Iron Man (10 page)

We were such good mates with Led Zeppelin that they even wanted us on their Swansong label. I don't know why that didn't happen. Maybe we couldn't get out of the deals with Warner and Phonogram, because we did sign ourselves to them forever. We would have loved to have had Peter Grant as our manager as well, but it wasn't to be. I think he only managed Zeppelin and of course later on Bad Company, who were signed to Swansong. In the early days there weren't that many managers who managed a lot of bands. There was just one manager for one band. We had Patrick Meehan and he didn't manage anybody else, at least not in the beginning.

When the guys from Zeppelin visited us while we were recording
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
, we had a jam together. Bonham wanted to play one of our songs, I think it was ‘Sabbra Cadabra', but we said: ‘No, we're playing our songs already. Let's just jam and play something else.'

I don't know if any tapes exist of that. That would've been a different one: Black Zeppelin. It's the only time the two bands played together. John did get up and jam with us in the early days, but Bill never liked him playing his kit. It was his pride and joy and Bonham always broke something.

‘Oh, Bill, let me play them . . .'

‘No, you're going to break something.'

‘Let me have a go, Bill.'

‘No!'

They were mad, really.

We're still mates with Zeppelin, even though Bonham really upset Ronnie when they came to see our show at the Hammersmith Odeon back in May 1980. John was on the side of the stage having a good time and drinking Guinness, getting more and more sloshed as the show went on. We came off stage and he said: ‘That guy's got a great voice for a fucking midget!'

Of course Ronnie heard him. Bonham meant it as a compliment really, but it didn't come out as one. Ronnie turned to John and said: ‘You fucking cunt!'

It nearly came to blows. That would have been a lopsided fight because John was a bit of a hooligan. So I said to him: ‘Look, please don't.'

He said: ‘What's the matter with him!'

‘Well, he didn't much like that. Just go back to the hotel and I'll see you later. It's not a good time right now.'

He went away then, but blimey, it could have been quite nasty.

Pagey is a mate. A couple of years back he wanted to see our gig at Fields of Rock in Holland and he flew out with us. We hung out, he saw the gig, we watched Rammstein together and we flew back. I've seen him many times at various functions since.

Our first album was in the charts for quite a while in America, even though we had never been there. After we recorded
Paranoid
, we finally went. One of the stupidest things we ever did was take over our own PA. We took a Laney PA, Laney columns, and we had no flight cases or anything for them, so all the amps and cabinets suffered greatly from being thrown in and out of the plane's cargo hold. We got to New York and our expectations were sky-high: ‘This is the real thing, ah, great, I can't believe it!'

But our first gig was in a poxy little club called Ungano's on West 70th Street in Manhattan. It was supposed to be
the
place to play, like when you're in London you do the Marquee, but we didn't think that when we saw what a shithole it was. I guess they booked us in there because agents and record company people were supposed to show up.

Our roadie, Luke, didn't realise it was a different mains in America, so when he plugged the equipment in, it blew up.

‘Oh bloody hell, what are we going to do now?'

It was chaos, but they soon managed to get the fuses going again. We had two nights at this club and I thought, well, this is it? This is America? It was such a disappointment. But on the third
night over there, we played the Fillmore East, which was fantastic. Bloody hell, monitors . . . what a difference! It was the first time we heard each other properly on stage, the first time I could actually hear Ozzy sing. It was brilliant and after that we never looked back.

We played the Fillmore with Rod Stewart and The Faces. We really went down well and Rod Stewart came on and he was practically booed off stage. We did two gigs with him and the same happened the second night. He was not a happy chap. But that's when we realised we were grabbing them . . .

The Americans, they really liked us!

Us being not very well known yet, some people thought that Black Sabbath was a black band. That didn't last very long, as they soon found out we weren't much of a soul group. As the tour progressed, we used to hang around and see other bands, like the James Gang. We did the Fillmore West in San Francisco with them and Joe Walsh was smoking this bloody angel dust. Right before the gig Geezer said: ‘I'll just have a puff of that.'

Ozzy joined him. They thought they were just smoking a joint. Geezer said he was hallucinating on stage. It frightened him to death. Most of us were pretty out of it half the bloody time. I didn't partake as much. I was certainly no saint, but I thought it wise to try to maintain a clear head. Up to a certain point.

There were people in whatever country out there who wouldn't even understand our lyrics at that time, because they couldn't speak English. But it was because of the vibe of the music that they felt it was satanic. We were actually invited to join satanic sects. Alex Sanders, the head witch of England, ‘the King of the Witches', came to the shows trying to get us into his thing. And the first time we played San Francisco, Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, held a parade for us there. I still have a picture of that. LaVey with a Rolls-Royce and a big banner that read: ‘Welcome Black Sabbath'. I thought, what's all this? That's nice of them to do that!

When we turned down an invitation to play Walpurgis at Stonehenge, this sect put a curse on us. We took that very seriously. That's when we started wearing our crosses. First Ozzy wore this kitchen sink tap around his neck. Soon it would develop into a real cross. At the time we often talked about our dreams and many times it turned out we dreamed about the same situations, which was really weird. Maybe it was the Walpurgis thing, but one night we all had this dream about wearing crosses to protect us from evil. And so we did.

Ozzy's dad gave us these aluminium crosses that looked like they were made of silver. After the first four he made, he started mass production because we started selling them at gigs to make some money. Later Patrick Meehan gave us the gold crosses. He saw us with these aluminium things on bits of string, so I suppose he thought, I've got to get them something a bit better looking than that.

