March 13, 2026 • 38 mins
Feeling the pressure to surpass the somewhat disappointing Vol. 4 Black Sabbath contends with a serious case of writers block and some not so supernatural shenanigans in a spooky English castle.
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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 give you many names,
and you're a blacker. Hey look, I'm Raisling. I'm got
(00:24):
the barah. A long struggle for freedom, it really is
a revolution. Welcome to this month's episode of Sound Stories,
in which I'll be continuing our miniseries concerning the gradual
dissolution of the original Black Sabbath lineup. Now. Last time,
(00:47):
as I covered the story behind the band's fourth album,
we saw cracks beginning the form of the once united
unit as does some degree rockstar access, namely a lot
of drinking and a just unfathomable amount of cocaine. So
to do cost issues within the band, mainly in the
form of guitarist and essential band leader Tonyaomi more or
less being abandoned by his fellow bandmates to just come
(01:09):
up with a new music by himself, a situation that
Iomi did not appreciate because it put undue pressure on
him and because he seemed to work best when he
had people to bounce ideas off of. Meanwhile, in addition
to these issues and excesses, there was also the just
unrelenting and exhausting schedule that they had been subjected to
from even before the release of their first album, as
(01:30):
it had been nears of basically non stop touring, broken
up only by a brief visit to the studio to
record an album, which was then found basically immediately by
more NonStop touring. It was all too much, and by
this point it seems that the only thing that was
keeping them going was the aforementioned unfathomable amounts of coke,
a situation which ultimately resulted in Tonyaomi literally collapsing at
(01:52):
the end of a gig at the Hollywood Bowl, which
is where we left off our story last time. Yet
before I pick up that dangling thread and eventually move
into the story of the creation of their next album,
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. First, like always, I want to give
credit to my sources, which include Paul Wilkinson's Rat Salad
Black Sabbathy Classic Years nineteen sixteen nineteen nineteen seventy five,
(02:14):
Dave Marsh and Mike Stark's Black Sabbath and Oral History,
Mick Wall's Black Sabbath Symptom of the Universe, Ozzy Osbourne's
I Am Ozzy, and Tony Omy's IRONMN My journey through
Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, In addition to articles
by Mick Wall, Greg Prado, Scott Penfeld, Edward Rivedavia, Justin Norton,
James Trafford, John Wadhorn, and Tom Fordham links to all
(02:36):
of which can be found on this podcast, Blue Sky
and Covey pages. Plus for anyone who doesn't want to
be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always an ad
free feed available to subscribers at patreon dot com Slash
Distorted History. And with all that being said, let's begin.
Iomi had collapsed only fifteenth of September nineteen seventy two
after playing a show at the Hollywood Bawl. This had
(02:57):
been the next last show of another long and gruel
toward the US, but due to this medical emergency, the
next and final date of the tour is canceled as
AAOMI is sent home to rest. The guitarist in the
rest of the banner, then given four months to try
and recover before heading off on yet another tour in
January nineteen seventy three, this time heading to Australia. Now,
(03:18):
in theory, this wasn't supposed to be a full resumption
of their own touring ways. After all, they had just
been shown their limits in dramatic fashion. Plus, Ozzy was
actually trying to be at least a little responsible, given
that he was married and had two children at this point.
He then understood that he should kind of be around
more to actually try to be a husband and a father.
Although this understanding than not necessarily quit to Ozzy being
(03:41):
a good present parent by his own admission, indeed, he
admitted to even when he was around too rarely sleeping
in his own bed. As you see, he would get
so drunk on a nightly basis that he often couldn't
even make it up the stairs, so he would end
up sleeping in the car, under the piano in the
living room, or even outside in a bill of hay. Still,
though the fact of the matter was there was a
(04:01):
push for a less extreme touring schedule. Yet, following their
tour of Australia, Sabbath would undertake a two months tour
of Europe and England, which, while not as bad as
the extended tours of the US that they had been doing,
would still consist of twenty five shows over a thirty
two day period, a stretch that left everyone exhausted and
running primarily on some combination of drugs ranging from coke
(04:22):
to weed to speed to even acid plus various pills,
and also apparently enter the rotation with Ossi, in particular
omitting to taking handfuls of barbituates and antidepressants. So with
a situation that can best be described as not good
the band, despite the label believing that another tour of
the US and support of Volume four would be enough
to push it from gold status in the Plantinum territory,
(04:45):
they opted instead to quietly cancel set upcoming tour, which
meant they wouldn't have to get back on the road
until December. However, they weren't planning on being idle, as
the band intended to take an advantage of this time off
by recording their next album, and to do so decided
to return to the exact same environment that it helped
to give birth the Volume four. Indeed, they rented out
(05:06):
the same mansion, planned to work out of the same studio,
and even caught up these same drug dealers to make
sure they were just as well supplied with whatever they
desired during their time in LA. There was, however, one
significant difference between this time and the last, as there
was now considerably more pressure from both external and internal
sources to write a classic album to begin with. These
(05:27):
sales from Volume four while Good had not exactly lived
up to the heights of their previous efforts, in fact
that it failed to match the success of both Master
of Reality and Paranoid. So while their popularity and their
sales had been in a consistently upper trajectory through their
first three albums, that had changed with Volume four, which
was especially worrying for Iomi, as while he now had
(05:48):
the nice, big house that he had wanted, he was
not content, stating quote, I have a big house with
a swimming pool now, but a one one with a
tennis court and a studio, so I have everything in
house and don't have to go out at all. Mean,
while Tony Barticklar seems to have been bothered by the
fact that they did not receive the respect that they
had earned, especially from the music press. Indeed, in one
(06:10):
interview he would state that quote on drawing power and
album sales, we can compare with groups like Zeppelin and
The Who, although we seldom get recognition for the fact. Iomi,
though wanted more than just recognition for their impressive sales figures,
as he also wanted to be taken more seriously as
an artist and a musician. This is especially notable because
this was around the time when bands were becoming more
(06:31):
and more ambitious in terms of what they were creating.
In fact, nineteen seventy three alone would see the release
of ambitious concept albums by bands like Yes with their
Tales from Topographic Oceans, The Who, Squadrophenia, and of course
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Meanwhile, for as
much as Iomi could point to how successful Sabbath was
on their bands started to catch up and even surpass them. Yes,
(06:53):
for example, had opened for Sabbath just a few years earlier,
and now we're out selling them by more than double
the amount. And there was Deep Purple, whose Sabbath had
always comfortably beaten album sales, but who had now started
to surpass them as well. Pluster was also the emerging
glam rock movement, as demonstrated by the lacks of Bowie
and Roxy Music, who were starting to catch on as well.
(07:13):
The fear then was and while other bands had evolved
over the years, Sabbath had stayed too stuck in their ways,
and the record buying public had started to catch on
as why by another album from Sabbath if it was
just going to be more of what they had already done,
when you could instead spend your money on a band
that was continuing to push their own boundaries. In fact,
Iomi would cancel the release of a live album that
(07:35):
they had already recorded because it simply did not live
up to the evolving vision of the band that he
wanted to present, a move which, by the way, deeply
bothered their manager Patrick Meehan as that many potential loss
of millions of dollars. Iomi, though, did not care about
such potential losses. Instead, he was more concerned with demonstrating
that Sabbath was just as capable of pushing the boundaries
(07:56):
as anyone else, and the fact of the matter was
a live album would have been just more of the
same old stuff. It wasn't due to all these issues,
the flagging sales, the fear of other bands are passing them,
and the desire to be more respected as a musician
and an artist, that nay Tony really wanted to push
their limits with their upcoming record. He really wanted to
make something more ambitious than anything they had attempted in
(08:19):
the past to that point. He wanted to focus more
on crafting songs for the record, perfecting and improving them
as much as possible, and then worrying about how they
were going to reproduce them live later. So with this
in mind, Sabbath and Iomi in particular looked to get
to work. However, it soon became obviously what it seemed
to have worked so well in the past was not
working now. After all, they had the same mansion, these
(08:41):
same drugs, and the same atmosphere that had helped them
produce Volume four, and yet they could not seem to
come up with anything. Indeed, Tony's entire approach to writing,
which had gotten them this far and produced four pretty
successful albums, was inexplicably not working. Per Iomi quote, it
became a ritual every time we doing now, but we'd
get a load of dope and then some coke and
(09:02):
off we'd go. We'd be there all bloody night writing stuff,
and i never used to want to leave the studio
this time. However, despite marathon thirty six hour stays in
the Record Plant studio, Iomi still had nothing now to
be fairy unlikely. Didn't help matters that the record plan
was not quite the same studio that they had recorded
Volume four in, as their favorite room in the studio
(09:24):
had been shrunk considerably thanks to the move that had
been installed in there. For Stevie Wonder still, the most
important thing was per Iomi quote, we just dried up.
