In 1968, heavy metal was a term used to describe potential ingredients in a nuclear bomb. Then Black Sabbath blew up the music world and created a genre often criticized for sharing the same characteristics as those atomic elements – high density and high toxicity. Ozzy and crew carpet-bombed the folk music pasture and paved the rock n’ roll highway with every brick found today. Black Sabbath turned The Summer of Love into the Winter of Doom.
In a seven-month span between 1969 and 1970, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – laid down two records in live sets that would change not only rock history but the history of the world.
In celebration of Osbourne and Iommi’s GRAMMY win at the 2023 63rd award ceremony, let’s look back to the dawn of Heavy Metal and Black Sabbath. Imagine a world without the terms BLACK SABBATH and HEAVY METAL. Not an easy ask, right?
One of those terms would be relegated to boring chemistry lectures about atomic element charts and the other, a 1963 horror flick starring Boris Karloff, would be known only to hardcore cinephiles. So how the hell (pun intended) did Black Sabbath come to be?
Shave your head or get stabbed!
Imagine being 21 years old and your first effort out of the box is the best the world has ever seen. Without knowing it, you created a music genre and threw yourself into international celebrity and fame within a six-month period. Now, every whim and wish is granted along with living a rock star’s life for four months. Wait. What? Four months?
After creating the genre and debuting the platinum record, the bosses told them to return to work. Not to recreate what had just resulted in heretofore unrivaled success, but to exceed it with a two-month deadline. What was their motivating force?
An aversion to going back to fighting hooligans, or skinheads. In Guitar World, Butler explained, “There used to be fighting all the time. I used to be a football fan—well, I still am—and I’d go down to watch the [Aston] Villa [Football Club]. I had long hair at the time. Then one day, the skinheads, or hooligans, turned on the people with long hair, even though we were fans too. So after that, I couldn’t go down there. This other time we did this gig in the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare [in North Somerset, England], and we had a fight with all these skinheads. I think that’s where the lyrics for “Fairies Wear Boots” came from.”
When a string of songs on an album rolls together, it is holistic. When the artist engages the patron on equal footing, it is a felt connection. It creates a memory. A place of reference in both lives. A space that one can come back to, that brings familiarity, if not comfort.
Listening to a musical work of art as laid down by the artist while reading the liner notes and lyrics is a sensual, tactile, spiritual experience. Headphones are mandatory for that trip. The heavy metal album in question is Paranoid– a masterful piece of work. Whether one loves metal or hates it, one must admire the unrivaled pinnacle of a genre. This may be it.
Coming on the heels of their breakthrough self-titled debut album, they felt they had some time to soak up the trappings of success. Nope. They had no time. Many veteran bands express today’s bands are cowards. In comparison, current bands release an album about every 2-3 years, with maybe a live album in between. (Done work, not challenging work)
Work Your Ass Off – Then Work It Off Again
So how did they pound out an even better effort than their first? A soon-to-be iconic album in the notoriously ruthless world of rock n’ roll excess, no less?
Ward told Hammer,“We worked hard. We would get up early and be playing by 9.30 am. We had a rehearsal room in Birmingham until lunchtime and then we’d go back to Tony’s house and drink tea, eat toast, and scrounge cigarettes off his mum. Then we’d be playing a gig – almost every night.”
Black Sabbath, the band and album, created a sonic rock boom around the world. But the band members worked harder than ever, if for no other reasons than to shake off the memories of their prior jobs as teenagers in Aston, Birmingham, England, still war-torn less than 25 years after WWII. Delivering 100-pound sacks of coal, toiling in a factory and working in a slaughterhouse created mental scars for all, but Iommi suffered from physical scars as well.
A potentially catastrophic career-ending industrial accident occurred on his last shift as a welder before becoming a professional musician, forcing him to fashion homemade prosthetics to continue playing the guitar. While cutting a piece of metal “the guillotine came crashing down on his right hand, slicing off the tips of his middle and right fingers.”
Sabbath had just skyrocketed to international super-stardom within six months. By happenstance or circumstance, a new genre of rock music appeared. They were heavy. Really dark, dismal and heavy. Doomy they called it. And now, they were Rock Stars.