I never go on stage without wearing my cross. When I go on tour I always have two things that I really look after: the cross and my thimbles. The cross is big, in fact I've hit myself in the face with it a few times. You bend down to get into the car and, bang! That really hurts. Geezer lost his gold one at an Aston Villa football match. Bill still has his tucked away somewhere, but he actually still wears his original aluminium one. I lost my original one. I probably did what I usually do: put it away somewhere and forgot where. I can just see some new owner of one of my old houses suddenly discovering it: what's this cross . . . and this gram of coke?

Of course, neither us nor our music was satanic. Geezer and his family were very religious, Irish Catholic – he still is – but at the same time he was interested in occultism. He read a lot of books by the English occultist, mystic and author Aleister Crowley. We both had an interest in what happened beyond and got involved in it quite a lot. So he'd get his ideas from that. This certainly played a major part in that first album. I think Geezer felt that the music was portraying such a heavy thing, that the lyrical content had to be about something that went with the music. Everywhere else, it was all flower power and everything nice and happy and people weren't writing about real life: wars and famine and all the other things nobody wants to face. So we saw that and thought we should be doing it. But being accused of having made an occult or, worse yet, a satanic album, was simply ridiculous.

Still, we got a lot of flack. Certainly in America, because there
the Church is such a big deal. We'd get to the gig and there'd be ministers and their congregations holding up banners: ‘Don't come and see this band. They are satanists.'

Then there was a case there of a nurse who killed herself in her apartment, and what did they find?
Paranoid
on the turntable! So it was our fault. There was an inquest.
Paranoid
was mentioned and they found it wasn't to blame. But it was a shock to hear about this case, because it wasn't what we were about. We weren't trying to kill people! Besides, if people are depressed and put an album on, they're certainly not going to kill themselves because of the music.

Then there were the people from the dark side. One night, three witches came to the gig. Well, supposed witches. They saw we had proper crosses on and they cleared off. A bit later, back at the hotel one night, we went up to our floor and there was a whole crowd of people with black cloaks on and candles, sitting in the hallway outside our rooms. We thought, what's going on here? They really take you too seriously. Bloody hell! We climbed over them and got into our rooms as they held on to their candles, murmuring. We phoned each other up and said: ‘What are we going to do? Let's give it half a minute and we'll all go outside.'

So we did. We all went into the hallway, blew out the candles and sang ‘Happy Birthday' to them. They were disgusted, got up and left. But it could have gone the other way. They could have stabbed us!

Later on, around
Volume 4
, we were playing at the Hollywood Bowl. After the sound check we got back to the dressing room. It was locked up and there was a big red cross on the door.

‘Fucking hell!'

We finally did get the door open and we never thought any more of it. We got on stage and after a while my amp started crackling. It was one of those days. I got really pissed off, turned around and I booted my stack. Luke the roadie was behind it and
I pushed it and tried to kick the thing over and then I just walked off. I was like that in those days, I had no patience. As I stormed off, I didn't even notice there was a guy on the side of the stage with a dagger. He was about to stab me. They eventually wrestled him to the floor and took him away. It turned out he had cut his hand and put that cross on the dressing-room door in blood. He was one of these religious freaks, really out there. They showed the dagger to me and I couldn't believe it: it was huge. Those were the sort of people you had to deal with a lot, but this one was a bit extreme.

Also in America the head of the Hell's Angels came to give us his blessing. He said: ‘You get any problem at all, with anything, call me and I'll get it sorted out, whatever it is.'

What can you say to a man like that making an offer like that? ‘Fuck off!?' Blam! So we just went: ‘Great! Thanks!'

Maybe we should have taken him up on his offer with the guy with the bloody dagger . . .

Ozzy just had a weak bladder. One night we went to a club and we had a skinful of booze. Ozzy fell asleep on a couch and as they were closing the doorman said: ‘You'd better get him.'

I said: ‘I ain't getting him. If you want him out, you'd better move him.'

He said: ‘I'll fucking move him.'

He picked him up, put him over his shoulder and Ozzy pissed himself, all down this guy's suit.

Eventually we could afford two to a room. Geezer and Bill shared one room and me and Ozzy shared another. That was better, but I'd be in bed, sound asleep, and Ozzy would wake up at all sorts of funny hours. He'd put the TV on full blast and then take a shower. I'd jump up wondering what the hell was happening, turn the TV off and get back into bed. He'd get out of the shower and turn it back on full blast again. I'd hear him bumping and banging and fiddling around and I'd think, I might as well get up myself now.

When we did get our very own rooms, I thought, this is great! But nothing changed: I'd be in bed at God knows what time, and there'd be a bang on the door. I'd answer it and it would be Ozzy, going: ‘You haven't got a light, have you?'

‘Do you know what time it is? And you bloody woke me up for a light!'

Ozzy and hotels . . . We were on tour, travelling for hours and hours through a lot of desert land. We came to this shop in the middle of nowhere, so we all piled out of the bus to have a look. There was a big sign saying: ‘Fireworks'. Ozzy went in and bought all the fireworks they had. I said: ‘What are you going to do with them?'

‘Oh, I'm probably going to let them off later.'

When he said ‘later' I didn't know he meant as late as he did, and I didn't know where. It turned out to be in the hotel at four o'clock in the morning. We were in our rooms and I heard these whizzing sounds of rockets flying past. I looked through the peephole of my door and I saw that the hallway was full of smoke. Then it started coming under my door, so I went out. By this time the bloody sprinklers had come on in the hallway and all the rooms. The guests came out in their pyjamas, screaming, not knowing what the hell was going on. It was such a mess.

Meanwhile, Ozzy, absolutely out of his skull, was still in the hallway letting his fireworks off. Of course the police came and took him away. They said to us: ‘You better come down and bail him out!'

We said: ‘You keep him tonight. We'll bail him out tomorrow. We've got to get some bloody rest!'