It all just felt the pieces for us. It also
didn't help that quote. Everybody was sitting there winning for
me to come up with something. I just couldn't think
of anything, which was only made more frustrating by the
(09:46):
fact that it seemed like he was the only one
bothered by the situation, later stating that quote, I felt
that most of the time everybody was dying to go
down to the pub instead of working at the songs.
But you need to get stuff done. It's quite easy
to sit around telling jokes and boozing, but the money
is going out the window like this, sitting in some
studio for bloody two granted day or whatever it was.
(10:07):
So I was really aware of that. The biggest issue though,
was that since it seemed that once again it was
all on Iomi to come up with something, then only
made things harder for the guitarist as quote, if you
have no one to bounce ideas off of, it becomes
almost impossible. And I didn't have that anymore. In the
early days when we jammed, I come up with riffs
and everybody would be enthusiastic putting stuff in. Without anyone
(10:30):
else to play off of, Iomi just found himself struggling
all the more. He just couldn't see them come up
with anything. No songs, no riffs, not even idea of
where to start, which was likely some combination of frustrating
and frightening, as according to Iomi himself, quote, it was
the first time in my life I'd ever had writer's block,
And basically everyone used to wait around until I came
(10:52):
up with a riff and then we'd work from there.
But nothing was coming with Geezer Butler primarily attributing this
creative dry spell to their reality that they were all
simply exhausted at this point. Whatever the cause, though, this situation,
and especially the frustrations that Iomi was experiencing due to
this writer's block, only served to increase the tensions within
the group that was already quietly beginning to split, as
(11:14):
factions were forming within one had once been a fairly
cohesive unit. For example, while on the road, they were
increasingly not doing things together as a group. Instead, more
and more often it was Bill Warden Ossi teaming up,
primarily because they aligned getting stoned and drunk and just
being as wild and destructive as possible. Meanwhile, Tony and
Keeez are the main creative forces in the band, tended
(11:36):
to be more quiet and personal while also consuming copious
amounts of drugs and booze. Basically, they were all getting
wasted on various substances. It's just that half the group
like being wild and out of control and more in
public when they did so, and the other half didn't. Basically,
they were all getting wasted on various substances. It's just
that half the group like getting wild and out of
(11:56):
control and more in public when they did so, and
the other half didn't. With Iowei noting that quote, I
tried not to get involved with the partying so much.
We used to say, in these POxy hotels where you
could hear everything through the walls, I often heard people
screaming and smoking dope and having a good time. But
I thought that if I went and joined them, we'd
all be in the same boat, so I didn't Somebody
(12:18):
had to be in control of something went wrong. If
I had become the same, nobody would have listened to
me anymore. I think you have to maintain some sort
of separation. The thing was, while this maintained Iowei's position
of authority within the band, it also seemingly ensured that
they also looked to him for direction when it came
time to make an album, which then led to the
situation where quote, everybody was sitting there waiting for me
(12:41):
to come up with something. I just couldn't think of anything,
and if I didn't come up with anything, nobody would
do anything. Tony eventually grew so frustrated and desperate, then
what I assume was an affortude changed things up. One day,
he just had his long hair cut off, which he
then followed up by shaving off his mustache, basically just
completely changing his look in one fell swoop. Yet, even
(13:04):
these drastic changes and left him nearly unrecognizable to the
rest of the band still couldnot shake him and them
out of their funk. So with the writer's box still
firmly in place, Iomi decided that it was time to
quit La and head back to England to start over.
(13:30):
After their failed stay in La, where they did everything
possible to recreate the atmosphere that had given birth the
volume four, Black Sabbath headed home, where they then took
a few weeks off to try and clear their heads
and recharge, during which time the fade of Black Sabbath
seemingly hung in the balance, as there was a lingering
fear that their run had come to an end. Indeed,
Iomi recalls both Geezer and Ozzie talking like it was over,
(13:54):
with Ozzie noting in his biography quote, we were terrified
of becoming one of those bands who started off with
a few albums that people thought were amazing, only to
follow them up with one Turred after another. None of
us could really believe how our lives had changed since
coming back from the Star Club in nineteen sixty nine.
I think we all expected to wake up one day
and find that it was all over, that our little
(14:15):
scam had been exposed, which was alarming as that one
the men he had lost everything. Iomi, though, wasn't ready
to call it quits, so they tried again, this time
gathering at clear Roll Castle, which was located in the
Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The clear Roll Castle was
a new Gothic style structure that had been built in
seventeen twenty eight by Thomas Wyndham, a member of Parliament. Basically,
(14:38):
it's like a large three story house that looks like
a prototypical castle. The structure had then subsequently been restored
in the nineteen fifties by one Frank Yeats, who, before
his death in nineteen seventy three, installed with Indy Castle
a rehearsal room and a basement recording studio. As he
recognized he tried among the rock stars of the day
was to record in such locales. Black Sabbath fittingly would
(14:59):
be the first band to take advantage of this location,
but in the years to come, bands like Mati Hoopel,
Bad Company, Deep Purple and led Zeppelin would all also
take up temporary residence within the castle. Most importantly, for Sabbathy,
Castle and the surrounding countryside offered them a completely different
vibe than Sunny La. In fact, if anything, the gray
English climate and the Gothic stylings of the castle were
(15:22):
a better fit for the band's whole vibe, with Iomi,
noting that quote everything in this place was dismal, especially
its dungeons. It was really creepy down there. It was
a big space with an armory, another room with something
else in it, and a lounge. We said our Europe
there and tried to get a vibe, which they most
certainly got, as during their early days of rehearsing, the
(15:43):
group will reportedly see what is described as a shuddery
robed or quote figure hurry passed during the castle's basement
or dungeon. Now, their first instinct was that this had
to be some potentially dangerous quote unquote fan or a
religious nut who believed in the b Satanic as the
band had after all, attracted such figures. In fact, in
the past they had people show up at their hotels
(16:04):
wearing black robes and lighting candles. However, the worst incident
happened on the night when they showed up in an
open air gig and found a red cross painted on
the door to their dressing room, which was strange, but
they just brushed it off and went on with the show,
during which due to his gear acting up, Iomi started
walking off stage and frustration. It was at this point
that a man, all dressed in black, came up behind
(16:26):
the unaware guitarist. The man had somehow gone past security
and now pulled out a dagger, apparently intent on stabbing Iomi. Indeed,
as it would turn out, this man was a religious
freak who was determined to kill at least one of
the members of the band, and in fact had been
the one who had painted the cross on their door
using his own blood. Thankfully, though, security redeemed themselves by
(16:47):
tackling the dangerous man and preventing him from carrying out
his plan, all of which Iomi was completely unaware of.
He had been so wrapped up in his gear mouthfunctioning
that he missed the whole thing and only learned of
what happened when the rest of the band joined him
in their dressing room and filled him in. So. Upon
seeing what appeared to be a dark room figure in
the basement of the Clear World Castle, Iomi in one
(17:08):
of their roadies, immediately took off in pursuit, chasing the
figure into a room, only to find that there was
nobody there, which was supprising as per Iomi quote, there
was no way out or anything, no other door. Unable
to make sense of what they had seen. When they
next spoke with the owner of the castle, they asked
if there was anyone else staying there, thinking perhaps that
(17:30):
could at least explain seeing someone wandering around. The owner,
though insisted that no one else was staying there, but
upon being told of what they had seen, replied casually quote, oh,
that's just the ghost, as what the band had not
known was that the castle was reportedly haunted by several spirits,
including a female ghost that sings lawbies to her child
and messes up locked rooms. Upon learning of the supposed haunting,
(17:53):
the band then took advantage of the spooky atmosphere to
play pranks on one another. Ozzy was apparently the one
the star thing off, as he had discovered that their
A track machine lade loud, chunky and clicking noises when
it reached the end of the tape, an effect there
was only amplified by the stone walls of the castle
that the noises echoed off of. Ozzy then took the
A track and set it to play, but turned the
(18:15):
volume all the way down so that you couldn't actually
hear the music it was playing. The singer then hit
the contraption under Iomi's bed when they were getting ready
to turn in for the night. The guitarists then had
no warning when all of a sudden, as he was
laying in bed, a loud clunking and clicking sound started
coming out of nowhere. Understandably alarmed by this inexplicable occurrence,
Tony let out a scream and sprinted out of his room,
(18:36):
shutting quote, there's something in my fucking room, over and over,
and Tony spotted Ozzy nearby and laughing his ass off. Iomi, meanwhile,
would have his own fun in the house at other's expense.
