In a new interview with News in 24, legendary BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi talked about the band’s sixth studio album, Sabotage, the record’s infamously bad cover art, the lyrics, and more.
When asked that the lyrics on Sabotage even more weird than on other album, Iommi said: “It was Geezer [Butler, bass] who wrote our lyrics 90% of the time. He has a lot of imagination. But it could also happen that in rehearsals during the composition phases, Ozzy would start singing whatever came to his mind, just words here and there. And that inspired Geezer, who put it in order.”
After interviewer noted that Ozzy to this confessed that he couldn’t understand what he was singing, Iommi said: “[Laughs] Yes, it could have happened! Sometimes in the studio, Geezer would give the lyrics to Ozzy, and look at him and say uh, what is it about?”
On how he come up with iconic “Symptom of the Universe” riff, guitarist said: “Just like that. I was lucky sometimes, it came out of nowhere, I started playing it, and the others followed me.”
Speaking about Sabotage cover which is considered to be one of the ugliest of all time, Tony said:
“I agree! She is abominable! We didn’t know it was a cover photoshoot. We were just told, you have pictures to take today. No one was well dressed, especially not Bill [Ward, drums], who wore terrible pants. He asked his wife if he could borrow pantyhose from her! And it ended up on a record cover. A real disaster!”
Black Sabbath has unveiled a new, super-deluxe edition of “Sabotage” earlier this year. You can check it out on Amazon here.
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