In an interview with Chris Phipps, Mr. Iommi told the what all the world wanted to hear from him. The question was ‘When did the term ‘heavy metal’ become associated with Black Sabbath?’:
“A lot further down the line. Because we always classed ourselves as heavy rock. And somebody mentioned… I was doing an interview, and they said, ‘You’re playing heavy metal.’ ‘Heavy metal? What’s that?’ And they said, ‘That’s what you play.'”
“We’d never admit to being heavy metal, we were always heavy rock. And at the end, we gave in. Because, you know, everybody called it heavy metal. So alright, we’re heavy metal.”
Asked about being hated by the press back them, he said:
“Here [in the UK] it was. I’ll never forget – we played a gig in London. [A journalist] came to review the show. He’d done us a terrible review, but the thing was – we canceled the gig. We didn’t play. He reviewed the show that we never played. So he didn’t like us. [Laughs]”
“America was a lot more open for it, absolutely. I think it was probably the Rolling Stone that didn’t like us at first. But they all came around in the end. We didn’t take it to heart anyway. If they don’t like it, they don’t like it. What can you do? If they like it and write about it, it’s great. It’s when they personally have a dig…”
“I had a problem with a guy from the Melody Maker many years ago. He came to my house to do an interview. I picked him up at the station – and I picked him up in a Lamborghini – and he came back to the house. And he was treated well.”
“Anyway, then he left, after the interview. And the interview was awful. He slagged us, terrible. And it was a personal thing. It wasn’t the music, it was just really not nice. And I saw him again at a gig. And basically, I beat him up.”
“And then, of course, nobody would interview us. [Laughs] I remember we were in America… Of course, it got to America about what happened. And we’re doing all these interviews on the phone.”
“And I’m going, ‘What’s happened? They don’t really like face-to-face interviews?’ And they’re going ‘Well, they heard about the journalist in England.'”
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!