” record. It’s a shame that everyone who played on it hates it.
