The wild tale of Tony Iommi’s stag do
When you compare a lot of various rock legends from the 1960s, they all had plenty of different quirks that set them apart from one another. This was important, as it’s these things that meant music was so broad and developed at such a rapid, exciting rate. That being said, there is one thing that links the majority of rock n rollers from back in the day, and it’s the thing that continues to give us jaw-dropping stories of rebellion and debauchery: they all loved a party.
They tended to go out drinking and doing drugs at whatever chance they got, whether this was at band practice, before a gig or after one. While many bands at the time were famous for their contributions to the world of partying, both Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin notoriously loved to go out and get drunk. As such, when Tony Iommi got engaged and asked John Bonham to be his best man, the night was only ever going to go one way.
You have to bear in mind that this was decades ago. Modern-day stag dos, weekends in Berlin and Benidorm, football away days, excellent meals, and cocktail making were utterly alien. Iommi’s stag do happened the day before his wedding, and it saw him and Bonham take to the streets of Birmingham for a big tear-up before the heavy metal pioneer tied the knot.
The two of them had been drinking for some time, to the point that the majority of bars were starting to close; however, they went into one of the last clubs that would take them and what Iommi thought was going to be one more drink before calling it a night was actually the very opposite. At half past one in the morning, John Bonham headed to the bar.
“We walked in, and John Bonham said to the barman, ’12 bottles of champagne on the bar… open them all’,” recalls Iommi, “I thought he was treating everybody in the club!” It makes sense; the two of them were in the biggest rock bands in the world, so it’s not like they’ll have been short on cash. Plus, with the night coming to an end, it would be a nice gesture to buy everyone at the bar a drink, but that’s not what happened, and as the bottles were opened, Bonham turned to the Black Sabbath guitarist.
“He said, ‘That’s for you.’ I said, ‘I’m not gonna drink that!’ He said, ‘Come on, you’ve got to drink it, you’re getting married tomorrow!’ I said, ‘I’m not gonna turn up if I drink that!’” Rather than give the bottles away, John Bonham had other ideas, “I had one glass, and he just went down the line drinking them, and he was paralytic.”
Iommi ended up having to take a champagne-loaded drummer home, but Bonham’s wife refused to let him in on account of how drunk he was. After some bargaining, she finally agreed to let him sleep on the sofa, and Iommi begged her to make sure he got up in time the next day for the wedding. Of course, as Bonham passed out on the sofa, drunker than most people could ever dream of, the chances of him being in any fit state to go to the wedding was looking slim.
“I left him and, sure enough, the morning, bloody hell!” Iommi said, “I lived about 30 miles from him, and he turned up at my house before I’d even got up the next morning. I couldn’t believe it. He was up and ready to go, his suit on and top hat and tail and everything. It was unbelievable.”
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