Heavy brothers in arms: The guitarist James Hetfield called a “quiet genius”
Some of the biggest rock bands in the world don’t really have a problem promoting themselves as such. While Paul McCartney always let the adulation as one of The Beatles roll off of his back half the time, artists like the Gallagher brothers were usually happy to say that they were part of the greatest rock act that anyone had ever heard and argue with anyone who dared say otherwise. But the mark of any great artist is not having to flaunt it, and as far as James Hetfield was concerned, Tony Iommi was one of the few silent masters of hard rock.
Because when you think about the inner workings of Black Sabbath, it really is Iommi’s band when you break it down. He was the one who got everything started with their first demented title track, and throughout every facet of their career, Iommi was the beating heart pushing everything forward for the group, whether with Ronnie James Dio, Ozzy Osbourne, or anyone else behind the microphone.
Even with the round-robin of singers they had throughout their lifetime, never once did someone question that it was Black Sabbath on the radio. Just like other technicians like Eddie Van Halen and Slash had their trademark licks that everyone lost their minds listening to, Iommi had something truly sinister hidden underneath his fingers whenever he played.
From the guttural smack of ‘Children of the Grave’ or turning blues inside out on ‘The Wizard’, Iommi made every track feel like the impending apocalypse was going to happen by the time the song was over. The rest of the metal world could only attempt to keep up with him, but James Hetfield may have just as many classic riffs under his belt.
Whether that’s the pop-friendly appeal of ‘Enter Sandman’ or painting a grim picture of life during war on ‘One’, Hetfield seemed to look at Iommi like a budding student looks at his teacher, constantly studying what he did and taking it one step further. Even if he couldn’t play something as heavy as Sabbath, his machine-gun-picking hand led to him creating songs that sounded absolutely frantic for all eight minutes of their tunes.
Regardless of how many muscles were strained to try to keep up with Hetfield, the Metallica frontman knew that Iommi was the true unholy scribe of metal music, telling Louder, “As far as being a riff and rhythm guy, my favourite guitarist is Tony Iommi, no doubt about that. He seemed like one of those quiet geniuses. At one time, he was the frontman of the band and Ozzy was to one side; the riff was more important than the vocals. He can go from the heaviest doom riff into a happy mode, and it would still sound heavy.”
Even though legal obligations eventually forced Iommi to title the Dio incarnation of the band Heaven and Hell, it didn’t matter as long he was there in spirit. Because for all of the classic tracks that Osbourne sang on, the foundations of everything from ‘Paranoid’ to ‘Iron Man’ to ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ were built by Iommi’s SG guitar.
