Iron Man (16 page)

It was the same with the sitar. I couldn't play that either. I had all these great ideas, but they never materialised. I've still got that sitar somewhere. Got rid of the bagpipes, though.

The album ended with a little bit of applause. Our engineer put that on and we thought, oh, that's funny, and it ended up on there. Sometimes these little things did, and sometimes they didn't. Actually, on one of the earlier albums, when we were working with engineer Tom Allom, we spent an hour and a half marching up and down these stairs, singing: ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go.' We were coming all the way down these three flights of stairs and there was a microphone at the bottom, so the sound we made was getting louder and louder. And Tom kept going: ‘No, no, go back, do it again.'

We were dead at the end, but we kept doing it: ‘Hi ho, hi ho.'

The idea was to walk down and eventually slam the door and
‘duh-duh-duh-duh' come into a track. It looked like a good idea until we tried it and it sounded awful. So we scrapped it.

The album cover had great paintings by Drew Struzan, with the good on one side and the evil on the other. On the inside it had a picture of the band in what should have looked like an ancient room, except there was a three-point power plug down there on the wall. That sort of blew it a bit, really.

Even today, I find that the music, compared to the previous records, has 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 Bloody Sabbath
was the pinnacle. And then the next one would be
Heaven and Hell
, which created that same vibe for me again.

We rounded off 1973 with a couple of UK dates in December. After the Christmas break we did a few European gigs before flying to America for a lot of shows in February. We often got stuck with the same bands when we went to the States. We always seemed to have Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Brownsville Station or Black Oak Arkansas opening for us. It was like: ‘What, Black Oak Arkansas? Oh dear, not again!'

After America we went home to take some time off. Next up was the California Jam on 6 April 1974 at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, near Los Angeles. We were going to be rehearsing out there prior to the gig and we sent Spock and the rest of the crew over there first. But then this almighty row broke out between Deep Purple and ELP about who was going to close the show. They were trying to involve us in it as well. We thought, we better hang on, this whole thing is blowing up. Purple wanted to close it, and then ELP as well, so Patrick Meehan at some point said: ‘We're not going out, it's off.'

We agreed: ‘We don't want to get involved in it, we'll pull out.'

Then Spock phoned me at something like four in the morning:
‘You've got to come! Everybody wants to see you! It's going to be an almighty ruckus if you don't show!'

I phoned the other guys, going: ‘We got to get out there, get on a flight!'

They thought I was joking: ‘Oh, hahaha!'

‘Seriously. We've got to get out there. I've heard from Spock . . .'

We got on a flight at the last minute. We got out there and we just said: ‘Look, we don't care. We'll just go on, whenever.'

And that's what we did. We went on and ELP closed the show. It was strange: one moment you're home in bed and the next you're flying to a gig. We hadn't played for five or six weeks, we didn't rehearse; it was a one-off, so it was a bit hairy.

We all get stage fright on certain occasions. It depends. The first gig of a tour usually makes you go: ‘Ooooh!' The second gig is much more relaxed. And that's the one where everything goes wrong. You also have the gigs where everybody you know comes to see you, like the Hammersmith Odeon in London, the Forum in Los Angeles and Madison Square Garden in New York. All your friends and the press are there and you get worried: ‘Oh fuck, everybody's coming down tonight. If anything goes wrong . . . I'll be glad when this one's over!'

It's like when you're recording a show. Nine times out of ten when you think about being recorded you make a mistake. It's that edgy feeling you have. At regular shows you don't care, you just get on and do it, and it becomes second nature. But the California Jam, what with the weird lead up to it and hundreds of thousands of people there, was nerve-wracking. And it was televised, which made it even more terrifying. But stagefright never lasts. We got on stage, played, and it was okay.

But the gig was good. It was just the shock of it all. But I think it worked.

After the California Jam we toured the UK in May and June, taking a break from the road until November, when we rounded
off our Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tour with about eight shows in Australia. AC/DC were supporting us. I didn't really meet them then, but we certainly got acquainted a couple of years later when they opened for us during our European tour in the spring of 1977. We got on all right with Bon Scott, but there just seemed to be a little bit of friction between the two bands as that tour went on. There was something going down quite heavy between Geezer and Malcolm Young. They were in the bar, got paralytic, got into an argument and somebody pulled a knife. I think it was Malcolm who drew that knife. I don't think it was Geezer, but it could have been.

We were in Sydney to start the tour and the promoter took us to this really flash restaurant. They closed it especially for us, so we were the only ones there. We were eating this exquisite food using all this nice silverware and everything, and then somebody flicked a pea at somebody else.

He then flicked one back.

Then it was something else, a potato . . .

At the end it was just ridiculous. The dinner was flying everywhere. Everybody was ordering: ‘Can I have another salad, please, with loads of oil and vinegar?'

Kggg
, on somebody's head.

Bill, of course, him being the one who always gets it, was absolutely covered: cake, olive oil, sauce and chocolate all over his face and all down his clothes. He was an absolute mess. We all looked pretty bad. Ozzy had yellow trousers on, we got hold of them and,
kggg
, ripped the legs all the way up past the hip. The owner of the restaurant was absolutely in bits. One of our guys went over to him and said: ‘They're going to take care of it.'

He gave him a bundle of money. The owner was suddenly all right then, going: ‘Ah, carry on, carry on!'

We then got the waiters involved even more: ‘Go on, give me a big cream cake under the table!'

And then: ‘Whoa!'
Kggg!