For example, their roadie Luke, was staying in a room
in the castle that had a model ship setting only
meant all the fireplace, which gave Iomi an idea. So
he got some fishing line and started attaching it to
(18:57):
the model ship, and while he was there, he also
attached some fishing line to the curtains of the bed
as well the guitars, and hid the various links of
fishing line under the carpet and ran it all out
of the room. Then, once all of his preparations were made,
all Iomi had to do was wait until Luke went
to bed and which point Iomi outside in the hallway,
gathered up the ends of the fishing lines and began
(19:17):
manipulating the bed curtains and the model ship. Meanwhile, Insigne
Luke as the various objects in his room all apparently
started moving about on their own, started freaking out, and
actually bolted from the room, only to immediately encountered Iomi
standing outside with various fishing lines in hand. Then, one day,
as Bill and Geezer were returning to the Castle after
visiting a local pub, they spotted what looked to be
(19:39):
a woman's body thrown out through a window on the
third floor, a sight which, according to Ozzie, caused the
pair to quote almost shit their pants. In fact, in
his estimation, quote Bill landed so fast up the driveway
he must have broken the land speed record. What they
had seen, though, wasn't some supernatural occurrence body dressmaker's dummy
(19:59):
that i Owe he had put a wig on and
thrown out a third story window when he saw the
pair walking up the driveway. This, however, was far from
the only prank that Ward would suffer while at the castle.
For example, one time, while the drummer Lee passed out
on the sofa, from drinking too much. The others grabbed
a hold of a full length mirror and held it
suspended above his sleeping form, at which point they prodded
(20:20):
Ward and tilea woke and in his inebriated state, came
face to face with himself, a sight which apparently freed
the drummer out to no end, as according to Ozzie
quote to this day, I've never heard a grown man
scream so loud. He must have thought he had woken
up in hell. The thing was all this was starting
to have an effect on Ward and on the others.
As Ozzie would later admit that quote, we weren't so
(20:42):
much the lords of darkness as the lords of chicken
shit when it came to that kind of thing, as
they were all more on edge and freaked out than anything. Now,
whether this was simply the result of their various pranks,
a product of their imagination, or if there were actually
inexplicable things happening, we don't know. Although it probably didn't
help their state up mind was that they seemed to
directly hold seances while staying in the castle, which didn't
(21:04):
help blessen the spooky atmosphere, largely because none of them
could tell during these seances if one of them was
manipulating the objects or if something paranormal was actually happening.
Either way, things eventually got to the point that bill
Ward was so unnerved by everything that was going on
that he started sleeping with a dagger to protect himself. Meanwhile,
there would also be some actually dangerous incidents that took
(21:25):
place during their stay, the most notable one being the
time that Ozzie fell asleep in front of the fireplace.
As Ozzie apparently had a bad habit of stoking the
fire ulpril high. In fact, he had caught his own
chimney on fire and nearly burnt his own house down
doing that same thing. This time, though, after he stoke
the fire uprial high and passed out, a stray amber
fell out onto the rug, which soon caught fire, a
(21:47):
fire which started to spread and thrown to ignite the
sleeping singer as well. Luckily for Ozzie, though, only smell
of smoke alerted the others in the castle that something
was wrong, and which point, according to Iomi quote, we
came in and he was spark out on the couch
and about to burn and death. The band and their
road crew then quickly sent about putting out the flames
before they could consume their singer. Yet even with this
(22:08):
new spooky environment, the band, upon arriving Stole struggle to
come up with something new to match Iomi's expanding vision
for the band. Desperate for inspiration, they searched for different
sounds to give them an idea and or to add
more depth to their music. They then experimented with all
kinds of ways to create unique sounds, which included, according
to Iomi quote, trying things going off the piano into
(22:30):
the piano, and then mocking up the piano strings to
hear different sounds. He also brought in various non traditional
rock instruments to try out, while Bill Warn't got in
on the act by taking an anvil that he found
on the grounds and recording the sound that was created
when he dropped it into a barrel of water. Yet
for all this, they were still coming up empty until
one day Tony started playing what would become the main
(22:52):
riff for Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, and it was light, the
clouds parted, and all was right with the world. According
to Geezer quote, were in a terrible sump. We were
all exhausted from touring and we weren't getting on very well.
Then Tony came up with the riff for Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath,
and everybody sparked a life. Now. Ozzie would actually credit
the Dutch band Golden Earring for providing the inspiration for
(23:14):
this breakthrough, as it was just a few days prior
to this moment that they had been listening to Golden
Earrings moutan yet regardless of one finally did it. According
to Gezer quote, when Tony came up with the riff
to Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, it was almost like seeing your
first child being born. It was the end of our
musical drought, the beginning of our new direction and affirmation
(23:35):
of life, and meant the band had a present and
a future again. As for all their quiet fears that
the band's run might have come to an end, the
birth of this riff was a sign that they still
had music left in them. It also wasn't just Diomi's
initial riff either, as the song apparently came together almost
immediately and experienced that Geezer were compared to their writing
(23:56):
of Paranoid, where the song just seemed to come together naturally.
As according to the Bassis quote, Tony started playing Sabbath,
Bloody Sabbath the main ref me and Bill just came
in on bass and drums. We just played together and
the whole thing just materialized. All in all, the songs
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath feels kind of like a demonstration or
a summation of what the band does and is capable of,
(24:18):
as it goes from your classic heavy Sabbath style ref
to star things Off, which is then set against the
softer acoustic, almost jazzy section before going into the final
outro jam, all of which are foundational pieces of Sabbaths.
Overall sound the song is a representation of the banded
self extends to the lyrics, as Geezer himself would say
that they were quote about the Sabbath experience, the ups
(24:41):
and downs, the good times and the bad times, the ripoffs,
the business side of it all. Most specifically, there were
quote directed at the critics, the record business in general,
the lawyers, the accountants, management, and everyone who was trying
to cash in on us. It was a back to
the wall rant at everyone. In particular, quote was about
the attitude of certain people, the British press and people
(25:03):
like that, you know, really slagging on us and everything
and doing many tours. All the glamorous thing was all over.
We found out what it's like to be a rock star,
which is just the same thing as being an ordinary person.
The glamorous thing was all gone for us, and it
had been beamed out of us by then. Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath is just our attitude toward the music business, the
business side of things. Meanwhile, for as much doubt, frustration
(25:26):
and division within the group which had crapped up dude
to Iomi's period of writer's block, once inspiration finally struck
again and they all got back to work, it seems
like everything was pretty copasetic within the band. Indeed, according
to Iomi quote, we'd done what we always do, We
go to a studio Mocker sels In and record the album.
Everything seemed to go all right on that album. I
(25:47):
think we didn't have all the problems we had with
some of the others. Additionally, as soon as the writer's
block was broken with that initial riff of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,
it seems that their creative juices were once again flowing
in full force, and songs just started pouring out. Whatever
it had been, be it stressed out, frustration or something
else that had inhibited Iomi and the others prior to this,
(26:07):
now disappeared as soon as they were able to start
working in earnest again. Then, once they had the basis
for their new songs, they took them to the nearby
Rockfield Studios to record, where Sabbath themselves officially produced it,
although they likely received a fair amount of assistance from
engineer Mike Butcher and no contributions from their manager Patrick Meehan,
despite him giving himself a producer's credit regardless. With Iomi
(26:31):
once again taking the lead in the production duties, the
ben actively looked to expand their sonic palette by utilizing
new textures and arrangements for their songs, like, for example,
the instrumental Fluff, which took Iomi's typical soft instrumental piece
and added piano and strings to his arpeggiated acoustic chorns
and lead guitar work, a piece named in honor of
Radio one DJ Allen Fluff Freeman, whose afternoon show was
(26:54):
one of the few places that they received any kind
of airplay in the UK. Indeed, Fluff not only featured
Sabbath of regularly, when he even knused Laguna's Sunrise from
Volume four as the theme for a show. Also helping
to add additional layers to the Sabbath sound was Yes
keyboard player Rick Wakeman, who joined the band in the studio.
This was a relationship that went back several years to
(27:14):
win Yes a toward Wood Sabbath, during which time Rick
ended up traveling with Sabbath more than he did with
his own band. Ricky se wasn't exactly the best fit
for the group personality wise, as the rest of the
band were vegetarian hippies who didn't drink and did yoga,
while Rick had much more in common with the wild,
heavy drinking members of Black Sabbath. In fact, he would
leave Yes completely later in that year. There was even
(27:37):
some talk about making Wakeman a full time member of Sabbath,
but by this point the keyboardist had his fill of
life on the road, a decision which would prove to
be prudent, as he would suffer a heart attack several
months after these recording sessions. As for his involvement in
the album, it seems to primarily be the result of
Ozzie inviting Rick to the studio to hear what they
were working on, during which time Ozzi tried playing for
(27:59):
Rick the melody for Sabercadabra on a synth. It was
and after watching Ozzie try to play with just one finger,
that Rick stept in and suggested it might sound better
if it was played like this, and proceeded to play
a much more complex version of what Ozzie had been attempting.
