April 10, 2026 • 39 mins
After completing their most ambitious album yet Black Sabbath discover that they'd been betrayed by their own managed. This sabotage and the resulting legal troubles will prove to have an impact not only on their next album but on the band as a whole.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gasco and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can't give you many names,
and you're a blunder. Look, I'm rasling, I'm got the Barah.
(00:27):
A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
Welcome back to Distorted History, where this month on Sound Stories,
we again returned to the story of Black Sabbath and
most specifically the gradual breakup of the band's iconic original
(00:48):
line up leading to the start of Ozzie's solo career,
which was honestly the idea that originally sparked this now
multi part series. Regardless, last time, we saw how the banded,
most specifically guitarist Tony Iomi with writers Block in Los
Angeles before picking up stakes and returning to England to
settle down in a spooky castle where they were able
to craft their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, an album that,
(01:10):
according to Ozzy looking back quote was our final record
as far as I was concerned. Then it started to
go and drift around all over the place. For Ozzy
in particular. Then things just really seemed to fall apart.
After Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. While in general, it seems like
things were just not the same as they were in
the early days of the band. Now, there were a
(01:30):
myriad of reasons for this. Some of it was down
to the simple fact of gradually drifting apart and or
rubbing one another the wrong way after being so close
for so long, while some of it was due to
their increasing drug use, Ozzie's in particular, and some of
it was due to outside stresses just wearing them out. Yet,
before we get into the major external issue that would
(01:51):
affect the band during the recording of their six album Sabotage, first,
like always, I want to give credit to my sources,
which include Paul Wilkinson's Rats Black Sabbath The Classic Years
nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy five, Dave Marsh and
Mike Stark's Black Sabbath and Oral History, Mick Wall's Black
Sabbath Symptom of the Universe, Ozzy Osbourne's I Amazzi, and
(02:12):
tonae Omi's Iron Man by Journey through Heaven and Hell
with Black Sabbath, in addition to articles by Paul Elliott,
Eduardo Rivedavia and Joe Banks, links to all of which
can be found on this podcast Bluesky and Covie pages.
Plus for anyone who doesn't want to be bothered skipping
through commercials, there is always an ad free feet available
to subscribers at patreon dot com slash Distorted History. And
(02:35):
with all that being said, let's begin. Between decembern nineteen
seventy three and November nineteen seventy four, Black Sabbath would
perform fifty two shows in seven different countries, which honestly
was far from their worst stretch. At the same time, though,
it's still a war on them because of the years
of basically NonStop touring and recording. Nineteen seventy four, for example,
(02:55):
started off for the mini tour of Europe, followed by
a month long tour of the States in February, after
which Black Sabbath was going to get a bit of
an extended break, or at least that's what they thought. However,
not long after returning home to England, they would learn
from their management that they soon not only had to
head back stateside, but had to travel all the way
to California for a festival, something that the band wasn't
(03:17):
super interested in doing, or at least that's one version
of the story, as there are other versions as well,
which isn't exactly surprising given the malleability of human memory
and the amount of drugs consumed by the people involved
in these tales. Regardless, according to Aami, it was less
about the band being exhausted and not wanting to show up,
but a situation where their co headliners for the festival,
(03:38):
Deep Purple and prog rock supergroup Emerson Lincoln Palmer both
wanted to go on last. This then led to a
hated argument between the two groups that they then tried
to involve Sabbath in. The boys from Birmingham, however, wanted
to know part of this disagreement and looked too back
out of the show. Honestly, then it was probably a
combination of not wanting to get involved in this drama
and wanted to get off the road and rest for
(04:00):
a change that led to the members of Black Sabbath
looking to back out. The thing was, though, this California
Jam festival was a massive show, as not only would
they be playing in front of three hundred thousand people
at the Ontario Motor Speedway, some thirty five miles outside
of Los Angeles, which was already the largest crowd that
Sabbath had ever performed in front of, but it was
(04:21):
also set to be broadcast to an additional twenty million viewers.
It was then not exactly the type of gig that
you could just back out of. It was a major opportunity.
Pluster was also the issue that the concert promoters reportedly
threatened legal action, which helped to force the band's hand.
Black Sabbath, then despot the drama preceding the show, in
their own mounting issues, still managed to make a good
(04:42):
showing of themselves as they put on what was said
to have been a good, if unspectacular performance. Perhaps more notably, though,
this gig represented the first time they met New Deep
Purple bassis and vocalist Glenn Hughes, with Glenn later remembering
this encounter less for the gig itself and more for
the night he spent quote going crazy back at the
hotel with Ozzie and Bill, a night that apparently involved
(05:04):
quote just bags of coke and what have you for days.
Me and Ozzy were made of the same thing. We
both just like to rage all night, every night. That
being said, while Bill took part in these festivities, his
health was suffering due to a combination of their non
stop schedule and the rock star lifestyle that he was embracing,
namely the tremendous amounts of alcohol that he was imbiting regularly.
(05:26):
That being said, while Ward was likely in the worst
state of all them at this moment, the fact of
the matter was, according to Bassis Geezer Butler quote, we
needed to go home and become normal for a few weeks.
As he did so, though, concerns with their manager, Patrick
Meehan continued to mount. Now Meehan had been with the
band for some time at this point, but he was
not the group's original manager. Instead, they had initially employed
(05:49):
the services of Jim Simpson, a club promoter from their
hometown of Birmingham. Sabbath then stuck with Simpson through their
first two albums, their self titled debut and their hit
sophomore effort Paranoid. The Thing Was. The explosive growth of
Sabbath left the band members with the feeling that Simpson was,
according to Ozzy quote, overwhelmed. Simpson, they suspected, was just
a bit in over his head. He was, after all,
(06:12):
a club promoter, and they were quickly becoming one of
the biggest bands on the planet and needed someone with
the experience, or at least the vision to match what
they were becoming, which is where the aforementioned Patrick Meehan
comes in, as Mehnn and his firm worldwide artist promised
a more global vision for the band, a promise that
he most certainly lived up to, as according to guitarist
(06:33):
Tony Iomi quote, he really got things going. He was
the one who got us to America. Mehn then definitely
helped to play a role in the explosive growth that followed. However,
this included their non stop touring and others seeming warning
signs like giving himself a producer's credit on their last
two albums despite not actually contributing anything. Indeed, according to
(06:54):
Iomi quote, we felt there was less directing than ever
as me Head was expending his business more and more
and we were probably not getting the attention we should have. Meanwhile,
even more importantly, there were increasing concerns over the handling
of their money, worries that they had for some time
but were too afraid to really force the issue, with
Ozzy noting in particular, quote, I don't know what I'm doing,
(07:16):
So what if I opened Pandora's box and unleash something
that I don't really know how to control at this level. Now,
some of these concerns might have first started popping up
when they were sued by their former manager, Jim Simpson,
who was not a fan of being fired from a
job that had essentially become a license to print money,
and so we claimed that further contract Sabbath could not
fire him, a case that you wouldn't think would go
(07:38):
Simpson's way, given that during the subsequent court case it
was revealed that their former manager had received millions of
pounds and royalties that he had failed to pass on
to the band. Yet still the group was forced to
pay off their former manager just to get him to
go away. More importantly, though, was the degree in which
he'd stolen from them. Granted, the ban had suspected that
things were completely on the up and up with Simpson,
(08:00):
which was one of the reasons why they had fired him,
but the degree of his fraud was still staggering. It
was in realization such as this the mainly members of
Black Sabbath quest in their current manager, Patrick Meehan's practices
even more. After all, according to Ozzy quote, Patrick Meehan
never gave you a straight answer when you asked him
how much dough you were making. In fact, this seems
(08:20):
that basically everything the band members had purchased, including their
houses and their cars and just about whatever else they wanted,
had been done through their management, because we're not actually
receiving any of the money they were making. Essentially, what
would happen was it would call up their management and
ask if they could purchase this thing or that thing,
and Meehan would either just hand over a bunch of
cash to them to make that purchase or just buy
(08:42):
it for them himself. By controlling their money this way,
Mehan then ensured that the members of Black Sabbath never
knew how much they were actually making from their albums
and tours. Indeed, according to Iomi quote, he was very careful.
He always had a want of cash in his pocket.
Never use a credit card, I think, because that way
he wouldn't have any kind of record of what was
being spent. Now, the band, while very inexperienced with this
(09:05):
type of thing, wasn't stupid, and so they had a
sense that something dodgy might be going on. They began
to wonder, then, why the money they were making couldn't
all just be put into a bank account, as that
way they would at least know how much they had
to work with. Mehnd Tho seemingly responded to this kind
of talk by hiring a team of accounts, who he
declared were handling things from here on out, thereby making
(09:27):
it look like everything was on the up and up
and that a third party was now handling these finances
instead of him. However, what the band did not know
at the time was that the accountants were working explicitly
for Mehan and not for them. Yet, even this tactic
only count their suspicions at Bay for a time. For Ozzie,
he really began to question how their earnings were being
(09:47):
handled when he dropped by Mehan's office one day, only
to discover that it wasn't just a singular office space,
but a whole block of offices with multiple rolls royces
out front, which was especially galling as Ossium sad us
Off was still jumming around in a VW while Tony
started to realize that something was very wrong and this
whole thing was becoming unworkable because as time went on,
(10:08):
quote we could never find it when bills had to
be paid, and apart from one girl in the office,
there was no one we could talk to about anything.
