TONY IOMMI: ‘It [‘Forbidden’] Was Definitely That Album That Kind Of Irritated Everybody.’

One of the iconic Black Sabbath‘s albums – iconic on the negative side – is to be remixed. In a conversation with The Midlands Rocks Toni “The Dark Lord” Iommi explained what happened to it back then.

The record marked 18th full-length studio effort in the Sabbath catalog, featuring Iommi as the sole remaining original member at the time. The rest of the lineup consisted of Tony Martin on vocals, Cozy Powell on drums, bassist Neil Murray, and Geoff Nicholls on keyboards.

Tony now said:

“Well, we weren’t involved with how it ended up sounding like it did. It was produced by Ernie C from the band Body Count and he also got Ice-T to appear on it on the opening track [‘Illusion of Power’] and they were from a totally different background to us.

“So he came in and did a good job at the time but I just felt that… without changing any of the songs… there was an opportunity to go back and bring out some of the sounds and make it more what people would expect Sabbath to sound like.

“I met up with Tony Martin recently and I’m sure he will listen to what I have done with it at some point, but at the moment it is just myself and Mike Exeter [the sound engineer who worked with Tony on ‘Fused’ and ’13’ amongst others] who have been working on it.”

It [‘Forbidden’] was definitely that album that kind of irritated everybody.

“I was never happy with the guitar sound and Cozy was definitely never happy with the drum sound, he would go on and on about it. So I thought it would be nice to do it for him in a way.”

You can check all the badmouthing about “Forbidden” here:

https://youtu.be/C9FJZgobN7g