Playing rock n roll is easier than lifting bags of coal, being an industrial welder or slaughtering cows. Applying the same effort makes all the difference in the world. They grew up pissed off, and it shows in their music. They worked as hard as common laborers at their craft which allowed them to excel as masters of their art.
Be Vulnerable, Confident and Spontaneous
So, vulnerability and confidence are two sides of the same coin. Confidence is the opposite of esteem. Sabbath exhibited and expressed vulnerability, even if fans at the time didn’t know what that feeling was that they were hearing. This kind of emotional connection was new, and certainly missing at home for many of Sabbath’s fans.
“What I love about the band is that we allowed our vulnerability to stick out,” Ward says. “When I think about the lyrics to ‘The Wizard,’ some people could probably feel that they are laughable. But they actually meant something for us, and we were bold or brave enough to show ourselves from the inside out.”
Vulnerability is often confused with weakness, which is a real travesty. Ward has spoken of his mother in endearing terms, her fragility and tenderness, about how the house he grew up in survived the Blitzkrieg that obliterated all of the houses beyond his. These guys had that elusive mix at such an early age. Vulnerability and confidence revolve around the axis of self-awareness.
Vulnerability removes the rigid boxes and silos we have built around ourselves to insulate us from the bad things that, despite our intentions, keep happening to us. Vulnerability recognizes our own humanity and the humanity of all of those around us. Vulnerability is the ability to display authenticity. Confidence is the capability to utilize that power. Spontaneity is the spark that lights the fire of action.
Take Risks, Recognize Failure, Act Urgently
Sometimes one blows it. At the exact moment the screw-up occurs, self-awareness should result in solving the problem immediately. Guitarist Tony Iommi left to join Jethro Tull- that must explain Jethro Tull’s metal grammy in 1989 – also explains why the Grammys are irrelevant. The Recording Academy recognized heavy metal music artists for the first time at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards (1989). The category was originally presented as Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, combining two of the most popular music genres of the 1980s.
Jethro Tull won that award for the album Crest of a Knave, beating Metallica, who were expected to win with the album …And Justice for All. This choice led to widespread criticism of The Recording Academy, as journalists suggested that the music of Jethro Tull did not belong to the hard rock or heavy metal genres. In response, The Recording Academy created the categories Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance, separating the genres.
Tony Iommi said he decided to reunite with Black Sabbath instead of staying with Jethro Tull in 1968 because he wanted to build a team rather than be part of an established group. Sabbath was known as Earth until their split, after which Iommi joined Ian Anderson’s band for a brief period. He explained why he soon wanted to reunite with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, despite their recent disbandment.
“I didn’t want to be the guitar player in Jethro Tull and like a side musician; I wanted to be a part of a team. So I said to Geezer, ‘Let’s get the band back together,’ which is what we did. We called Ozzy and Bill from London, and we said, ‘We’re coming back. If everybody’s really serious about this, I’m willing to leave and we’ll get back together again and really work at it.’ … So that is what we did.”
It was not the first time Sabbath split, having changed names and dropping a couple of members not thought to pull their own weight, not to mention the thought of Sabbath with a sax player.
Before success comes doubt. If you do not have butterflies in your stomach, whatever you are doing is not that important to you. Puking before a big moment is pretty standard for most performers I’ve interviewed, whether it be athletes or musicians. Nerves mean you care. Taking a risk without recognizing the chance of failure is foolish. Worrying about failure without assessing the risk is silly.
Mistakes happen because people go too fast. Slowdown is always taken to mean, physically, slow down. It does not mean that at all. Scan the situation, outline the outcome, identify the pitfalls, have plans B and C ready to roll, implement urgently but nimbly, and know what success looks like to you.
Black Sabbath started as a protest band. They were protesting a lot – their crappy jobs and the town they lived in, skinheads, the Vietnam War, drugs, the corporate war industry, the record company and the critics.
Guess who loved that protest music? Everybody. Black Sabbath had a vision of success. It was their vision. They worked beyond belief and shared equally in the work. They trusted themselves and each other. We can learn much from those long-haired twenty-somethings. Belief may be the most important lesson. Belief in oneself. In one’s vision. In one’s team.
Featured Image Photo Credit: Aisha Humphrey
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