So not only was Mihan at the very least playing
fast and loose with their earnings, but he also wasn't
doing his job as their manager. Plaster was also the
confident of interest he had due to the fact that
he had financial ties with their UK record company, a
(10:30):
situation which meant that he might not have been getting
the ban the best deal possible in the name of
keeping them with the label he had ties to and
thus wanted to maximize their profits. This all then came
to a head when they learned that while each of
them had received a thousand dollars for their appearance at
the California Jam Festival, then actually been paid two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for the gig. Now, granted, some
(10:51):
of that money would have to go to various costs
like paying their crew, travel expenses, taxes, and insurance, but
even then there should have been something like one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars remaining that should have gone to
the band, but instead and apparently just disappeared. Faced with
such Blaine theft. They then informed Mehan and his Worldwide
Artist agency that they were ending their contract with them. Mehan,
(11:13):
though had no interest in letting his golden goose get away.
After all, Sabbath were one of the biggest rock bands
on the planet, so it's not like he was going
to let them go without a fight. And unfortunately for
his justified as they were and wanted to get new management.
The problem was mehndheld all the cards. Indeed, according to
Bassis Geezer Butler, quote, the way he had us tied
(11:34):
up in his contracts, we had to pay him to
get away from him. We didn't have lawyers or anything
when we signed contracts because we didn't know. Essentially, Mehan,
who knew all the tricks in all the ins and
outs of the business and contracts, took complete advantage of
the completely inexperienced members of Black Sabbath. Basically, the situation,
according to Iomi, was quote we were so gullible about everything.
(11:56):
All we wanted was to play and tour everywhere and
go to America and all that. That's why in the
beginning we never questioned me hence way of doing things.
Ozzie would echo this as he pointed out, quote, we
didn't know about law, and we didn't know a contract
was a bonding piece of law. We just thought it
was a bit of paper so you could make a
fucking record. They were, after all, just a bunch of
(12:17):
kids from working class backgrounds. Guys who have good fortune
hadn't smiled upon them, would have likely been working a
factory job. They then knew nothing about contracts. They just
wanted to make music and be rock stars, and they
trusted that their manager had their best interest at heart,
which was not the case. Now, this, unfortunately wasn is
not an uncommon story, but it seems like this was
(12:39):
one of the most egregious examples, as it turns out
that me had made it soon they really did not
own anything themselves. Everything that men had purchased for them
with their money, from their houses to their cars, were
all apparently technically owned by the management company, which was
likely the reason why it handled business way he had,
as not only was he concealing how much they were
(13:00):
making and thus how much he was stealing from them,
but he also made it so he was the one
that owned all their houses and expensive cars and the like.
This then was a legal nightmare and what was probably
even worse was the fact that the members of Black
Sabbath did not even own their own music, as me
Hanna made sure that he was the one who owned
the rights to everything they had done, so that way,
(13:22):
even if he couldn't profit from their future, he could
continue to make money off of everything they had done
up until this point. All of these revelations and the
illegal battle the free themselves from me hansgrip once and
for all would then continue to cast a shadow over
the band as he reconvened to work on their next album.
(14:01):
The ongoing legal battles to free themselves from their crooking
manager Patrick Meehan did not exactly leave the members of
Black Sabbath and the Best Deed of Mind to record
an album. Indeed, according to Geezer, they were all some
combination of quote concerned, tired, drug and stoned as their
main way of coping with all the stress they were
experiencing with their legal issues was through some combination of
(14:23):
drugs and alcohol. Yet, for all the stress that was
being piled upon the band, this issue did not seem
to affect their personal relationships, as again, according to Geezer,
quote we were never confrontational towards each other. It was
an us against him attitude in the band. We relied
on each other. There was no one else we could trust,
a sentiment very much echoed by drummer Bill Ward who
(14:45):
stated that quote, We'd taken some blows, but we carried on.
It was a tough band. This tough band, though, needed
to record a new album if for no other reason
they needed to make money after being pretty much thoroughly
and completely ripped off. To do so, the group convened
in Morgan's Studio in Northwest London, a state of the
art facility that they had some degree of familiarity with
(15:06):
as they had done some of the work on Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath in this location. Yet, despite this through line
with their last album, it seems that they did not
want to try and recreate Sabbath Buddy Sabbath, but instead
they wanted to shift gears, as according to Iomi quote,
we could have continued getting more technical, using orchestras and
everything else, but we wanted to do a rock album.
(15:28):
Also obviously affecting the tone and direction of the album
was their ongoing legal battle with Patrick Meehan, which forced
them to alternate between spending time in the studio and
spending time in the courtroom. Indeed, according to Iomi, quote,
one minute you'd be worrying about whether a riff was
right for a song, the next you be set in court.
This back and forth between the studio and courtroom seems
(15:49):
to be the main lasting memory for all involved with Bassis,
Gezer Butler adding quote, we were literally in the studio
trying to record, and we be signing all these afid
davids in every thing, a clearly less an ideal situation.
As Iomi would add, quote, it was so distracting. It
felt like we were being sabotaged all the way along
the line and getting punched from all sides. We were
(16:11):
constantly in some problem or another with management or somebody,
with the sense of being sabotaged being the inspiration for
the title of the album, with Geezer standing at plainly quote,
that's what it's called sabotage, because we felt that the
whole process was just being totally sabotaged by all these
people ripping us off. That anger and frustration then naturally
(16:32):
manifested in the tone they were looking for from their
equipment and their performances. As Iomi would stay quote, the
sound was a bit harder than Sabbath, Buddy Sabbath. My
guitar sound was harder. That was brought on by all
the aggravation we felt over all the business with management
and lawyers, a statement which would very much be echoed
by Geezer Butther, who added quote, it was difficult dividing
(16:54):
time betwey and creating music, and time spent in lawyer's offices,
with QC's and in law courts. But with our backs
the walls. I think some of these songs on Sabotage
were the angriest we'd ever written. Ultimately, thanks in part
of these other distractions, Black said with would spend four
whole months in the studio recording the album, basically doing
so in three weeks stints. Yet even with the distractions aside,
(17:17):
it doesn't sound like they were particularly efficient with their
time in the studio. As per engineer Mike Butcher, who
would also work with the band on their previous album, quote,
I'd arrive at two in the afternoon, but the band
wouldn't start showing up until four, And because Morgan had
a bar, that's where the guys would wait for the
others to arrive, So most days we start work at
(17:37):
nine and go through till one or two of the
next morning. Things were seemingly so disjointed in fact, that,
according to Tony Iomi, who had traditionally been the band's
leader and would be Mike Butcher, the studio engineer, who
throughout this process kind of served as a group's unofficial leader,
something which they apparently were in need of, as they
reportedly spent a lot of hours drinking and playing dards
(17:58):
in the aforementioned studio bar. Meanwhile, in addition to the booze,
as you might expect, they also had a lot of
marijuana on hand, and as had become a tradition since
Volume four, there was also a lot of cocaine on
offer as well. That being said, when it came time
to actually record something for the album, they would apparently
try and restrain themselves from indulting, as according to drummer
(18:19):
Bill Ward quote when it came to laying track, my
intake of anything mind altering would diminish somewhat. There was, however,
apparently one notable exception to this role, and it involved
the band singer Ozzy Osbourne, as according to Mike Butcher quote.
Because everything was recorded live, the band always wanted Ozzie
to sing along as they were tracking, but this one
(18:39):
time Ozzy was passed out drunk on the sofa. Well
out of it. Now, this doesn't seem to have caused
a huge problem in the recording process. However, as we
will see later, Ozzy's substance abuse during this period really
started to become an issue. Meanwhile, in addition to all
those tractions they had with their legal issues, Black Sabbath
would also experience some technical scrubs as well during the
(19:00):
recording process. For example, they apparently had to take quite
a few tries to get thrill of it all right.
