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Black Sabbath
Brummie longhairs inadvertently invent heavy metal with guitarist Tony Iommi’s downtuned guitar, bassist Geezer Butler’s satanic lyrics, Ozzy Osbourne’s demonic wails and the power drums of Mr B Ward…
“The first one has to be Black Sabbath! What I like about it is the swing time and the very subtle jazz qualities, and I also like the sound of the cymbals. It showed off the band’s live technique.”
“The recording setup was quite simple - we recorded it in three days! - but we were a band with a full understanding of the frequency spectrum. We were already mastering the highs and the lows live, and we were listening to each other: that really shows up on the first LP."
“In parts, it’s really smooth and tight. We always used a swing feel, right up to the last tour: there were all sorts of tricks that I was getting up to. We were so hot. Everyone listened to jazz drummers back then, we were all doing it. Gene Krupa was the main one: he was a real dyed-in-the-wool influence for me.”
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