Ozzy was so impressed by what Rick had done with
his simple little melody that he asked him on the
spot if he would play on their album, which Rick
(28:21):
agreed to do as long as the paid his fee,
which was apparently a couple of cases of beer. Now,
while Rec would only initially be credited as performing on
Sabrica Debra Iomi would later admit that he also appeared
on Who Are You, and it's believed that he also
played on Spiral Architect as well as for Sabrica Daba.
Rec would add a kind of hockey talk style piano
(28:42):
to what was more of a strait of rock song
than what would typically appear on a Sabbath record. Really,
it's more or less just a bog standard blues rock song,
as it's basically just about a woman and sex without
any kind of Sabbath's usual supernatural drapery. It's simply not
really the kind of piece that Sabbath typically did, and really,
if anything, it feels more like a led Zeppelin song
(29:03):
than a Sabbath song. In fact, they would actually be
visited by led Zeppelin during the recording of this track,
and John Bonham, who had recently served as the best
man at Iomi's wedding, volunteered to provide the drums for
the song, but the group was worried that his unique
style would be too disruptive. Notably, Metallica, who are huge
fans of Sabbath, would choose to cover cyber Cadabra on
(29:24):
their nineteen ninety eight album Garage inc. But in doing so,
they chose to match it up with another song from
this album, a National Acrobat Speaking all the album's second track,
I feel it is a good illustration of Iomi's philosophy
for making this record, namely that their focus was on
making the sound song as good as possible now and
then worry about how they were going to reproduce them later.
(29:45):
As a big part of a national acrobat's magic, in
my opinion, comes from the harmonized guitar in vocal parts,
which would be difficult to reproduce live considering they only
had one guitarist and one vocalist. As for the lyrics,
Ozzi would describe them flippantly as a song about masturbation,
while Geezer Butler says it's a song about birth and
the process of being conceived. And they're both kind of right,
(30:07):
as it's more or less written from the perspective of
a sperm killing yourself to live. Meanwhile, as far more
personal as it was a reflection of their life on
the road. Indeed, Butler wrote the lyrics while in the
hospital for kidney problems that were the result of his
hard drinking lifestyle. Meanwhile, the song would be one that
Metallica guitarist Kerkama would point to as being incredibly influential
(30:28):
for him. Who Are You Meanwhile is a unique track
and that it was not born out of an Iomi riff,
but instead was the result of Ozzie playing around with
a Moog, a Revox tape machine and an ARP twenty
six hundred and synth. Ozzie who wasn't trained in playing
the piano in any way, then was just messing around
and trying to come up with something. Indeed, he reportedly
came up with the core three note riff one morning
(30:49):
while watching his wife cook breakfast. Ozzie then felt like
he had something, but very much wasn't confident, as he
had never done anything like this before. Bill Ward then
felt quite privileged, and he was the one that Ozzie
chose to run it by. First. Rounding out the rest
of the album was the track Looking for Today, whose
main riff is fairly upbeat and almost happy sounding, which
(31:09):
stands in stark contrast to the acoustic and melancholic chorus sections.
Then there's the album's final track, Spiral Architect, whose entry
reminds me of Macedon's Aret's Alive, which is not to
say they're actually that much alike outside of utilizing or
peggiated chords with open strings, but it wouldn't surprise me
if Macedon might have been been inspired by a Spiral Architect,
even if subconsciously. Regardless lyrically, the song revaws around Geezer,
(31:34):
playing around with the idea of things you experienced in life,
altering and changing your DNA, an idea that was apparently
influenced by his use of quote unquote certain substances. Meanwhile,
the song notably once again see Sabbath looking a stretch
beyond their previous confines, as it features the inclusion of
a string section that was arranged by Wilm alone. They
(31:54):
then hired an actual orchestra to complete their vision. However,
they quickly realized that these studios the space they were
using was too small, which then necessitated a move to
a larger studio space to complete that part of this recording.
Iomi meanwhile also had the idea of adding bagpipes to
the song. However, in doing so, he just kind of
assumed that he could play them, which definitely feels like
(32:16):
a cocaine field idea. Regardless, he had the crew by
him a set of bagpipes, but no matter how much
he tried, he could not figure out how to actually
play them. In fact, he couldn't even get them to
make any noise whatsoever, which cost him to have the
bagpipes return, believing them to be faulty in some way,
only to have the shop owner pick them up and
demonstrate that they were perfectly functional. Given this failure, than
(32:39):
Iomi more or less just abandon his plans for the bagpipes. Still, though,
Iomi would be quite proud of the album and what
they had accomplished with it, as he would say that
it had quote more class about it, more arrangements, more
shine if you like, and it's more adventurous. It was
a leap forward. We used strings and god knows what
else we really expanded. That's why for me, Sabbath Buddy
(33:00):
Sabbath was the pinnacle. With the music now all written
and recorded, the only thing left to be done was
the artwork for the album, a job that was given
to the Pacific Iroe and Ear design firm in Hollywood,
which Menho became the responsibility of the agency's soul artist.
Twenty seven year old illustrator Drew Struzan, a man who
would later find fame by providing illustrations from movie posters
(33:21):
for the lacks of the writers of the Lost Arc,
Back to the Future, the Muppet Movie, The Star Wars prequels,
and Hellboy, among many others. As in all, he has
done over one hundred and fifty movie posters and thirty
album covers at the time he was given this job, though,
according to Struzan quote, I was just a hungry little kid,
the employee illustrator, and they gave me this cover. Indeed,
(33:42):
this was just another job for Struzan, who was simply
paid two hundred and fifty dollars for the week of
work that it took to complete the album's artwork. In fact,
he wouldn't even get to hear the album itself until
after he'd finished his work. The only guidance he was
given for the job then, was to draw the image
of a dying man. It was Enstru's Zan's idea to
not do just one image, but two, with one scene
(34:03):
depicting an evil man's death and the other the death
of a good man. The cover image of the album
then is the death of the evil Man, a scene
done in shades are red as the wicked man is
tormented by demons with webbed feet. Meanwhile, the image of
the good man's death is done all in cool, soothing
shades of blue as he dies peacefully surrounded by mourners,
images which are repeat with symbolism from various religions and cultures. Strews, then,
(34:28):
though notably, did not come from a religious background. Although
he hadn't recently started studying religion as a part of
his quest to quote, look for the purpose of life. Ultimately, though,
the message of these illustrations, for all the symbolism involved,
is a simple one, as according to Strus and himself quote,
I think that what I showed with these pictures was
not just to show death, but to reach out to
(34:49):
people and say, notice that the guy dying is the
sayment both pictures, and notice that the loving people around
him are these same people around him any bad death,
and that brings to the form making a choice. By
giving love, we become life giving rather than death dealing.
The final product of Struzan's created vision was pretty much
universally praised, and not just by the fans, as both
(35:09):
Ozzie and Bill Ward are on record as praising the artwork. Indeed,
Strewsann says that the band over the years has regularly
sent him cards to thank him for his artwork. As
for the total package, Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath would be released
on the third of December nineteen seventy three, and it
quickly became the band's highest charting album since Paranoid, as
it peaked at four on the UK charts and eleven
(35:30):
in the US, and it wasn't just to fans who
embraised the album either. As with their latest efforts, Sabbath
finally got something resembling praise from Rolling Stone, As Gordon
Fletcher would write, quote, Black Sabbaths major contribution has been
to successfully capture the gist as specifically seventies culture through
their music. They relate to this in personal mechanical decade,
much as Delta, Boozman and the Chicago spinoffs related to
(35:52):
their eras by synthesizing collective feelings and giving their contemporaries
hope by revealing the dissatisfaction that unites all them. In
that remote but real sense, Black Sabbath might well be
considered true seventies blues men. Ozzi meanwhile, would characterize Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath as quote our last truly great album, I think,
and with the music we had managed to strength just
(36:14):
the right balance between our old heaviness and our new
experimental side, a statement which is telling for the future
of the series. As in Ozzie's eyes, at least, it's
all down here from here as far as the original
Black Sabbath lineup goes. Indeed, according to Ozzi quote Sabbath Buddy,
Sabbath was really the album after which I should have
said goodbye, because after that I really started unraveling. Then
(36:36):
we ended up falling out of favor with each other.