They were finally able to do it, though, and which
want to celebrate Slash reward themselves, they headed over to
the bar to play some darts. As they were doing this, though,
Dave Harris, who was responsible for the tapes they were
recording onto, came rushing in to tell them they had
a problem. Apparently, one of the degnicians had put the
(19:23):
reference tape onto the master tape, which you're not supposed
to do. As a reference tape which consists of a
series of beeps going from high to low pitches is
just to be used to make sure things are set
up properly. It's not meant to get recorded onto the
final product, which is what just happened, meaning that when
they played back Thrill of It All, a reference beab
would periodically just come in from out of nowhere, and
(19:44):
there was no way to remove it, so they had
to go back into the studio and record the song
all over again, the same song that they just had
a hell of a time getting right. Needless to say,
they were none too pleased by this, and David Harris
would earn a special mention in the liner notes as
he would be listed as quote tape operator and Sabatur
screw Ups and distractions Aside Sabotage would more or less
(20:07):
open up with two of what would ultimately prove to
be Black Sabbath's most beloved songs, with Hole in the
Sky and Symptom of the Universe. Notably, the distant shoutow
attack that precedes the start A Hole in the Sky
was actually an inside joke of sorts, as it was
a reference to a band that Sabbath had toured with
whose manager would stand behind them on stage and shout
attack attack at them. For me, this is one of
(20:29):
those tracks where I can see where some of my
favorite bands get their ideas from, as the main refening
little refrain right before the lyrics kick in and in
between the verses feels like it was a major inspiration
for corrosion of conformity, especially if they're in the Arms
of God album Lyrically, Geese would say that Hole in
the Sky had quote the most prophetic lyrics I've ever written,
(20:50):
the Western World going down in the East, a hole
in the ozone layer, no future in cars. It seemed
to me that everything east of Europe was becoming a threat.
Japan was rising in the business world, Chairman Mells building
up China, the Soviet Union was threatening nuclear war, and
the Middle East was in turmoil. As usual at the time,
oil was on everyone's minds and petrol was being rationed.
(21:13):
As for the next two tracks on the album, Iomi
seems to treat Don't Start Too Late and Symptom of
the Universe as one continuous piece, with Don't Start acting
as a kind of acoustic prelude before the start of
Symptoms main heavy riff, which to many, including myself, feels
like a precursor to thrash metal in bands like Metallica
with that driving pedal tone style riff. Iomi, though, suggested
(21:34):
it might be right to call it the first progressive
metal song with all the changes it goes through along
the way, and if you include Don't Start as a
part of the overall composition. Either way, it's obvious that
Black Sabbath, even six albums and in Drowning in Other Complications,
were still laying the seeds for various future genres while
providing a blueprint for subsequent metal bands to follow. Lyrically,
(21:56):
though we seen the song an example of geezer. Butler's
attempts to quote tells some hope, but the bleaker images
of my lyrics growing up and asked, and I had
my share of violence and negativity. So I was a
bit of a piece in love man bloke, as the
Bassis would explain that quote. The title was about love
fate and believe love is a symptom that brings forth life.
(22:17):
Death is the cure, but love never dies. I was
very religious growing up, and everything in my life seemed
to be pre planned. One wasn't planned, however, was the
song z outro That part had never existed until after
they were finished recording the song in the studio, and
the band just kept on playing. Basically, it seems like
Tony just started playing this dude ref and the Authers
(22:37):
joined in, so they kept going and aughtately decided to
keep the product of their impromptu jam, eventually overdombing it
with an acoustic guitar to flesh it out a bit more. Now,
while this initial stretch of the album contained some of
Sabbath's most beloved tracks, the rest, to me at least,
feels like much more of a mixed bag. For example, Meglomania,
in which, according to Geezer, was quote based on a
(22:59):
rare or when experience I had. I stayed up all
night looking in the mirror. I was God and my
reflection was the devil. It was the battle the two
biggest egos in the universe. Unfortunately I don't remember the
outcome now. For me, the first half of the song
is fascinating as it creates this really cool, eerie atmosphere.
The second half, though, feels almost generic in comparison. It
(23:22):
just has this tone and vibe that I more associate
with Judas Priest, which admittedly might not be accurate, as
I am not super familiar with that band. That being said,
thoughly thing you always have to keep in mind when
looking back at these older albums is whether something sounds
generic because it was at the time or because other
bands subsequently took this idea and ran with it, and
(23:43):
you're actually looking at the point of innovation. Speaking of
being innovative, the instrumental Superizar belied the idea that they
were just looking to make a straight ahead rock record,
as it's more in the vein of the kind of
experimentation they were pursuing on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Instead, i
only started crafting the song when he was toying around
with a melotron, using it to create choir sounds, and
(24:03):
it was only after he started writing these choir parts
that Naomi thought of adding a heavy guitar line to
accompany them. Yet, while he started out using a melatron
to write this piece, Iomi, who was really intrigued by
what he was creating, decided that he wanted to use
a real choir instead of relying on the pre recorded
melotron tones, So they both the London Philharmonic Choir to
perform a drummer bill were described as a quote demonic chant.
(24:27):
Now Ozzie perhaps because he wasn't performing on the track,
wasn't kept a breast of the situation, or alternatively, he
simply wasn't paying attention when bringing in a choir was
talked about. Regardless, he was quite surprised when he walked
into the studio one day to find a literal choir
getting ready to perform. Indeed, he thought he walked into
the wrong studio when he found so many people in
(24:47):
there that he didn't know. Meanwhile, in addition to the choir,
they also brought a woman and who played the harp,
because Iomi had a harp at home and had played
around with it and originally constructing the rough idea for
the song. Again, though he had a very bare bones
understanding of the instrument, and so when asked to give
her an idea what he wanted, he presented the simplicic
idea he had, fully intending her to simply play that.
(25:09):
The woman, however, thinking it was just giving her the
basic outline of what he wanted, responded by playing a
much fuller and more complex idea to which i Owe
me Feeling embarrassed, readily agreed that yes, that was his
vision all along. Meanwhile, in addition to the heavy guitar line,
the fifty piece choir and the harpist, bill Ward was
super excited to add a whole bunch of different percussive instruments,
(25:31):
from tubular bells who vibes, to the glockenspiel to the
ambitious piece. In the midst of all this, however, Ward
would wake up one night in this hotel room in
incredible pain, stating later that quote, I managed to crawl
out my room, crawl down the corner and bang on
his door. AZ got me strained out, But then again
he always would anyway. He knew that I was in trouble,
(25:52):
so he got the doctor immediately. Bill Ward would be
diagnosed with a mild heart attack, which, as doctors believe,
was the result of his heavy drinking, and thus told
the drunker that he needed to take it easy for
a while. Ward then quote took a thirty day break
de talked a bit from the Booze before ultimately going
back to the studio to finish up work on the album,
(26:12):
as he did not want someone else to fill in
for him. As to the man who had made sure
he got to the hospital. Ozzy, on watching Superzar being recorded,
would compare it to quote a noise like God conducting
the soundtrack to the End of the World. However, while
Ozzie would not have much of a hand in the
creation of this particular song, am I Going Insaying was
the product of Ozzy playing around with his moog the
(26:33):
singer after all, and apparently become quite obsessed with the synth,
to the point that, according to Bill Ward quote Oz
drove us all nuts with that moog thing. The product
of Ozzie's obsession, however, was not exactly well received by
the fans. Indeed, many saw it as a naked attempt
to get radio airplay, with many assuming that the addendum
of radio and parentheses at the end of the tunnel
(26:55):
had accidentally been left in, further indicating that the track
was calculatingly designed to be a single that was meant
for release on the radio. However, even though am I
Going Insane would prove to be the album's lone and
unsuccessful single, the reality was radio in this case was
a reference to British rhyming signing, where radio rental equates
to mental Yet, despite the non exactly enthusiastic response from
(27:18):
the fans. Drummer Bill Ward looks back at this song
affectionately stating that it was quote great and in hindsight
it was a kind of precursor for his solo career.
His personality was blooming on this song, which for me
puts it in kind of a similar place as Maglomania,
where I'm not exactly a fan of the composition because
it doesn't really feel a lot like Black Sabbath. But
(27:39):
for that very same reason, I am curious as to
how much it predicts his solo career as someone who
again is to only unfamiliar with his solo output. Meanwhile,
for as much as fans kind of assumed that this
was a calculated song only meant to act as a single,
the fact of the matter was, as Geezer Butler points out,
Ozzie's lyrics and that song were very autobiographical nature, as
(28:01):
he very much seems to have been struggling with his
mental health and trying to come to terms with the
life he currently found themselves in. This album wasn't the
only song on Sabotage and Ozzie would provide lyrics for,
as he would also provide the words for the album's
final track, of the Wrint, and in doing so also
pull from real life. Indeed, the title the track was
actually a reference to the time when a lawyer representing
(28:22):
there soon to be former manager Patrick Meehan arrived in
a studio while they were working on the album, where,
according to engineer Mike Bludger, quote some guy walked in
and said black Sabbath, and Tony said yeah. The guy
said I have something for you and gave him a writ.
The song then was all about their anger, their rage,
and their frustration with Patrick Meehan. Ozzy poured all his
(28:44):
feelings into this song, with lines like quote you bought
and sold me with your lying words, all the promises
that never came true. You're going to get what's coming
to you? Are you satan? Are you man? You've changed
a lon since it beinggan? And rob the dead. They
don't feel a thing living for another day, all being
directed at their former manager. For Ozzie, then, this process
(29:06):
of writing and singing these lyrics was almost therapeutic, describing
it as being quote a bit like seeing a shrink.
