The Black Sabbath album Tony Iommi calls “very confused”
Whilst his triumphs rank among some of rock’s most significant, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has also experienced his fair share of misfires. Due to drugs, creative differences and other factors, most of his well-known flops serve as a stark lesson for developing musicians in how not to approach aspects of their careers.
Given that Iommi and Black Sabbath’s career has been starkly oscillating, he has often been asked to comment on some of their most prominent failures. Perhaps the most egregious of the lot is 1978’s Never Say Die!, the last album to feature original frontman Ozzy Osbourne until 2013’s 13. It signalled the end of the group’s classic lineup and saw the sun set on their heyday. The album is so derided that even bassist Geezer Butler recently called it “easily the worst album” Sabbath ever made.
When speaking to Guitar World in 2021, Iommi looked back on Sabbath’s best and worst albums, with his opinion on Never Say Die! a little more nuanced than that of his bass-playing counterpart. However, he did conclude that it is a “very confused” record, something that all fans of the band can agree with.
Iommi recalled: “Right before we were supposed to record Never Say Die, Ozzy quit the band. We never wanted him to leave, and I think he wanted to come back – but no one would tell the other how they felt. So we had to bring in another singer and write all new material.”
He continued: “Then, two days before we were finally ready to record again, Ozzy decided to come back. But he wouldn’t sing any of the stuff we had written without him! Bill had to sing on one track because Ozzy refused to sing it. We ended up having to write in the day so we could record in the evening, and we never had time to review the tracks and make changes. As a result, the album sounds very confused.”
Looking back on the issues surrounding Osbourne, Iommi explained: “The problems with Ozzy continued, and eventually we knew we had to bring in somebody else. Geezer and Bill would say to me, ‘Either Ozzy goes or we go.’ At that point, Bill was becoming the businessman of the band, with his briefcase and his haircut, and he fucking goes and tells Ozzy, ‘Tony wants to get rid of you.’ [laughs]”
The guitarist concluded: “To this day, Ozzy thinks I fired him on my own, when it was really the other two who wanted him out. But I wasn’t pleased with him either. Mixing the album even caused my marriage to break up. As with Technical Ecstasy, everyone went on a holiday when it came time to mix. My wife kept asking, ‘How come you’re the only one working while everyone is in bloody Barbados?’ [laughs]”.
Listen to Never Say Die! below.