So on one hand, the original Sabbath lineup, after a
bit of struggle with writer's block, had come together and
produced yet another high point in their careers, one that
commercially at least best of the success of their last
two albums. Meanwhile, they had also managed to expand their
sound to me and Iomi's ambitions while still keeping a
(36:57):
foot still in their classic sound. Trouble seems was on
the horizon, as after a few more albums that Ozzy
at least fuses disappointments, the original Sabbath lineup would split up,
with Ozzy going his own way and the band starting
over with another legendary singer. However, the continued unraveling of
the original Black Sabbath lineup will have to for now
(37:17):
remain a story for another time. Thank you for listening
to Distorted History. 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
(37:38):
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 will continue to post sources on kofee
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. Isla
My name is Eric Gasco and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can give you many names,
and you're a blacker. Hey look, I'm Raisling. I'm got
(00:24):
the barah. A long struggle for freedom, it really is
a revolution. Welcome to this month's episode of Sound Stories,
in which I'll be continuing our miniseries concerning the gradual
dissolution of the original Black Sabbath lineup. Now. Last time,
(00:47):
as I covered the story behind the band's fourth album,
we saw cracks beginning the form of the once united
unit as does some degree rockstar access, namely a lot
of drinking and a just unfathomable amount of cocaine. So
to do cost issues within the band, mainly in the
form of guitarist and essential band leader Tonyaomi more or
less being abandoned by his fellow bandmates to just come
(01:09):
up with a new music by himself, a situation that
Iomi did not appreciate because it put undue pressure on
him and because he seemed to work best when he
had people to bounce ideas off of. Meanwhile, in addition
to these issues and excesses, there was also the just
unrelenting and exhausting schedule that they had been subjected to
from even before the release of their first album, as
(01:30):
it had been nears of basically non stop touring, broken
up only by a brief visit to the studio to
record an album, which was then found basically immediately by
more NonStop touring. It was all too much, and by
this point it seems that the only thing that was
keeping them going was the aforementioned unfathomable amounts of coke,
a situation which ultimately resulted in Tonyaomi literally collapsing at
(01:52):
the end of a gig at the Hollywood Bowl, which
is where we left off our story last time. Yet
before I pick up that dangling thread and eventually move
into the story of the creation of their next album,
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. First, like always, I want to give
credit to my sources, which include Paul Wilkinson's Rat Salad
Black Sabbathy Classic Years nineteen sixteen nineteen nineteen seventy five,
(02:14):
Dave Marsh and Mike Stark's Black Sabbath and Oral History,
Mick Wall's Black Sabbath Symptom of the Universe, Ozzy Osbourne's
I Am Ozzy, and Tony Omy's IRONMN My journey through
Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, In addition to articles
by Mick Wall, Greg Prado, Scott Penfeld, Edward Rivedavia, Justin Norton,
James Trafford, John Wadhorn, and Tom Fordham links to all
(02:36):
of which can be found on this podcast, Blue Sky
and Covey pages. Plus for anyone who doesn't want to
be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always an ad
free feed available to subscribers at patreon dot com Slash
Distorted History. And with all that being said, let's begin.
Iomi had collapsed only fifteenth of September nineteen seventy two
after playing a show at the Hollywood Bawl. This had
(02:57):
been the next last show of another long and gruel
toward the US, but due to this medical emergency, the
next and final date of the tour is canceled as
AAOMI is sent home to rest. The guitarist in the
rest of the banner, then given four months to try
and recover before heading off on yet another tour in
January nineteen seventy three, this time heading to Australia. Now,
(03:18):
in theory, this wasn't supposed to be a full resumption
of their own touring ways. After all, they had just
been shown their limits in dramatic fashion. Plus, Ozzy was
actually trying to be at least a little responsible, given
that he was married and had two children at this point.
He then understood that he should kind of be around
more to actually try to be a husband and a father.
Although this understanding than not necessarily quit to Ozzy being
(03:41):
a good present parent by his own admission, indeed, he
admitted to even when he was around too rarely sleeping
in his own bed. As you see, he would get
so drunk on a nightly basis that he often couldn't
even make it up the stairs, so he would end
up sleeping in the car, under the piano in the
living room, or even outside in a bill of hay. Still,
though the fact of the matter was there was a
(04:01):
push for a less extreme touring schedule. Yet, following their
tour of Australia, Sabbath would undertake a two months tour
of Europe and England, which, while not as bad as
the extended tours of the US that they had been doing,
would still consist of twenty five shows over a thirty
two day period, a stretch that left everyone exhausted and
running primarily on some combination of drugs ranging from coke
(04:22):
to weed to speed to even acid plus various pills,
and also apparently enter the rotation with Ossi, in particular
omitting to taking handfuls of barbituates and antidepressants. So with
a situation that can best be described as not good
the band, despite the label believing that another tour of
the US and support of Volume four would be enough
to push it from gold status in the Plantinum territory,
(04:45):
they opted instead to quietly cancel set upcoming tour, which
meant they wouldn't have to get back on the road
until December. However, they weren't planning on being idle, as
the band intended to take an advantage of this time off
by recording their next album, and to do so decided
to return to the exact same environment that it helped
to give birth the Volume four. Indeed, they rented out
(05:06):
the same mansion, planned to work out of the same studio,
and even caught up these same drug dealers to make
sure they were just as well supplied with whatever they
desired during their time in LA. There was, however, one
significant difference between this time and the last, as there
was now considerably more pressure from both external and internal
sources to write a classic album to begin with. These
(05:27):
sales from Volume four while Good had not exactly lived
up to the heights of their previous efforts, in fact
that it failed to match the success of both Master
of Reality and Paranoid. So while their popularity and their
sales had been in a consistently upper trajectory through their
first three albums, that had changed with Volume four, which
was especially worrying for Iomi, as while he now had
(05:48):
the nice, big house that he had wanted, he was
not content, stating quote, I have a big house with
a swimming pool now, but a one one with a
tennis court and a studio, so I have everything in
house and don't have to go out at all. Mean,
while Tony Barticklar seems to have been bothered by the
fact that they did not receive the respect that they
had earned, especially from the music press. Indeed, in one
(06:10):
interview he would state that quote on drawing power and
album sales, we can compare with groups like Zeppelin and
The Who, although we seldom get recognition for the fact. Iomi,
though wanted more than just recognition for their impressive sales figures,
as he also wanted to be taken more seriously as
an artist and a musician. This is especially notable because
this was around the time when bands were becoming more
(06:31):
and more ambitious in terms of what they were creating.
In fact, nineteen seventy three alone would see the release
of ambitious concept albums by bands like Yes with their
Tales from Topographic Oceans, The Who, Squadrophenia, and of course
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Meanwhile, for as
much as Iomi could point to how successful Sabbath was
on their bands started to catch up and even surpass them. Yes,
(06:53):
for example, had opened for Sabbath just a few years earlier,
and now we're out selling them by more than double
the amount. And there was Deep Purple, whose Sabbath had
always comfortably beaten album sales, but who had now started
to surpass them as well. Pluster was also the emerging
glam rock movement, as demonstrated by the lacks of Bowie
and Roxy Music, who were starting to catch on as well.
(07:13):
The fear then was and while other bands had evolved
over the years, Sabbath had stayed too stuck in their ways,
and the record buying public had started to catch on
as why by another album from Sabbath if it was
just going to be more of what they had already done,
when you could instead spend your money on a band
that was continuing to push their own boundaries. In fact,
Iomi would cancel the release of a live album that
(07:35):
they had already recorded because it simply did not live
up to the evolving vision of the band that he
wanted to present, a move which, by the way, deeply
bothered their manager Patrick Meehan as that many potential loss
of millions of dollars. Iomi, though, did not care about
such potential losses. Instead, he was more concerned with demonstrating
that Sabbath was just as capable of pushing the boundaries
(07:56):
as anyone else, and the fact of the matter was
a live album would have been just more of the
same old stuff. It wasn't due to all these issues,
the flagging sales, the fear of other bands are passing them,
and the desire to be more respected as a musician
and an artist, that nay Tony really wanted to push
their limits with their upcoming record. He really wanted to
make something more ambitious than anything they had attempted in
(08:19):
the past to that point. He wanted to focus more
on crafting songs for the record, perfecting and improving them
as much as possible, and then worrying about how they
were going to reproduce them live later. So with this
in mind, Sabbath and Iomi in particular looked to get
to work. However, it soon became obviously what it seemed
to have worked so well in the past was not
working now. After all, they had the same mansion, these
(08:41):
same drugs, and the same atmosphere that had helped them
produce Volume four, and yet they could not seem to
come up with anything. Indeed, Tony's entire approach to writing,
which had gotten them this far and produced four pretty
successful albums, was inexplicably not working. Per Iomi quote, it
became a ritual every time we doing now, but we'd
get a load of dope and then some coke and
(09:02):
off we'd go. We'd be there all bloody night writing stuff,
and i never used to want to leave the studio
this time. However, despite marathon thirty six hour stays in
the Record Plant studio, Iomi still had nothing now to
be fairy unlikely. Didn't help matters that the record plan
was not quite the same studio that they had recorded
Volume four in, as their favorite room in the studio
(09:24):
had been shrunk considerably thanks to the move that had
been installed in there. For Stevie Wonder still, the most
important thing was per Iomi quote, we just dried up.
