BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi discussed his taste around the beginning of his musical journey, singling out THE SHADOWS as the only band he really liked. The guitarist told Total Guitar:
“The Shadows were the only band that really appealed to me [in the early 60s].
“There was rock ‘n’ roll but I liked the idea of an instrumental band and they had a real sort of demonic sound in some ways – ‘Frightened City‘ and stuff like that had an eerie feeling to it. I really liked what they were doing and they had a nice guitar sound for what they did.
“So I really tried to get that and I did to a point. Bill [Ward] and myself, when we got together we were playing Shadows songs in the early band we were in, with Cliff Richard stuff and rock ‘n’ roll. We wanted this more raw, basic sound, so I got into playing blues and jazz. And from that it went into what we are playing now.
“I never ever classed us as heavy metal in the early days. It’s just that I gave up in the end. Everyone said, ‘You’re heavy metal.’ ‘Okay, we’re heavy metal, call us what you want.’ It was always heavy rock to me.”
Iommi also talked about how that urge to experiment with instrumental stuff was always present on Sabbath records, saying:
“I did like to experiment a bit and I’ve always been one to try and do something different from what we’d already done. Even from the early days of doing an instrumental when we did ‘Laguna Sunrise’ [from ‘Vol4‘]. Then ‘Supertzsar’ [from 1975’s ‘Sabotage‘] was another one.
https://youtu.be/bXq-wHxdvzs
