“Even my own band”: Tony Iommi on the Black Sabbath song no one believed in
For any artist, the only person they should be looking to please is themselves. It’s hard enough trying to find that internal muse whenever it comes to making a record, but whenever someone is lost for words or struggling to find a guitar riff, it’s always a matter of playing what you want to hear before any record company. And for Tony Iommi, that sometimes means going against the wishes of the rest of the members of Black Sabbath.
Then again, no one was going to argue with what Iommi was doing when he put together the band’s first riffs. He was the main person coming up with every central idea in every Sabbath tune, and while Ozzy Osbourne would add the odd lyric and put the vocal melody on top of everything, he knew not to get in the way whenever Iommi had the right riff, usually singing the melody based on what he was playing on guitar.
And while record company meddling is normally the kiss of death for any band, there are moments when it’s actually for the best. A song like ‘Paranoid’, for instance, would never have existed if not for the band being forced to get a few minutes together for the end of the album sessions, but when they recorded a bite-sized version of their music, fans got the most commercial look at one of the darkest bands to ever grace the pop charts.
But Iommi was never concerned with being “the devil’s music” for people every time he made a record. There were many facets to what Sabbath could do, and while being the originators of heavy metal may be hanging around their necks until the end of time, projects like Vol 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are far more progressive in nature, usually bringing in some new instruments that would have never worked had they tried them on ‘NIB’ and ‘Wicked World’.
“People from the record company came to visit, and when they saw the choir and this harp player, they thought they were in the wrong studio. “
tony iommi
Even for a band like Sabbath, though, ‘Supertzar’ was a bit of a departure compared to their usual doomy sound. The whole premise of their appeal was to be the direct answer to everything that sounded too soft on the charts, so having a tune that was put together with everything from a harp to a full-on choir in the background was going to be a bit of a gamble before anyone even heard it.
According to Iommi, even the rest of the group had some reservations about one of their albums being put out with that kind of song, saying, “I got a choir in the studio. People from the record company came to visit, and when they saw the choir and this harp player, they thought they were in the wrong studio. They were telling me I couldn’t put this heavy guitar with choir and harp on an album, although it did finally make it there. I was just experimenting and trying something new, but even my own band was against the idea. I feel that as long as you write it, it’s you.”
If the company was pissed off at the time, though, it wasn’t like the band wasn’t trying to make things softer. If anything, Queen was fast becoming one of the biggest acts in the world, and while Iommi is no Brian May by any stretch of the imagination, seeing him adopt the same kind of regal approach that they did was at least admirable for the time.
Although it wouldn’t take long before Osbourne had his fill of Sabbath and parted ways for a solo career, ‘Supertzar’ is a good look at what happens when experimentation turns out right. Sometimes, the tune isn’t the greatest in the world, but it’s better to have artists taking risks than trying to write something they know will sell regardless.