It all just felt the pieces for us. It also
didn't help that quote. Everybody was sitting there winning for
me to come up with something. I just couldn't think
of anything, which was only made more frustrating by the
(09:46):
fact that it seemed like he was the only one
bothered by the situation, later stating that quote, I felt
that most of the time everybody was dying to go
down to the pub instead of working at the songs.
But you need to get stuff done. It's quite easy
to sit around telling jokes and boozing, but the money
is going out the window like this, sitting in some
studio for bloody two granted day or whatever it was.
(10:07):
So I was really aware of that. The biggest issue though,
was that since it seemed that once again it was
all on Iomi to come up with something, then only
made things harder for the guitarist as quote, if you
have no one to bounce ideas off of, it becomes
almost impossible. And I didn't have that anymore. In the
early days when we jammed, I come up with riffs
and everybody would be enthusiastic putting stuff in. Without anyone
(10:30):
else to play off of, Iomi just found himself struggling
all the more. He just couldn't see them come up
with anything. No songs, no riffs, not even idea of
where to start, which was likely some combination of frustrating
and frightening, as according to Iomi himself, quote, it was
the first time in my life I'd ever had writer's block,
And basically everyone used to wait around until I came
(10:52):
up with a riff and then we'd work from there.
But nothing was coming with Geezer Butler primarily attributing this
creative dry spell to their reality that they were all
simply exhausted at this point. Whatever the cause, though, this situation,
and especially the frustrations that Iomi was experiencing due to
this writer's block, only served to increase the tensions within
the group that was already quietly beginning to split, as
(11:14):
factions were forming within one had once been a fairly
cohesive unit. For example, while on the road, they were
increasingly not doing things together as a group. Instead, more
and more often it was Bill Warden Ossi teaming up,
primarily because they aligned getting stoned and drunk and just
being as wild and destructive as possible. Meanwhile, Tony and
Keeez are the main creative forces in the band, tended
(11:36):
to be more quiet and personal while also consuming copious
amounts of drugs and booze. Basically, they were all getting
wasted on various substances. It's just that half the group
like being wild and out of control and more in
public when they did so, and the other half didn't. Basically,
they were all getting wasted on various substances. It's just
that half the group like getting wild and out of
(11:56):
control and more in public when they did so, and
the other half didn't. With Iowei noting that quote, I
tried not to get involved with the partying so much.
We used to say, in these POxy hotels where you
could hear everything through the walls, I often heard people
screaming and smoking dope and having a good time. But
I thought that if I went and joined them, we'd
all be in the same boat, so I didn't Somebody
(12:18):
had to be in control of something went wrong. If
I had become the same, nobody would have listened to
me anymore. I think you have to maintain some sort
of separation. The thing was, while this maintained Iowei's position
of authority within the band, it also seemingly ensured that
they also looked to him for direction when it came
time to make an album, which then led to the
situation where quote, everybody was sitting there waiting for me
(12:41):
to come up with something. I just couldn't think of anything,
and if I didn't come up with anything, nobody would
do anything. Tony eventually grew so frustrated and desperate, then
what I assume was an affortude changed things up. One day,
he just had his long hair cut off, which he
then followed up by shaving off his mustache, basically just
completely changing his look in one fell swoop. Yet, even
(13:04):
these drastic changes and left him nearly unrecognizable to the
rest of the band still couldnot shake him and them
out of their funk. So with the writer's box still
firmly in place, Iomi decided that it was time to
quit La and head back to England to start over.
(13:30):
After their failed stay in La, where they did everything
possible to recreate the atmosphere that had given birth the
volume four, Black Sabbath headed home, where they then took
a few weeks off to try and clear their heads
and recharge, during which time the fade of Black Sabbath
seemingly hung in the balance, as there was a lingering
fear that their run had come to an end. Indeed,
Iomi recalls both Geezer and Ozzie talking like it was over,
(13:54):
with Ozzie noting in his biography quote, we were terrified
of becoming one of those bands who started off with
a few albums that people thought were amazing, only to
follow them up with one Turred after another. None of
us could really believe how our lives had changed since
coming back from the Star Club in nineteen sixty nine.
I think we all expected to wake up one day
and find that it was all over, that our little
(14:15):
scam had been exposed, which was alarming as that one
the men he had lost everything. Iomi, though, wasn't ready
to call it quits, so they tried again, this time
gathering at clear Roll Castle, which was located in the
Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The clear Roll Castle was
a new Gothic style structure that had been built in
seventeen twenty eight by Thomas Wyndham, a member of Parliament. Basically,
(14:38):
it's like a large three story house that looks like
a prototypical castle. The structure had then subsequently been restored
in the nineteen fifties by one Frank Yeats, who, before
his death in nineteen seventy three, installed with Indy Castle
a rehearsal room and a basement recording studio. As he
recognized he tried among the rock stars of the day
was to record in such locales. Black Sabbath fittingly would
(14:59):
be the first band to take advantage of this location,
but in the years to come, bands like Mati Hoopel,
Bad Company, Deep Purple and led Zeppelin would all also
take up temporary residence within the castle. Most importantly, for Sabbathy,
Castle and the surrounding countryside offered them a completely different
vibe than Sunny La. In fact, if anything, the gray
English climate and the Gothic stylings of the castle were
(15:22):
a better fit for the band's whole vibe, with Iomi,
noting that quote everything in this place was dismal, especially
its dungeons. It was really creepy down there. It was
a big space with an armory, another room with something
else in it, and a lounge. We said our Europe
there and tried to get a vibe, which they most
certainly got, as during their early days of rehearsing, the
(15:43):
group will reportedly see what is described as a shuddery
robed or quote figure hurry passed during the castle's basement
or dungeon. Now, their first instinct was that this had
to be some potentially dangerous quote unquote fan or a
religious nut who believed in the b Satanic as the
band had after all, attracted such figures. In fact, in
the past they had people show up at their hotels
(16:04):
wearing black robes and lighting candles. However, the worst incident
happened on the night when they showed up in an
open air gig and found a red cross painted on
the door to their dressing room, which was strange, but
they just brushed it off and went on with the show,
during which due to his gear acting up, Iomi started
walking off stage and frustration. It was at this point
that a man, all dressed in black, came up behind
(16:26):
the unaware guitarist. The man had somehow gone past security
and now pulled out a dagger, apparently intent on stabbing Iomi. Indeed,
as it would turn out, this man was a religious
freak who was determined to kill at least one of
the members of the band, and in fact had been
the one who had painted the cross on their door
using his own blood. Thankfully, though, security redeemed themselves by
(16:47):
tackling the dangerous man and preventing him from carrying out
his plan, all of which Iomi was completely unaware of.
He had been so wrapped up in his gear mouthfunctioning
that he missed the whole thing and only learned of
what happened when the rest of the band joined him
in their dressing room and filled him in. So. Upon
seeing what appeared to be a dark room figure in
the basement of the Clear World Castle, Iomi in one
(17:08):
of their roadies, immediately took off in pursuit, chasing the
figure into a room, only to find that there was
nobody there, which was supprising as per Iomi quote, there
was no way out or anything, no other door. Unable
to make sense of what they had seen. When they
next spoke with the owner of the castle, they asked
if there was anyone else staying there, thinking perhaps that
(17:30):
could at least explain seeing someone wandering around. The owner,
though insisted that no one else was staying there, but
upon being told of what they had seen, replied casually quote, oh,
that's just the ghost, as what the band had not
known was that the castle was reportedly haunted by several spirits,
including a female ghost that sings lawbies to her child
and messes up locked rooms. Upon learning of the supposed haunting,
(17:53):
the band then took advantage of the spooky atmosphere to
play pranks on one another. Ozzy was apparently the one
the star thing off, as he had discovered that their
A track machine lade loud, chunky and clicking noises when
it reached the end of the tape, an effect there
was only amplified by the stone walls of the castle
that the noises echoed off of. Ozzy then took the
A track and set it to play, but turned the
(18:15):
volume all the way down so that you couldn't actually
hear the music it was playing. The singer then hit
the contraption under Iomi's bed when they were getting ready
to turn in for the night. The guitarists then had
no warning when all of a sudden, as he was
laying in bed, a loud clunking and clicking sound started
coming out of nowhere. Understandably alarmed by this inexplicable occurrence,
Tony let out a scream and sprinted out of his room,
(18:36):
shutting quote, there's something in my fucking room, over and over,
and Tony spotted Ozzy nearby and laughing his ass off. Iomi, meanwhile,
would have his own fun in the house at other's expense.