We walked back to the hotel afterwards. We looked awful. Such a picture. With all the drink and everything as well, I actually thought they wouldn't let us back into the hotel. We walked into reception and the doors opened and there was a ball going on. We walked in on a whole crowd of people in suits and bow ties and ballroom dresses and their mouths dropped. Of course security came rushing in and we were going: ‘It's all right, we're guests!'

I bet that promoter hasn't invited many people out since. He certainly didn't invite us again.

We said to each other: ‘Does anybody know what's going on? Has anybody seen any accounts?'

None of us knew how much money we had, because it was always a case of anything you wanted, you got. We'd phone Meehan up and any money we wanted: ‘I'll arrange it.'

Sometimes Meehan sent a cheque and the bloke at the bank would go: ‘It's bounced.'

‘Aye?'

And I'd phone him up.

‘Oh, I'll put it in again. Go and put it in again now, it's all right.'

He was very careful. He always had a wad of cash in his pocket, never used a credit card, I think because that way he wouldn't have any kind of record of what was being spent. That's the way he worked. We thought, why can't we just have a lump sum put into our bank so we know how much we have and work with that? We met these people in the office one day and Meehan said: ‘These are your accountants. They are going to look after all your stuff. You talk to them. Don't talk to me, talk to them.'

And then all our money went to the accountants. We never had
it coming to us direct. We'd have these meetings with them and they'd say: ‘You can't just get everything you make and put it in the bank. We want to take some of your money and put it in a Jersey account, because of the tax.'

We just said: ‘Oh, well . . .' We didn't know anything about that side of it and it all seemed above board. When somebody from a big accountancy firm tells you what they're going to do with your money, you go along with it. We found out later that they also worked for Meehan.

And then, when we found out that our management contracts with Meehan weren't signed by him, they were only signed by us, that was even worse. He really caught us with that one, a trick from the early days.

We were so gullible about everything. All we wanted was to play and tour everywhere and go to America and all that. That's why in the beginning we never questioned Meehan's way of doing things. And, of course, most of the time we were on tour, so we didn't require much. It's only when we came out for another break that we went: ‘I want to buy a new house' or whatever it might be. Or he'd go: ‘I'll send another ten grand down' and everything would be roses.

We started seeing things change a lot at the office. When we got involved with Patrick Meehan at first, it was just him. Then he got more money and bought companies like NEMS, the old Beatles thing, Brian Epstein's label. He also got on board with David Hemmings, the actor famous for the movie
Blow-Up
, with a company called Hemdale. So then Meehan was also making movies. One day he said to me: ‘I'm auditioning today. I've got all these women coming around.'

I came downstairs and saw this whole queue of gorgeous women outside the office.

And he got into a building company, housing and all that stuff. Of course, when we bought houses, we bought them through this
company. Meehan was involved with so much stuff I could never tell what it all was. He even bought a racehorse called Black Sabbath and a racing car as well. We were seeing him flying around in private jets and he'd always have the latest Rolls-Royce. And so would we if we wanted them, so we didn't argue.

We were told that ‘All the money was put in the London & County Bank', which went bust at the end of the day.

And apparently our money disappeared with it.

We really started to think when we saw what we thought was a bunch of pretty unsavoury characters getting involved with Meehan at NEMS. These people were nice enough with us, but it made us very nervous. I think David Frost, the very well-known TV personality, was a client and Dave Hemmings also.

Eventually, when we went on tour in Europe, one of them came with us. Willy his name was. Maybe he was there to make sure nothing happened to us, or maybe he was seeing what we were up to, spying for the mob or whoever they were. It was a bit frightening, certainly when one fan tried to approach us and Willy pulled his gun out. It was really heavy.

We hadn't a clue about what was going on.

The fact that Meehan was gambling like there was no tomorrow didn't help either. When we had Yes with us on our American tour, we played Las Vegas. It was a very involved situation. We thought, fucking hell, what's going to happen? How are we going to fight this one?

We were unhappy with the situation, so we had to do something about it. We finally decided to leave Meehan. Somewhat surprisingly, he seemed all right about it at first. I think he'd got what he could out of us and was happy to let us go. So many things went on that we were just not aware of and I think that's why we felt we were screwed over. We sued Meehan but when it came to it, for whatever reason which I never really understood, we didn't have a leg to sue on. He sued us in turn and he won. It
seems to me that from the moment we became successful we've been in court. Jim Simpson sued us after we left him and that case dragged on for ever. The Simpson case only got settled around the time we split up with Meehan and Simpson was awarded something like £35,000 that we had to pay him. He also sued Meehan, who had to give him a similar amount.

So much for the old management, but what about a new one? It was hard to trust anybody. We did have managements approaching us, but how do you know they are straight? In those days there were no music lawyers you could turn to for advice, people who knew about the business and who could look at the contracts. A lot of the things that were signed back then had loopholes galore. We decided that the only way to do it was to run it ourselves and have Mark Forster, who already worked for us, do the day-to-day stuff. We just got another accountant and all that rubbish and started again. We had band meetings, but it soon got to be too much for us. We said to each other: ‘Look, we're not business people, how are we going to do this? We don't know how this all runs and works. We're musicians and what are we trying to do?'

We met with lawyers and accountants. That got boring because we weren't into that stuff at all. Within five minutes Ozzy would be asleep or he'd stand up and walk around and then go out and come back in and go: ‘We're going to get something to eat or what?'

‘Well, we'll end this meeting then?'

‘Oh, uh . . .'

‘Sit down.'

‘All right.'

He'd sit down for a bit and you'd see him fidgeting and then he'd ask a few questions: ‘Is that it then? We're finished?'