All the anger I fell towards in the hand came
pouring out. Then, once he was done inventing this venom
toward the man who had betrayed them all, Ozzie let
go of that rage and instead gave voice the idea
of hope and that everything was going to turn out
fine in the end. The song is also notable for
(29:28):
its intro, which features a mixture of laughter and strange
sounding cries, with the laughter actually being a compliment of
a friend of Geezer's who was visiting it from Australia,
who he describes as being a quote complete nutter, while
the crying sounds actually came from a mysterious tape that
engineer Mike Butcher found lying around the studio one day.
Curious as to what this mnable tape could be, the
(29:48):
engineer plugged it in, only to discover that it was
the recording of a baby crying, a recording that while
he never discovered its origin, he did find that when
he played it at half speed, it took on a
really weird, other worldly quality. Now, while the writ is
the last official song on the album, Sabotage does not
necessarily end with this final statement against her soon to
(30:09):
be former manager. Instead, it ends with an odd little
number that was the byproduct of two members of the
band having some drunken fun while in the studio one night,
not realizing that Mike Butcher was secretly recording their antics.
As according to Bill Ward, the song in question, blow
Your Jug was quote a drunken song that Ozzie and
me would sing together in a vanner on a plane.
(30:29):
That's me on piano and Ozzie blowing on one of
those brown cider jugs, playing it like a tuba. The
thing is, for as much as this little scene seems
to indicate that the band was still as close a
band of friends, and indeed, for as much as the
group might have been united by their anger for me
Han in the soul situation, the fact of the matter
was they were starting to come apart at these seams,
with one of the biggest problems involving Ozzie himself. As
(30:52):
one of the reasons why Ozzie in retrospect felt that
he should have walked away after the recording of Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath was because it was here where his drug
use really started the spiral out of control, with part
of the problem originating from the fact that when it
came to the recording process. Once Ozzie was done with
his vocal tracks, he had nothing else to do, while
the others spent ample amounts of time on various overdubs,
(31:15):
making various tweaks to their parts, and just mixing the album,
during which time Ozzie, who was very easily bored, had
nothing else to do but more and more drugs. Indeed,
Ozzy purr his own book and miss it. He never
really could do the whole studio thing. He just wasn't
built for all the winning around and agonizing over every
little detail. Instead quote, once I've done my thing, I
(31:36):
had to get out into the fresh air. Just did
not have the patience for that kind of focused, time
consuming work. And it wasn't just in the studio either,
as Iomi would talk about how whenever they had meetings
concerning their legal slash management situation, Ozzie could never sit still.
He would walk off, come back and be like, Okay,
we're done now, right, when in reality they had just
(31:57):
barely gotten started. Face with the boredom a studio work,
Ozzie looked to occupy his mind more and more with drugs.
Wedge led him the doing things that he was not
proud of. My quote pulling a gun at Bill while
I was having a bad acid trip at Bullrush Cottage.
The gun wasn't loaded, but he didn't know that, and
I didn't tell him. It was very cool about it
(32:18):
at the time, but we've never talked about it since,
which means it was probably quite a big deal. It
was more than just a way he treated his bandmates, though,
as quote, I hid Thelma too, which is probably the
worst thing I ever did in my life. I started
to get overpowering with her, and the poor woman must
have been framed to death. What made it even worse
(32:38):
was that we just had her second kid, little Lewis.
Thelmo really suffered with me, you know, and I really
regret that. In addition to Ozzie's worsening substance abuse and
the behavior that came along with it, there were also
increasing tensions between the band members. For example, Iaomi was
still frustrated with the fact that he was consistently being
left to do the majority of the work in the studio,
(32:59):
while Geezer would get anoyed with Ozzie for always asking
him to come up with lyrics for him. Really, though,
at the core of their issues was the fact that,
according to Ozzie, quote, one reason that we weren't getting
on so well is that we all started to develop
these coked up rockstar egos. They had all experienced tremendous
amounts of success and their heads had all gone swollen
as a result. Plus it also didn't help matters that
(33:21):
they really didn't hang out together anymore. As according to
Ozzie in the Old Days quote, whenever we arrived in
a new place for a gig, we'd walk around the
town like a little gang, trying up the pubs and clubs,
hitting on chicks, getting pissed. But as time went on,
we saw less and less of each other. Basically the
fact that the matter was, according to Ozzie quote, after
(33:41):
all that time on the road, we just had enough
of each other's company. But when we didn't spend any
time together, all our problems grew in our heads and
we stopped communicating, which only led to new problems, like
who should be featured center stage more Ozzie the lead singer,
or Tony Iomi, the band's leader and main creative force,
who more often than not recently have been left to
(34:02):
make their albums by himself. This disagreement, however, was more
of a symptom of the larger rift that was forming
between the two, a rift which was partially based on
the fact that Iomi, as we've seen in these last
couple of episodes, wanted to expand and do more and
different things, while Ozzie apparently wanted to focus more on
the kind of music that had gotten them to that
point now was not always so inclear and simple, as
(34:24):
Iomi Woodstone naturally write classic Black Sabbath style riffs, while
Ozzie would introduce ideas like am I Going Insane? Which
was not a traditional Sabbath style song by any stretch,
but it was a bit of an ongoing point of
tension between them, which, in addition to everything else they
were dealing with, meantan according to Geezer quote, we were
burned out by the time the album was finished. Now.
(34:46):
As for the album's somewhat infamous cover, according to Bill
mood And was the work of him and his drum
manager at the time, Graham Right, as they together took
charge of designing the album's artwork, as this was yet
another aspect of their prison that the group felt comfortable
taking control of now that they had been doing this
whole thing for a while now. While I only claims
(35:07):
that he was the one who had the idea for
them to all stand in front of a mirror that
reflected their images back the wrong way, however, it seems
that everything beyond that basic idea was not planned, meaning
that Ward and Ozzie's more questionable outfit choices were completely
of their own making and more or less a product
of showing up and not having an idea of what
to wear for the photo shoot, with Bill Ward admitting
(35:29):
that quote, somebody wanted us to post for that picture
and were useless of doing that kind of stuff. I
can't talk for the others, but it feels real uncomfortable,
a feeling which was in star contrast to how he
felt about the album itself. As Ward would later stay quote,
I was really really happy with writing. I think we
were expanding, allowing ourselves to expand becoming really long way
(35:50):
from the song Black Sabbath. As great as that song is,
I thought the richness of what we were doing on
Sabotage was brilliant. The public's reaction, though, wasn't quite so strong.
When Sabotage was released only twenty seventh of June nineteen
seventy five, it peaked at seven in the UK, while
it only made it to twenty eight in the US,
thereby breaking their streak of four straight top twenty albums. Still,
(36:12):
Rolling Stone, which used to be among their harshest critics,
would declare, per reviewer Billy Altman, quote, Sabotage is not
only Black Sabbath's best record since Paranoid, it might be
their best ever. While in contrast, the British press very
much continued to revile Sabbath, with mcwarren of New Musical
Express or NM, a British magazine running quote, this isn't psychodrama,
(36:35):
It's an amusement park ghost train. Its the same cheap,
lowest common denominator, dubious thrill quotient. While totally lacking the
kind of gaudy innocence that might make it redeemingly charming,
it's also highly successful and probably causes brain damage. Can
I please take it off now? As for their issues
concerning Patrick Meehan, it ultimately cost a band quite a
(36:55):
bit to make him their former manager. Indeed, according to Geezer,
quote we had to pay him to get out of
our contract, but it was more than that. As quote,
it cost us thousands of dollars of lawyer's bill, and
then we got a huge tax bill. The money, though,
was only a part of the cost, as according to
drummer Bill Ward, the whole experience had quote changed us.
(37:17):
I have no doubts about that. Now. The band was
not exactly excited to get into bed with new management,
considering all they had been through, so in the short
term they loved to manage themselves, before hiring a former
Mehan employee named Mark Foster to run the day to
day business side of things while keeping ultimate control for themselves.
The unattended consequence of this, however, was that without any
(37:39):
kind of mediating influence to act as a go between
or as a way of keeping all the band members
on the same page, they started to drift further and
further apart, as due to the stress, the exhaustion and
all the drugs, they were no longer the same four
guys who had first come together some seven years earlier,
with Geezer noting that at this point quote the band
was to sintegrate it things that would really start to
(38:01):
fall apart from here on out, but the original lineup
would press on for two more less and well received
albums before ultimately admitting the obvious. However, that next chapter
in Artel will have to for now remain a story
for another time. Thank you for listening to Distorted History.
(38:22):
If you would like to help out, please rate and
review the podcasts and tell your friends if you think
they'll be interested. If you would like ad free in
early episodes, I set up such a feed over at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By paying ten bucks
a month, you will gain access to the special ad
free feed available on Spotify or likely through your podcast
app as long as it uses an RSS feed. I
(38:44):
will continue to post sources on kofe and Twitter, though,
as it's just a convenient place to go to access
that information regardless. Once again, thank you for listening, and
until next time is Inla
My name is Eric Gasco and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can't give you many names,
and you're a blunder. Look, I'm rasling, I'm got the Barah.