For example, their roadie Luke, was staying in a room
in the castle that had a model ship setting only
meant all the fireplace, which gave Iomi an idea. So
he got some fishing line and started attaching it to
(18:57):
the model ship, and while he was there, he also
attached some fishing line to the curtains of the bed
as well the guitars, and hid the various links of
fishing line under the carpet and ran it all out
of the room. Then, once all of his preparations were made,
all Iomi had to do was wait until Luke went
to bed and which point Iomi outside in the hallway,
gathered up the ends of the fishing lines and began
(19:17):
manipulating the bed curtains and the model ship. Meanwhile, Insigne
Luke as the various objects in his room all apparently
started moving about on their own, started freaking out, and
actually bolted from the room, only to immediately encountered Iomi
standing outside with various fishing lines in hand. Then, one day,
as Bill and Geezer were returning to the Castle after
visiting a local pub, they spotted what looked to be
(19:39):
a woman's body thrown out through a window on the
third floor, a sight which, according to Ozzie, caused the
pair to quote almost shit their pants. In fact, in
his estimation, quote Bill landed so fast up the driveway
he must have broken the land speed record. What they
had seen, though, wasn't some supernatural occurrence body dressmaker's dummy
(19:59):
that i Owe he had put a wig on and
thrown out a third story window when he saw the
pair walking up the driveway. This, however, was far from
the only prank that Ward would suffer while at the castle.
For example, one time, while the drummer Lee passed out
on the sofa, from drinking too much. The others grabbed
a hold of a full length mirror and held it
suspended above his sleeping form, at which point they prodded
(20:20):
Ward and tilea woke and in his inebriated state, came
face to face with himself, a sight which apparently freed
the drummer out to no end, as according to Ozzie
quote to this day, I've never heard a grown man
scream so loud. He must have thought he had woken
up in hell. The thing was all this was starting
to have an effect on Ward and on the others.
As Ozzie would later admit that quote, we weren't so
(20:42):
much the lords of darkness as the lords of chicken
shit when it came to that kind of thing, as
they were all more on edge and freaked out than anything. Now,
whether this was simply the result of their various pranks,
a product of their imagination, or if there were actually
inexplicable things happening, we don't know. Although it probably didn't
help their state up mind was that they seemed to
directly hold seances while staying in the castle, which didn't
(21:04):
help blessen the spooky atmosphere, largely because none of them
could tell during these seances if one of them was
manipulating the objects or if something paranormal was actually happening.
Either way, things eventually got to the point that bill
Ward was so unnerved by everything that was going on
that he started sleeping with a dagger to protect himself. Meanwhile,
there would also be some actually dangerous incidents that took
(21:25):
place during their stay, the most notable one being the
time that Ozzie fell asleep in front of the fireplace.
As Ozzie apparently had a bad habit of stoking the
fire ulpril high. In fact, he had caught his own
chimney on fire and nearly burnt his own house down
doing that same thing. This time, though, after he stoke
the fire uprial high and passed out, a stray amber
fell out onto the rug, which soon caught fire, a
(21:47):
fire which started to spread and thrown to ignite the
sleeping singer as well. Luckily for Ozzie, though, only smell
of smoke alerted the others in the castle that something
was wrong, and which point, according to Iomi quote, we
came in and he was spark out on the couch
and about to burn and death. The band and their
road crew then quickly sent about putting out the flames
before they could consume their singer. Yet even with this
(22:08):
new spooky environment, the band, upon arriving Stole struggle to
come up with something new to match Iomi's expanding vision
for the band. Desperate for inspiration, they searched for different
sounds to give them an idea and or to add
more depth to their music. They then experimented with all
kinds of ways to create unique sounds, which included, according
to Iomi quote, trying things going off the piano into
(22:30):
the piano, and then mocking up the piano strings to
hear different sounds. He also brought in various non traditional
rock instruments to try out, while Bill Warn't got in
on the act by taking an anvil that he found
on the grounds and recording the sound that was created
when he dropped it into a barrel of water. Yet
for all this, they were still coming up empty until
one day Tony started playing what would become the main
(22:52):
riff for Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, and it was light, the
clouds parted, and all was right with the world. According
to Geezer quote, were in a terrible sump. We were
all exhausted from touring and we weren't getting on very well.
Then Tony came up with the riff for Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath,
and everybody sparked a life. Now. Ozzie would actually credit
the Dutch band Golden Earring for providing the inspiration for
(23:14):
this breakthrough, as it was just a few days prior
to this moment that they had been listening to Golden
Earrings moutan yet regardless of one finally did it. According
to Gezer quote, when Tony came up with the riff
to Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath, it was almost like seeing your
first child being born. It was the end of our
musical drought, the beginning of our new direction and affirmation
(23:35):
of life, and meant the band had a present and
a future again. As for all their quiet fears that
the band's run might have come to an end, the
birth of this riff was a sign that they still
had music left in them. It also wasn't just Diomi's
initial riff either, as the song apparently came together almost
immediately and experienced that Geezer were compared to their writing
(23:56):
of Paranoid, where the song just seemed to come together naturally.
As according to the Bassis quote, Tony started playing Sabbath,
Bloody Sabbath the main ref me and Bill just came
in on bass and drums. We just played together and
the whole thing just materialized. All in all, the songs
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath feels kind of like a demonstration or
a summation of what the band does and is capable of,
(24:18):
as it goes from your classic heavy Sabbath style ref
to star things Off, which is then set against the
softer acoustic, almost jazzy section before going into the final
outro jam, all of which are foundational pieces of Sabbaths.
Overall sound the song is a representation of the banded
self extends to the lyrics, as Geezer himself would say
that they were quote about the Sabbath experience, the ups
(24:41):
and downs, the good times and the bad times, the ripoffs,
the business side of it all. Most specifically, there were
quote directed at the critics, the record business in general,
the lawyers, the accountants, management, and everyone who was trying
to cash in on us. It was a back to
the wall rant at everyone. In particular, quote was about
the attitude of certain people, the British press and people
(25:03):
like that, you know, really slagging on us and everything
and doing many tours. All the glamorous thing was all over.
We found out what it's like to be a rock star,
which is just the same thing as being an ordinary person.
The glamorous thing was all gone for us, and it
had been beamed out of us by then. Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath is just our attitude toward the music business, the
business side of things. Meanwhile, for as much doubt, frustration
(25:26):
and division within the group which had crapped up dude
to Iomi's period of writer's block, once inspiration finally struck
again and they all got back to work, it seems
like everything was pretty copasetic within the band. Indeed, according
to Iomi quote, we'd done what we always do, We
go to a studio Mocker sels In and record the album.
Everything seemed to go all right on that album. I
(25:47):
think we didn't have all the problems we had with
some of the others. Additionally, as soon as the writer's
block was broken with that initial riff of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,
it seems that their creative juices were once again flowing
in full force, and songs just started pouring out. Whatever
it had been, be it stressed out, frustration or something
else that had inhibited Iomi and the others prior to this,
(26:07):
now disappeared as soon as they were able to start
working in earnest again. Then, once they had the basis
for their new songs, they took them to the nearby
Rockfield Studios to record, where Sabbath themselves officially produced it,
although they likely received a fair amount of assistance from
engineer Mike Butcher and no contributions from their manager Patrick Meehan,
despite him giving himself a producer's credit regardless. With Iomi
(26:31):
once again taking the lead in the production duties, the
ben actively looked to expand their sonic palette by utilizing
new textures and arrangements for their songs, like, for example,
the instrumental Fluff, which took Iomi's typical soft instrumental piece
and added piano and strings to his arpeggiated acoustic chorns
and lead guitar work, a piece named in honor of
Radio one DJ Allen Fluff Freeman, whose afternoon show was
(26:54):
one of the few places that they received any kind
of airplay in the UK. Indeed, Fluff not only featured
Sabbath of regularly, when he even knused Laguna's Sunrise from
Volume four as the theme for a show. Also helping
to add additional layers to the Sabbath sound was Yes
keyboard player Rick Wakeman, who joined the band in the studio.
This was a relationship that went back several years to
(27:14):
win Yes a toward Wood Sabbath, during which time Rick
ended up traveling with Sabbath more than he did with
his own band. Ricky se wasn't exactly the best fit
for the group personality wise, as the rest of the
band were vegetarian hippies who didn't drink and did yoga,
while Rick had much more in common with the wild,
heavy drinking members of Black Sabbath. In fact, he would
leave Yes completely later in that year. There was even
(27:37):
some talk about making Wakeman a full time member of Sabbath,
but by this point the keyboardist had his fill of
life on the road, a decision which would prove to
be prudent, as he would suffer a heart attack several
months after these recording sessions. As for his involvement in
the album, it seems to primarily be the result of
Ozzie inviting Rick to the studio to hear what they
were working on, during which time Ozzi tried playing for
(27:59):
Rick the melody for Sabercadabra on a synth. It was
and after watching Ozzie try to play with just one finger,
that Rick stept in and suggested it might sound better
if it was played like this, and proceeded to play
a much more complex version of what Ozzie had been attempting.
