The supergroup that combined Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin
There’s hardly anything that could have prepared people to listen to what Black Sabbath was doing when they first got started.
As much as they loved their blues riffs and would do anything to get the right sound for their song, it was more than a little big scary seeing them talk about subjects like Lucifer on their records. But if there was anyone that was going to make their brand of doom go down a little easier, it was going to be another legend of the rock and roll world.
Then again, Sabbath were far from the only ones making abrasive music at the time. There had already been the first waves of punk coming over from America like The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, and while they were far more raucous most of the time, none of them captured the sense of doom that came from listening to Tony Iommi’s detuned guitar riffs on tunes like ‘Children of the Grave’.
But Sabbath never really identified with the metal label, either. Osbourne’s only reaction was confusion whenever he heard about the term, and even though they had their moments of horrific music, there was always a good chance for them to throw in the odd acoustic song into the mix or work with prog-rock legends like Rick Wakeman when they were stuck for one of their keyboard lines.
They may have been treated like the ugly ducklings on the charts most of the time, but they did have friends in high places. Hell, before they even had a record to their name, Osbourne remembered being introduced to a friend of Geezer Butler’s that was looking to join a new up-and-coming band named Robert Plant. They had all been from around the same area, but around the same time Led Zeppelin started dominating culture, Sabbath were right on their tail.
Osbourne knew that was how he wanted his music to sound, and it’s not like there wasn’t a sense of mutual respect there. As much as ‘Paranoid’ does sound like them doing a straight-up cover of ‘Communication Breakdown’ in some spots, there was a moment when all the band members came close to working together for a track.
Although John Bonham was already a fan of tracks like ‘Supernaut’, Iommi remembered all the rehearsal tapes of both bands working together have been lost to history, saying, “During the recording of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, Zeppelin came into the studio for a jam. John wanted to play ‘Supernaut’ but we jammed instead. We were in the middle of recording so it fucked up the session. I know that it was recorded, and I’d love to hear it. The tape must be around somewhere.”
Even if Bonzo didn’t get his way, it was easy to see this meeting in the same way that a pro athlete checks in on the up-and-coming stars. Sabbath were never in any position to take Zeppelin’s place on the throne, but considering how well they worked off each other, it would have at least made sense to take a few notes from each other to see if one of them found a completely new direction for themselves.
While we’ll never know what that supergroup might have sounded like now that Bonzo and Osbourne have passed on, but the fact that those tapes exist at all is a miracle. Neither of them were the clearest example of a heavy metal band by any stretch, but the fact that they got along so well showed that there was more than enough room for both heavy bands to have a place on the charts.
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