(00:27):
A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
Welcome back to Distorted History, where this month on Sound Stories,
we again returned to the story of Black Sabbath and
most specifically the gradual breakup of the band's iconic original
(00:48):
line up leading to the start of Ozzie's solo career,
which was honestly the idea that originally sparked this now
multi part series. Regardless, last time, we saw how the banded,
most specifically guitarist Tony Iomi with writers Block in Los
Angeles before picking up stakes and returning to England to
settle down in a spooky castle where they were able
to craft their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, an album that,
(01:10):
according to Ozzy looking back quote was our final record
as far as I was concerned. Then it started to
go and drift around all over the place. For Ozzy
in particular. Then things just really seemed to fall apart.
After Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. While in general, it seems like
things were just not the same as they were in
the early days of the band. Now, there were a
(01:30):
myriad of reasons for this. Some of it was down
to the simple fact of gradually drifting apart and or
rubbing one another the wrong way after being so close
for so long, while some of it was due to
their increasing drug use, Ozzie's in particular, and some of
it was due to outside stresses just wearing them out. Yet,
before we get into the major external issue that would
(01:51):
affect the band during the recording of their six album Sabotage, first,
like always, I want to give credit to my sources,
which include Paul Wilkinson's Rats Black Sabbath The Classic Years
nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy five, Dave Marsh and
Mike Stark's Black Sabbath and Oral History, Mick Wall's Black
Sabbath Symptom of the Universe, Ozzy Osbourne's I Amazzi, and
(02:12):
tonae Omi's Iron Man by Journey through Heaven and Hell
with Black Sabbath, in addition to articles by Paul Elliott,
Eduardo Rivedavia and Joe Banks, links to all of which
can be found on this podcast Bluesky and Covie pages.
Plus for anyone who doesn't want to be bothered skipping
through commercials, there is always an ad free feet available
to subscribers at patreon dot com slash Distorted History. And
(02:35):
with all that being said, let's begin. Between decembern nineteen
seventy three and November nineteen seventy four, Black Sabbath would
perform fifty two shows in seven different countries, which honestly
was far from their worst stretch. At the same time, though,
it's still a war on them because of the years
of basically NonStop touring and recording. Nineteen seventy four, for example,
(02:55):
started off for the mini tour of Europe, followed by
a month long tour of the States in February, after
which Black Sabbath was going to get a bit of
an extended break, or at least that's what they thought. However,
not long after returning home to England, they would learn
from their management that they soon not only had to
head back stateside, but had to travel all the way
to California for a festival, something that the band wasn't
(03:17):
super interested in doing, or at least that's one version
of the story, as there are other versions as well,
which isn't exactly surprising given the malleability of human memory
and the amount of drugs consumed by the people involved
in these tales. Regardless, according to Aami, it was less
about the band being exhausted and not wanting to show up,
but a situation where their co headliners for the festival,
(03:38):
Deep Purple and prog rock supergroup Emerson Lincoln Palmer both
wanted to go on last. This then led to a
hated argument between the two groups that they then tried
to involve Sabbath in. The boys from Birmingham, however, wanted
to know part of this disagreement and looked too back
out of the show. Honestly, then it was probably a
combination of not wanting to get involved in this drama
and wanted to get off the road and rest for
(04:00):
a change that led to the members of Black Sabbath
looking to back out. The thing was, though, this California
Jam festival was a massive show, as not only would
they be playing in front of three hundred thousand people
at the Ontario Motor Speedway, some thirty five miles outside
of Los Angeles, which was already the largest crowd that
Sabbath had ever performed in front of, but it was
(04:21):
also set to be broadcast to an additional twenty million viewers.
It was then not exactly the type of gig that
you could just back out of. It was a major opportunity.
Pluster was also the issue that the concert promoters reportedly
threatened legal action, which helped to force the band's hand.
Black Sabbath, then despot the drama preceding the show, in
their own mounting issues, still managed to make a good
(04:42):
showing of themselves as they put on what was said
to have been a good, if unspectacular performance. Perhaps more notably, though,
this gig represented the first time they met New Deep
Purple bassis and vocalist Glenn Hughes, with Glenn later remembering
this encounter less for the gig itself and more for
the night he spent quote going crazy back at the
hotel with Ozzie and Bill, a night that apparently involved
(05:04):
quote just bags of coke and what have you for days.
Me and Ozzy were made of the same thing. We
both just like to rage all night, every night. That
being said, while Bill took part in these festivities, his
health was suffering due to a combination of their non
stop schedule and the rock star lifestyle that he was embracing,
namely the tremendous amounts of alcohol that he was imbiting regularly.
(05:26):
That being said, while Ward was likely in the worst
state of all them at this moment, the fact of
the matter was, according to Bassis Geezer Butler quote, we
needed to go home and become normal for a few weeks.
As he did so, though, concerns with their manager, Patrick
Meehan continued to mount. Now Meehan had been with the
band for some time at this point, but he was
not the group's original manager. Instead, they had initially employed
(05:49):
the services of Jim Simpson, a club promoter from their
hometown of Birmingham. Sabbath then stuck with Simpson through their
first two albums, their self titled debut and their hit
sophomore effort Paranoid. The Thing Was. The explosive growth of
Sabbath left the band members with the feeling that Simpson was,
according to Ozzy quote, overwhelmed. Simpson, they suspected, was just
a bit in over his head. He was, after all,
(06:12):
a club promoter, and they were quickly becoming one of
the biggest bands on the planet and needed someone with
the experience, or at least the vision to match what
they were becoming, which is where the aforementioned Patrick Meehan
comes in, as Mehnn and his firm worldwide artist promised
a more global vision for the band, a promise that
he most certainly lived up to, as according to guitarist
(06:33):
Tony Iomi quote, he really got things going. He was
the one who got us to America. Mehn then definitely
helped to play a role in the explosive growth that followed. However,
this included their non stop touring and others seeming warning
signs like giving himself a producer's credit on their last
two albums despite not actually contributing anything. Indeed, according to
(06:54):
Iomi quote, we felt there was less directing than ever
as me Head was expending his business more and more
and we were probably not getting the attention we should have. Meanwhile,
even more importantly, there were increasing concerns over the handling
of their money, worries that they had for some time
but were too afraid to really force the issue, with
Ozzy noting in particular, quote, I don't know what I'm doing,
(07:16):
So what if I opened Pandora's box and unleash something
that I don't really know how to control at this level. Now,
some of these concerns might have first started popping up
when they were sued by their former manager, Jim Simpson,
who was not a fan of being fired from a
job that had essentially become a license to print money,
and so we claimed that further contract Sabbath could not
fire him, a case that you wouldn't think would go
(07:38):
Simpson's way, given that during the subsequent court case it
was revealed that their former manager had received millions of
pounds and royalties that he had failed to pass on
to the band. Yet still the group was forced to
pay off their former manager just to get him to
go away. More importantly, though, was the degree in which
he'd stolen from them. Granted, the ban had suspected that
things were completely on the up and up with Simpson,
(08:00):
which was one of the reasons why they had fired him,
but the degree of his fraud was still staggering. It
was in realization such as this the mainly members of
Black Sabbath quest in their current manager, Patrick Meehan's practices
even more. After all, according to Ozzy quote, Patrick Meehan
never gave you a straight answer when you asked him
how much dough you were making. In fact, this seems
(08:20):
that basically everything the band members had purchased, including their
houses and their cars and just about whatever else they wanted,
had been done through their management, because we're not actually
receiving any of the money they were making. Essentially, what
would happen was it would call up their management and
ask if they could purchase this thing or that thing,
and Meehan would either just hand over a bunch of
cash to them to make that purchase or just buy
(08:42):
it for them himself. By controlling their money this way,
Mehan then ensured that the members of Black Sabbath never
knew how much they were actually making from their albums
and tours. Indeed, according to Iomi quote, he was very careful.
He always had a want of cash in his pocket.
Never use a credit card, I think, because that way
he wouldn't have any kind of record of what was
being spent. Now, the band, while very inexperienced with this
(09:05):
type of thing, wasn't stupid, and so they had a
sense that something dodgy might be going on. They began
to wonder, then, why the money they were making couldn't
all just be put into a bank account, as that
way they would at least know how much they had
to work with. Mehnd Tho seemingly responded to this kind
of talk by hiring a team of accounts, who he
declared were handling things from here on out, thereby making
(09:27):
it look like everything was on the up and up
and that a third party was now handling these finances
instead of him. However, what the band did not know
at the time was that the accountants were working explicitly
for Mehan and not for them. Yet, even this tactic
only count their suspicions at Bay for a time. For Ozzie,
he really began to question how their earnings were being
(09:47):
handled when he dropped by Mehan's office one day, only
to discover that it wasn't just a singular office space,
but a whole block of offices with multiple rolls royces
out front, which was especially galling as Ossium sad us
Off was still jumming around in a VW while Tony
started to realize that something was very wrong and this
whole thing was becoming unworkable because as time went on,
(10:08):
quote we could never find it when bills had to
be paid, and apart from one girl in the office,
there was no one we could talk to about anything.