Ozzy was so impressed by what Rick had done with
his simple little melody that he asked him on the
spot if he would play on their album, which Rick
(28:21):
agreed to do as long as the paid his fee,
which was apparently a couple of cases of beer. Now,
while Rec would only initially be credited as performing on
Sabrica Debra Iomi would later admit that he also appeared
on Who Are You, and it's believed that he also
played on Spiral Architect as well as for Sabrica Daba.
Rec would add a kind of hockey talk style piano
(28:42):
to what was more of a strait of rock song
than what would typically appear on a Sabbath record. Really,
it's more or less just a bog standard blues rock song,
as it's basically just about a woman and sex without
any kind of Sabbath's usual supernatural drapery. It's simply not
really the kind of piece that Sabbath typically did, and really,
if anything, it feels more like a led Zeppelin song
(29:03):
than a Sabbath song. In fact, they would actually be
visited by led Zeppelin during the recording of this track,
and John Bonham, who had recently served as the best
man at Iomi's wedding, volunteered to provide the drums for
the song, but the group was worried that his unique
style would be too disruptive. Notably, Metallica, who are huge
fans of Sabbath, would choose to cover cyber Cadabra on
(29:24):
their nineteen ninety eight album Garage inc. But in doing so,
they chose to match it up with another song from
this album, a National Acrobat Speaking all the album's second track,
I feel it is a good illustration of Iomi's philosophy
for making this record, namely that their focus was on
making the sound song as good as possible now and
then worry about how they were going to reproduce them later.
(29:45):
As a big part of a national acrobat's magic, in
my opinion, comes from the harmonized guitar in vocal parts,
which would be difficult to reproduce live considering they only
had one guitarist and one vocalist. As for the lyrics,
Ozzi would describe them flippantly as a song about masturbation,
while Geezer Butler says it's a song about birth and
the process of being conceived. And they're both kind of right,
(30:07):
as it's more or less written from the perspective of
a sperm killing yourself to live. Meanwhile, as far more
personal as it was a reflection of their life on
the road. Indeed, Butler wrote the lyrics while in the
hospital for kidney problems that were the result of his
hard drinking lifestyle. Meanwhile, the song would be one that
Metallica guitarist Kerkama would point to as being incredibly influential
(30:28):
for him. Who Are You Meanwhile is a unique track
and that it was not born out of an Iomi riff,
but instead was the result of Ozzie playing around with
a Moog, a Revox tape machine and an ARP twenty
six hundred and synth. Ozzie who wasn't trained in playing
the piano in any way, then was just messing around
and trying to come up with something. Indeed, he reportedly
came up with the core three note riff one morning
(30:49):
while watching his wife cook breakfast. Ozzie then felt like
he had something, but very much wasn't confident, as he
had never done anything like this before. Bill Ward then
felt quite privileged, and he was the one that Ozzie
chose to run it by. First. Rounding out the rest
of the album was the track Looking for Today, whose
main riff is fairly upbeat and almost happy sounding, which
(31:09):
stands in stark contrast to the acoustic and melancholic chorus sections.
Then there's the album's final track, Spiral Architect, whose entry
reminds me of Macedon's Aret's Alive, which is not to
say they're actually that much alike outside of utilizing or
peggiated chords with open strings, but it wouldn't surprise me
if Macedon might have been been inspired by a Spiral Architect,
even if subconsciously. Regardless lyrically, the song revaws around Geezer,
(31:34):
playing around with the idea of things you experienced in life,
altering and changing your DNA, an idea that was apparently
influenced by his use of quote unquote certain substances. Meanwhile,
the song notably once again see Sabbath looking a stretch
beyond their previous confines, as it features the inclusion of
a string section that was arranged by Wilm alone. They
(31:54):
then hired an actual orchestra to complete their vision. However,
they quickly realized that these studios the space they were
using was too small, which then necessitated a move to
a larger studio space to complete that part of this recording.
Iomi meanwhile also had the idea of adding bagpipes to
the song. However, in doing so, he just kind of
assumed that he could play them, which definitely feels like
(32:16):
a cocaine field idea. Regardless, he had the crew by
him a set of bagpipes, but no matter how much
he tried, he could not figure out how to actually
play them. In fact, he couldn't even get them to
make any noise whatsoever, which cost him to have the
bagpipes return, believing them to be faulty in some way,
only to have the shop owner pick them up and
demonstrate that they were perfectly functional. Given this failure, than
(32:39):
Iomi more or less just abandon his plans for the bagpipes. Still, though,
Iomi would be quite proud of the album and what
they had accomplished with it, as he would say that
it had quote more class about it, more arrangements, more
shine if you like, and it's more adventurous. It was
a leap forward. We used strings and god knows what
else we really expanded. That's why for me, Sabbath Buddy
(33:00):
Sabbath was the pinnacle. With the music now all written
and recorded, the only thing left to be done was
the artwork for the album, a job that was given
to the Pacific Iroe and Ear design firm in Hollywood,
which Menho became the responsibility of the agency's soul artist.
Twenty seven year old illustrator Drew Struzan, a man who
would later find fame by providing illustrations from movie posters
(33:21):
for the lacks of the writers of the Lost Arc,
Back to the Future, the Muppet Movie, The Star Wars prequels,
and Hellboy, among many others. As in all, he has
done over one hundred and fifty movie posters and thirty
album covers at the time he was given this job, though,
according to Struzan quote, I was just a hungry little kid,
the employee illustrator, and they gave me this cover. Indeed,
(33:42):
this was just another job for Struzan, who was simply
paid two hundred and fifty dollars for the week of
work that it took to complete the album's artwork. In fact,
he wouldn't even get to hear the album itself until
after he'd finished his work. The only guidance he was
given for the job then, was to draw the image
of a dying man. It was Enstru's Zan's idea to
not do just one image, but two, with one scene
(34:03):
depicting an evil man's death and the other the death
of a good man. The cover image of the album
then is the death of the evil Man, a scene
done in shades are red as the wicked man is
tormented by demons with webbed feet. Meanwhile, the image of
the good man's death is done all in cool, soothing
shades of blue as he dies peacefully surrounded by mourners,
images which are repeat with symbolism from various religions and cultures. Strews, then,
(34:28):
though notably, did not come from a religious background. Although
he hadn't recently started studying religion as a part of
his quest to quote, look for the purpose of life. Ultimately, though,
the message of these illustrations, for all the symbolism involved,
is a simple one, as according to Strus and himself quote,
I think that what I showed with these pictures was
not just to show death, but to reach out to
(34:49):
people and say, notice that the guy dying is the
sayment both pictures, and notice that the loving people around
him are these same people around him any bad death,
and that brings to the form making a choice. By
giving love, we become life giving rather than death dealing.
The final product of Struzan's created vision was pretty much
universally praised, and not just by the fans, as both
(35:09):
Ozzie and Bill Ward are on record as praising the artwork. Indeed,
Strewsann says that the band over the years has regularly
sent him cards to thank him for his artwork. As
for the total package, Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath would be released
on the third of December nineteen seventy three, and it
quickly became the band's highest charting album since Paranoid, as
it peaked at four on the UK charts and eleven
(35:30):
in the US, and it wasn't just to fans who
embraised the album either. As with their latest efforts, Sabbath
finally got something resembling praise from Rolling Stone, As Gordon
Fletcher would write, quote, Black Sabbaths major contribution has been
to successfully capture the gist as specifically seventies culture through
their music. They relate to this in personal mechanical decade,
much as Delta, Boozman and the Chicago spinoffs related to
(35:52):
their eras by synthesizing collective feelings and giving their contemporaries
hope by revealing the dissatisfaction that unites all them. In
that remote but real sense, Black Sabbath might well be
considered true seventies blues men. Ozzi meanwhile, would characterize Sabbath
Buddy Sabbath as quote our last truly great album, I think,
and with the music we had managed to strength just
(36:14):
the right balance between our old heaviness and our new
experimental side, a statement which is telling for the future
of the series. As in Ozzie's eyes, at least, it's
all down here from here as far as the original
Black Sabbath lineup goes. Indeed, according to Ozzi quote Sabbath Buddy,
Sabbath was really the album after which I should have
said goodbye, because after that I really started unraveling. Then
(36:36):
we ended up falling out of favor with each other.
So on one hand, the original Sabbath lineup, after a
bit of struggle with writer's block, had come together and
produced yet another high point in their careers, one that
commercially at least best of the success of their last
two albums. Meanwhile, they had also managed to expand their
sound to me and Iomi's ambitions while still keeping a
(36:57):
foot still in their classic sound. Trouble seems was on
the horizon, as after a few more albums that Ozzy
at least fuses disappointments, the original Sabbath lineup would split up,
with Ozzy going his own way and the band starting
over with another legendary singer. However, the continued unraveling of
the original Black Sabbath lineup will have to for now
(37:17):
remain a story for another time. Thank you for listening
to Distorted History. 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
(37:38):
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 will continue to post sources on kofee
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. Isla
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