So not only was Mihan at the very least playing
fast and loose with their earnings, but he also wasn't
doing his job as their manager. Plaster was also the
confident of interest he had due to the fact that
he had financial ties with their UK record company, a
(10:30):
situation which meant that he might not have been getting
the ban the best deal possible in the name of
keeping them with the label he had ties to and
thus wanted to maximize their profits. This all then came
to a head when they learned that while each of
them had received a thousand dollars for their appearance at
the California Jam Festival, then actually been paid two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for the gig. Now, granted, some
(10:51):
of that money would have to go to various costs
like paying their crew, travel expenses, taxes, and insurance, but
even then there should have been something like one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars remaining that should have gone to
the band, but instead and apparently just disappeared. Faced with
such Blaine theft. They then informed Mehan and his Worldwide
Artist agency that they were ending their contract with them. Mehan,
(11:13):
though had no interest in letting his golden goose get away.
After all, Sabbath were one of the biggest rock bands
on the planet, so it's not like he was going
to let them go without a fight. And unfortunately for
his justified as they were and wanted to get new management.
The problem was mehndheld all the cards. Indeed, according to
Bassis Geezer Butler, quote, the way he had us tied
(11:34):
up in his contracts, we had to pay him to
get away from him. We didn't have lawyers or anything
when we signed contracts because we didn't know. Essentially, Mehan,
who knew all the tricks in all the ins and
outs of the business and contracts, took complete advantage of
the completely inexperienced members of Black Sabbath. Basically, the situation,
according to Iomi, was quote we were so gullible about everything.
(11:56):
All we wanted was to play and tour everywhere and
go to America and all that. That's why in the
beginning we never questioned me hence way of doing things.
Ozzie would echo this as he pointed out, quote, we
didn't know about law, and we didn't know a contract
was a bonding piece of law. We just thought it
was a bit of paper so you could make a
fucking record. They were, after all, just a bunch of
(12:17):
kids from working class backgrounds. Guys who have good fortune
hadn't smiled upon them, would have likely been working a
factory job. They then knew nothing about contracts. They just
wanted to make music and be rock stars, and they
trusted that their manager had their best interest at heart,
which was not the case. Now, this, unfortunately wasn is
not an uncommon story, but it seems like this was
(12:39):
one of the most egregious examples, as it turns out
that me had made it soon they really did not
own anything themselves. Everything that men had purchased for them
with their money, from their houses to their cars, were
all apparently technically owned by the management company, which was
likely the reason why it handled business way he had,
as not only was he concealing how much they were
(13:00):
making and thus how much he was stealing from them,
but he also made it so he was the one
that owned all their houses and expensive cars and the like.
This then was a legal nightmare and what was probably
even worse was the fact that the members of Black
Sabbath did not even own their own music, as me
Hanna made sure that he was the one who owned
the rights to everything they had done, so that way,
(13:22):
even if he couldn't profit from their future, he could
continue to make money off of everything they had done
up until this point. All of these revelations and the
illegal battle the free themselves from me hansgrip once and
for all would then continue to cast a shadow over
the band as he reconvened to work on their next album.
(14:01):
The ongoing legal battles to free themselves from their crooking
manager Patrick Meehan did not exactly leave the members of
Black Sabbath and the Best Deed of Mind to record
an album. Indeed, according to Geezer, they were all some
combination of quote concerned, tired, drug and stoned as their
main way of coping with all the stress they were
experiencing with their legal issues was through some combination of
(14:23):
drugs and alcohol. Yet, for all the stress that was
being piled upon the band, this issue did not seem
to affect their personal relationships, as again, according to Geezer,
quote we were never confrontational towards each other. It was
an us against him attitude in the band. We relied
on each other. There was no one else we could trust,
a sentiment very much echoed by drummer Bill Ward who
(14:45):
stated that quote, We'd taken some blows, but we carried on.
It was a tough band. This tough band, though, needed
to record a new album if for no other reason
they needed to make money after being pretty much thoroughly
and completely ripped off. To do so, the group convened
in Morgan's Studio in Northwest London, a state of the
art facility that they had some degree of familiarity with
(15:06):
as they had done some of the work on Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath in this location. Yet, despite this through line
with their last album, it seems that they did not
want to try and recreate Sabbath Buddy Sabbath, but instead
they wanted to shift gears, as according to Iomi quote,
we could have continued getting more technical, using orchestras and
everything else, but we wanted to do a rock album.
(15:28):
Also obviously affecting the tone and direction of the album
was their ongoing legal battle with Patrick Meehan, which forced
them to alternate between spending time in the studio and
spending time in the courtroom. Indeed, according to Iomi, quote,
one minute you'd be worrying about whether a riff was
right for a song, the next you be set in court.
This back and forth between the studio and courtroom seems
(15:49):
to be the main lasting memory for all involved with Bassis,
Gezer Butler adding quote, we were literally in the studio
trying to record, and we be signing all these afid
davids in every thing, a clearly less an ideal situation.
As Iomi would add, quote, it was so distracting. It
felt like we were being sabotaged all the way along
the line and getting punched from all sides. We were
(16:11):
constantly in some problem or another with management or somebody,
with the sense of being sabotaged being the inspiration for
the title of the album, with Geezer standing at plainly quote,
that's what it's called sabotage, because we felt that the
whole process was just being totally sabotaged by all these
people ripping us off. That anger and frustration then naturally
(16:32):
manifested in the tone they were looking for from their
equipment and their performances. As Iomi would stay quote, the
sound was a bit harder than Sabbath, Buddy Sabbath. My
guitar sound was harder. That was brought on by all
the aggravation we felt over all the business with management
and lawyers, a statement which would very much be echoed
by Geezer Butther, who added quote, it was difficult dividing
(16:54):
time betwey and creating music, and time spent in lawyer's offices,
with QC's and in law courts. But with our backs
the walls. I think some of these songs on Sabotage
were the angriest we'd ever written. Ultimately, thanks in part
of these other distractions, Black said with would spend four
whole months in the studio recording the album, basically doing
so in three weeks stints. Yet even with the distractions aside,
(17:17):
it doesn't sound like they were particularly efficient with their
time in the studio. As per engineer Mike Butcher, who
would also work with the band on their previous album, quote,
I'd arrive at two in the afternoon, but the band
wouldn't start showing up until four, And because Morgan had
a bar, that's where the guys would wait for the
others to arrive, So most days we start work at
(17:37):
nine and go through till one or two of the
next morning. Things were seemingly so disjointed in fact, that,
according to Tony Iomi, who had traditionally been the band's
leader and would be Mike Butcher, the studio engineer, who
throughout this process kind of served as a group's unofficial leader,
something which they apparently were in need of, as they
reportedly spent a lot of hours drinking and playing dards
(17:58):
in the aforementioned studio bar. Meanwhile, in addition to the booze,
as you might expect, they also had a lot of
marijuana on hand, and as had become a tradition since
Volume four, there was also a lot of cocaine on
offer as well. That being said, when it came time
to actually record something for the album, they would apparently
try and restrain themselves from indulting, as according to drummer
(18:19):
Bill Ward quote when it came to laying track, my
intake of anything mind altering would diminish somewhat. There was, however,
apparently one notable exception to this role, and it involved
the band singer Ozzy Osbourne, as according to Mike Butcher quote.
Because everything was recorded live, the band always wanted Ozzie
to sing along as they were tracking, but this one
(18:39):
time Ozzy was passed out drunk on the sofa. Well
out of it. Now, this doesn't seem to have caused
a huge problem in the recording process. However, as we
will see later, Ozzy's substance abuse during this period really
started to become an issue. Meanwhile, in addition to all
those tractions they had with their legal issues, Black Sabbath
would also experience some technical scrubs as well during the
(19:00):
recording process. For example, they apparently had to take quite
a few tries to get thrill of it all right.
They were finally able to do it, though, and which
want to celebrate Slash reward themselves, they headed over to
the bar to play some darts. As they were doing this, though,
Dave Harris, who was responsible for the tapes they were
recording onto, came rushing in to tell them they had
a problem. Apparently, one of the degnicians had put the
(19:23):
reference tape onto the master tape, which you're not supposed
to do. As a reference tape which consists of a
series of beeps going from high to low pitches is
just to be used to make sure things are set
up properly. It's not meant to get recorded onto the
final product, which is what just happened, meaning that when
they played back Thrill of It All, a reference beab
would periodically just come in from out of nowhere, and
(19:44):
there was no way to remove it, so they had
to go back into the studio and record the song
all over again, the same song that they just had
a hell of a time getting right. Needless to say,
they were none too pleased by this, and David Harris
would earn a special mention in the liner notes as
he would be listed as quote tape operator and Sabatur
screw Ups and distractions Aside Sabotage would more or less
(20:07):
open up with two of what would ultimately prove to
be Black Sabbath's most beloved songs, with Hole in the
Sky and Symptom of the Universe. Notably, the distant shoutow
attack that precedes the start A Hole in the Sky
was actually an inside joke of sorts, as it was
a reference to a band that Sabbath had toured with
whose manager would stand behind them on stage and shout
attack attack at them. For me, this is one of
(20:29):
those tracks where I can see where some of my
favorite bands get their ideas from, as the main refening
little refrain right before the lyrics kick in and in
between the verses feels like it was a major inspiration
for corrosion of conformity, especially if they're in the Arms
of God album Lyrically, Geese would say that Hole in
the Sky had quote the most prophetic lyrics I've ever written,
(20:50):
the Western World going down in the East, a hole
in the ozone layer, no future in cars. It seemed
to me that everything east of Europe was becoming a threat.
Japan was rising in the business world, Chairman Mells building
up China, the Soviet Union was threatening nuclear war, and
the Middle East was in turmoil. As usual at the time,
oil was on everyone's minds and petrol was being rationed.
(21:13):
As for the next two tracks on the album, Iomi
seems to treat Don't Start Too Late and Symptom of
the Universe as one continuous piece, with Don't Start acting
as a kind of acoustic prelude before the start of
Symptoms main heavy riff, which to many, including myself, feels
like a precursor to thrash metal in bands like Metallica
with that driving pedal tone style riff. Iomi, though, suggested
(21:34):
it might be right to call it the first progressive
metal song with all the changes it goes through along
the way, and if you include Don't Start as a
part of the overall composition. Either way, it's obvious that
Black Sabbath, even six albums and in Drowning in Other Complications,
were still laying the seeds for various future genres while
providing a blueprint for subsequent metal bands to follow. Lyrically,
(21:56):
though we seen the song an example of geezer. Butler's
attempts to quote tells some hope, but the bleaker images
of my lyrics growing up and asked, and I had
my share of violence and negativity. So I was a
bit of a piece in love man bloke, as the
Bassis would explain that quote. The title was about love
fate and believe love is a symptom that brings forth life.
(22:17):
Death is the cure, but love never dies. I was
very religious growing up, and everything in my life seemed
to be pre planned. One wasn't planned, however, was the
song z outro That part had never existed until after
they were finished recording the song in the studio, and
the band just kept on playing. Basically, it seems like
Tony just started playing this dude ref and the Authers
(22:37):
joined in, so they kept going and aughtately decided to
keep the product of their impromptu jam, eventually overdombing it
with an acoustic guitar to flesh it out a bit more. Now,
while this initial stretch of the album contained some of
Sabbath's most beloved tracks, the rest, to me at least,
feels like much more of a mixed bag. For example, Meglomania,
in which, according to Geezer, was quote based on a
(22:59):
rare or when experience I had. I stayed up all
night looking in the mirror. I was God and my
reflection was the devil. It was the battle the two
biggest egos in the universe. Unfortunately I don't remember the
outcome now. For me, the first half of the song
is fascinating as it creates this really cool, eerie atmosphere.
The second half, though, feels almost generic in comparison. It
(23:22):
just has this tone and vibe that I more associate
with Judas Priest, which admittedly might not be accurate, as
I am not super familiar with that band. That being said,
thoughly thing you always have to keep in mind when
looking back at these older albums is whether something sounds
generic because it was at the time or because other
bands subsequently took this idea and ran with it, and
(23:43):
you're actually looking at the point of innovation. Speaking of
being innovative, the instrumental Superizar belied the idea that they
were just looking to make a straight ahead rock record,
as it's more in the vein of the kind of
experimentation they were pursuing on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Instead, i
only started crafting the song when he was toying around
with a melotron, using it to create choir sounds, and
(24:03):
it was only after he started writing these choir parts
that Naomi thought of adding a heavy guitar line to
accompany them. Yet, while he started out using a melatron
to write this piece, Iomi, who was really intrigued by
what he was creating, decided that he wanted to use
a real choir instead of relying on the pre recorded
melotron tones, So they both the London Philharmonic Choir to
perform a drummer bill were described as a quote demonic chant.
(24:27):
Now Ozzie perhaps because he wasn't performing on the track,
wasn't kept a breast of the situation, or alternatively, he
simply wasn't paying attention when bringing in a choir was
talked about. Regardless, he was quite surprised when he walked
into the studio one day to find a literal choir
getting ready to perform. Indeed, he thought he walked into
the wrong studio when he found so many people in
(24:47):
there that he didn't know. Meanwhile, in addition to the choir,
they also brought a woman and who played the harp,
because Iomi had a harp at home and had played
around with it and originally constructing the rough idea for
the song. Again, though he had a very bare bones
understanding of the instrument, and so when asked to give
her an idea what he wanted, he presented the simplicic
idea he had, fully intending her to simply play that.
(25:09):
The woman, however, thinking it was just giving her the
basic outline of what he wanted, responded by playing a
much fuller and more complex idea to which i Owe
me Feeling embarrassed, readily agreed that yes, that was his
vision all along. Meanwhile, in addition to the heavy guitar line,
the fifty piece choir and the harpist, bill Ward was
super excited to add a whole bunch of different percussive instruments,
(25:31):
from tubular bells who vibes, to the glockenspiel to the
ambitious piece. In the midst of all this, however, Ward
would wake up one night in this hotel room in
incredible pain, stating later that quote, I managed to crawl
out my room, crawl down the corner and bang on
his door. AZ got me strained out, But then again
he always would anyway. He knew that I was in trouble,
(25:52):
so he got the doctor immediately. Bill Ward would be
diagnosed with a mild heart attack, which, as doctors believe,
was the result of his heavy drinking, and thus told
the drunker that he needed to take it easy for
a while. Ward then quote took a thirty day break
de talked a bit from the Booze before ultimately going
back to the studio to finish up work on the album,
(26:12):
as he did not want someone else to fill in
for him. As to the man who had made sure
he got to the hospital. Ozzy, on watching Superzar being recorded,
would compare it to quote a noise like God conducting
the soundtrack to the End of the World. However, while
Ozzie would not have much of a hand in the
creation of this particular song, am I Going Insaying was
the product of Ozzy playing around with his moog the
(26:33):
singer after all, and apparently become quite obsessed with the synth,
to the point that, according to Bill Ward quote Oz
drove us all nuts with that moog thing. The product
of Ozzie's obsession, however, was not exactly well received by
the fans. Indeed, many saw it as a naked attempt
to get radio airplay, with many assuming that the addendum
of radio and parentheses at the end of the tunnel
(26:55):
had accidentally been left in, further indicating that the track
was calculatingly designed to be a single that was meant
for release on the radio. However, even though am I
Going Insane would prove to be the album's lone and
unsuccessful single, the reality was radio in this case was
a reference to British rhyming signing, where radio rental equates
to mental Yet, despite the non exactly enthusiastic response from
(27:18):
the fans. Drummer Bill Ward looks back at this song
affectionately stating that it was quote great and in hindsight
it was a kind of precursor for his solo career.
His personality was blooming on this song, which for me
puts it in kind of a similar place as Maglomania,
where I'm not exactly a fan of the composition because
it doesn't really feel a lot like Black Sabbath. But
(27:39):
for that very same reason, I am curious as to
how much it predicts his solo career as someone who
again is to only unfamiliar with his solo output. Meanwhile,
for as much as fans kind of assumed that this
was a calculated song only meant to act as a single,
the fact of the matter was, as Geezer Butler points out,
Ozzie's lyrics and that song were very autobiographical nature, as
(28:01):
he very much seems to have been struggling with his
mental health and trying to come to terms with the
life he currently found themselves in. This album wasn't the
only song on Sabotage and Ozzie would provide lyrics for,
as he would also provide the words for the album's
final track, of the Wrint, and in doing so also
pull from real life. Indeed, the title the track was
actually a reference to the time when a lawyer representing
(28:22):
there soon to be former manager Patrick Meehan arrived in
a studio while they were working on the album, where,
according to engineer Mike Bludger, quote some guy walked in
and said black Sabbath, and Tony said yeah. The guy
said I have something for you and gave him a writ.
The song then was all about their anger, their rage,
and their frustration with Patrick Meehan. Ozzy poured all his
(28:44):
feelings into this song, with lines like quote you bought
and sold me with your lying words, all the promises
that never came true. You're going to get what's coming
to you? Are you satan? Are you man? You've changed
a lon since it beinggan? And rob the dead. They
don't feel a thing living for another day, all being
directed at their former manager. For Ozzie, then, this process
(29:06):
of writing and singing these lyrics was almost therapeutic, describing
it as being quote a bit like seeing a shrink.
All the anger I fell towards in the hand came
pouring out. Then, once he was done inventing this venom
toward the man who had betrayed them all, Ozzie let
go of that rage and instead gave voice the idea
of hope and that everything was going to turn out
fine in the end. The song is also notable for
(29:28):
its intro, which features a mixture of laughter and strange
sounding cries, with the laughter actually being a compliment of
a friend of Geezer's who was visiting it from Australia,
who he describes as being a quote complete nutter, while
the crying sounds actually came from a mysterious tape that
engineer Mike Butcher found lying around the studio one day.
Curious as to what this mnable tape could be, the
(29:48):
engineer plugged it in, only to discover that it was
the recording of a baby crying, a recording that while
he never discovered its origin, he did find that when
he played it at half speed, it took on a
really weird, other worldly quality. Now, while the writ is
the last official song on the album, Sabotage does not
necessarily end with this final statement against her soon to
(30:09):
be former manager. Instead, it ends with an odd little
number that was the byproduct of two members of the
band having some drunken fun while in the studio one night,
not realizing that Mike Butcher was secretly recording their antics.
As according to Bill Ward, the song in question, blow
Your Jug was quote a drunken song that Ozzie and
me would sing together in a vanner on a plane.
(30:29):
That's me on piano and Ozzie blowing on one of
those brown cider jugs, playing it like a tuba. The
thing is, for as much as this little scene seems
to indicate that the band was still as close a
band of friends, and indeed, for as much as the
group might have been united by their anger for me
Han in the soul situation, the fact of the matter
was they were starting to come apart at these seams,
with one of the biggest problems involving Ozzie himself. As
(30:52):
one of the reasons why Ozzie in retrospect felt that
he should have walked away after the recording of Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath was because it was here where his drug
use really started the spiral out of control, with part
of the problem originating from the fact that when it
came to the recording process. Once Ozzie was done with
his vocal tracks, he had nothing else to do, while
the others spent ample amounts of time on various overdubs,
(31:15):
making various tweaks to their parts, and just mixing the album,
during which time Ozzie, who was very easily bored, had
nothing else to do but more and more drugs. Indeed,
Ozzy purr his own book and miss it. He never
really could do the whole studio thing. He just wasn't
built for all the winning around and agonizing over every
little detail. Instead quote, once I've done my thing, I
(31:36):
had to get out into the fresh air. Just did
not have the patience for that kind of focused, time
consuming work. And it wasn't just in the studio either,
as Iomi would talk about how whenever they had meetings
concerning their legal slash management situation, Ozzie could never sit still.
He would walk off, come back and be like, Okay,
we're done now, right, when in reality they had just
(31:57):
barely gotten started. Face with the boredom a studio work,
Ozzie looked to occupy his mind more and more with drugs.
Wedge led him the doing things that he was not
proud of. My quote pulling a gun at Bill while
I was having a bad acid trip at Bullrush Cottage.
The gun wasn't loaded, but he didn't know that, and
I didn't tell him. It was very cool about it
(32:18):
at the time, but we've never talked about it since,
which means it was probably quite a big deal. It
was more than just a way he treated his bandmates, though,
as quote, I hid Thelma too, which is probably the
worst thing I ever did in my life. I started
to get overpowering with her, and the poor woman must
have been framed to death. What made it even worse
(32:38):
was that we just had her second kid, little Lewis.
Thelmo really suffered with me, you know, and I really
regret that. In addition to Ozzie's worsening substance abuse and
the behavior that came along with it, there were also
increasing tensions between the band members. For example, Iaomi was
still frustrated with the fact that he was consistently being
left to do the majority of the work in the studio,
(32:59):
while Geezer would get anoyed with Ozzie for always asking
him to come up with lyrics for him. Really, though,
at the core of their issues was the fact that,
according to Ozzie, quote, one reason that we weren't getting
on so well is that we all started to develop
these coked up rockstar egos. They had all experienced tremendous
amounts of success and their heads had all gone swollen
as a result. Plus it also didn't help matters that
(33:21):
they really didn't hang out together anymore. As according to
Ozzie in the Old Days quote, whenever we arrived in
a new place for a gig, we'd walk around the
town like a little gang, trying up the pubs and clubs,
hitting on chicks, getting pissed. But as time went on,
we saw less and less of each other. Basically the
fact that the matter was, according to Ozzie quote, after
(33:41):
all that time on the road, we just had enough
of each other's company. But when we didn't spend any
time together, all our problems grew in our heads and
we stopped communicating, which only led to new problems, like
who should be featured center stage more Ozzie the lead singer,
or Tony Iomi, the band's leader and main creative force,
who more often than not recently have been left to
(34:02):
make their albums by himself. This disagreement, however, was more
of a symptom of the larger rift that was forming
between the two, a rift which was partially based on
the fact that Iomi, as we've seen in these last
couple of episodes, wanted to expand and do more and
different things, while Ozzie apparently wanted to focus more on
the kind of music that had gotten them to that
point now was not always so inclear and simple, as
(34:24):
Iomi Woodstone naturally write classic Black Sabbath style riffs, while
Ozzie would introduce ideas like am I Going Insane? Which
was not a traditional Sabbath style song by any stretch,
but it was a bit of an ongoing point of
tension between them, which, in addition to everything else they
were dealing with, meantan according to Geezer quote, we were
burned out by the time the album was finished. Now.
(34:46):
As for the album's somewhat infamous cover, according to Bill
mood And was the work of him and his drum
manager at the time, Graham Right, as they together took
charge of designing the album's artwork, as this was yet
another aspect of their prison that the group felt comfortable
taking control of now that they had been doing this
whole thing for a while now. While I only claims
(35:07):
that he was the one who had the idea for
them to all stand in front of a mirror that
reflected their images back the wrong way, however, it seems
that everything beyond that basic idea was not planned, meaning
that Ward and Ozzie's more questionable outfit choices were completely
of their own making and more or less a product
of showing up and not having an idea of what
to wear for the photo shoot, with Bill Ward admitting
(35:29):
that quote, somebody wanted us to post for that picture
and were useless of doing that kind of stuff. I
can't talk for the others, but it feels real uncomfortable,
a feeling which was in star contrast to how he
felt about the album itself. As Ward would later stay quote,
I was really really happy with writing. I think we
were expanding, allowing ourselves to expand becoming really long way
(35:50):
from the song Black Sabbath. As great as that song is,
I thought the richness of what we were doing on
Sabotage was brilliant. The public's reaction, though, wasn't quite so strong.
When Sabotage was released only twenty seventh of June nineteen
seventy five, it peaked at seven in the UK, while
it only made it to twenty eight in the US,
thereby breaking their streak of four straight top twenty albums. Still,
(36:12):
Rolling Stone, which used to be among their harshest critics,
would declare, per reviewer Billy Altman, quote, Sabotage is not
only Black Sabbath's best record since Paranoid, it might be
their best ever. While in contrast, the British press very
much continued to revile Sabbath, with mcwarren of New Musical
Express or NM, a British magazine running quote, this isn't psychodrama,
(36:35):
It's an amusement park ghost train. Its the same cheap,
lowest common denominator, dubious thrill quotient. While totally lacking the
kind of gaudy innocence that might make it redeemingly charming,
it's also highly successful and probably causes brain damage. Can
I please take it off now? As for their issues
concerning Patrick Meehan, it ultimately cost a band quite a
(36:55):
bit to make him their former manager. Indeed, according to Geezer,
quote we had to pay him to get out of
our contract, but it was more than that. As quote,
it cost us thousands of dollars of lawyer's bill, and
then we got a huge tax bill. The money, though,
was only a part of the cost, as according to
drummer Bill Ward, the whole experience had quote changed us.
(37:17):
I have no doubts about that. Now. The band was
not exactly excited to get into bed with new management,
considering all they had been through, so in the short
term they loved to manage themselves, before hiring a former
Mehan employee named Mark Foster to run the day to
day business side of things while keeping ultimate control for themselves.
The unattended consequence of this, however, was that without any
(37:39):
kind of mediating influence to act as a go between
or as a way of keeping all the band members
on the same page, they started to drift further and
further apart, as due to the stress, the exhaustion and
all the drugs, they were no longer the same four
guys who had first come together some seven years earlier,
with Geezer noting that at this point quote the band
was to sintegrate it things that would really start to
(38:01):
fall apart from here on out, but the original lineup
would press on for two more less and well received
albums before ultimately admitting the obvious. However, that next chapter
in Artel will have to for now remain a story
for another time. Thank you for listening to Distorted History.
(38:22):
If you would like to help out, please rate and
review the podcasts and tell your friends if you think
they'll be interested. If you would like ad free in
early episodes, I set up such a feed over at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By paying ten bucks
a month, you will gain access to the special ad
free feed available on Spotify or likely through your podcast
app as long as it uses an RSS feed. I
(38:44):
will continue to post sources on kofe and Twitter, though,
as it's just a convenient place to go to access
that information regardless. Once again, thank you for listening, and
until next time is Inla
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