DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil

DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil

Eagle Vision

All Access Review: A-

Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil 2012

Rudy Sarzo writes in the photo-filled booklet that accompanies “Speak of the Devil” of Ozzy’s “fragile mental state” as the “Diary of a Madman” tour soldiered on in the aftermath of Randy Rhoads’ unthinkable death. That old saw about how “the show must go on” meant as much to a distraught Ozzy in his time of mourning as it ever did for any entertainer down through history, and Sarzo, Ozzy’s bassist at the time, shudders to think how the singer would have reacted had his traveling circus been shut down.

Desperate for the warm, sympathetic embrace of thousands of rabid fans, Ozzy and his carnival of the damned rolled into Irvine Meadows, California, on June 12, 1982, after an understandable delay and held a head-banging Irish wake for the virtuoso guitarist, slamming Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” “Children of the Grave” and the encore “Paranoid” to the wall after ripping the throat out of a slew of Ozzy’s solo hits. Now out on DVD, with audio restored and remastered with crystal – perhaps even unnatural – digital clarity, this is more than just a historical document of an electrifying performance from one of metal’s legendary front men. As he pounds his chest during a blazing rendition of “Crazy Train” – with Rhoads’ replacement, the underrated Brad Gillis, hungrily tearing through the song’s familiar riffs and manhandling its scorching leads – or somewhat clumsily executes one of his exuberant frog jumps, Ozzy, clapping away with arms raised, makes a grim reaper-defying gesture here as he drinks in the healing elixir of rock ‘n’ roll, as trite as that sounds. Ozzy is born again, his rebirth a devilishly delightful rock ‘n’ roll spectacle.

And it takes place while he’s surrounded by a really cool medieval castle for a stage and all the smoke, fire and pulsating multi-colored lights that rock ‘n’ roll fantasies are made of – plus a laser-lit bat that flies overhead during Ozzy’s dramatic entrance. Visually, though awfully dark on occasion, “Speak of the Devil” is filmed with professional sensibilities, combining expansive faraway shots and close-ups that often focus on the careening, razor-sharp musicianship and clenched-teeth intensity of Sarzo and Gillis during marauding, energetic romps through “Over the Mountains,” “Steal Away (The Night),” “I Don’t Know,” and “Flying High Again.” When, in a moment of unscripted playfulness, Ozzy bites into Gillis’ head and threatens to bash his skull as he grinds away during a blistering “Suicide Solution” solo, the camera frames the moment artfully, just as it does when Ozzy welcomes Gillis to the band with a big bear hug while the new guy shreds “Mr. Crowley.”

All of Ozzy’s demented, crowd-baiting antics are on display, as the comically ghoulish dwarf mascot “Ronnie” is hung during an otherwise lovely and wistful reading of “Goodbye to Romance.” Later, before launching into “Paranoid,” Ozzy slips on a glove that shoots fireworks out of its fingers. And the staging is absurdly massive and gloriously tone-deaf to fading calls for rock to be less ostentatious. Up high in one of the fortress’s balconies is hooded keyboardist Don Airey, whose regret-tinged piano colors the eco-friendly, peace-loving “Revelation (Mother Earth)” with all-too-human expressions of sadness, while his sinister intro to “Mr. Crowley” is pure horror-movie magic. On the staircase that serves as a drum riser, Tommy Aldridge pounds the night away, throwing the sticks aside and using only his hands in the midst of a frenzied drum solo midway through the show.

Everybody gets their turn in the spotlight on “Speak of the Devil,” and if there were any extras – maybe a featurette on the tour’s outlandish theatricality, perhaps some interviews with Ozzy or any of his band mates to give context to the event (Sarzo’s emotional insider’s perspective in the accompanying booklet shining some light on the inner workings of Ozzy’s crew), or just a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage – this DVD would be absolutely essential. As it is, “Speak of the Devil” is a captivating snapshot of a time when Ozzy was on the verge of going off the rails but somehow managed to keep the train rolling.

-            Peter Lindblad

Powerline: The Resurrection

Founded in 1985, Powerline began as an undergound hard rock/heavy metal mag, distributed mostly in record stores worldwide. As it evolved a few years later, it embraced more commercial hard rock

 (the popular genre at the time was classified as “hair bands”) and the mag was distributed as a high-gloss publication on American newsstands with a circulation of over 100K.

By 1992 the party was over. The magazine became defunct (for various reasons). The staff went onto other jobs. And the name gathered dust. Until now.

Resurrected online, Powerline covers hard rock/heavy metal music in general (truly From Glam to Slam!), as well as reminisce about the old days in the form of time-capsuled articles and experiences.

Backstage Auctions sat down with Pat Prince to talk about all things hard rock and heavy metal, the new online version of Powerline and the industry in general.

How did you start Powerline? And why?
I grew up reading magazines like CREEM and Kerrang! But I then became obsessed with seeking out and collecting metal fanzines – I loved Bob Muldowney's Kick Ass monthly and Metal Rendezvous — and the pure excitement of discovering new metal bands. Powerline was really born out of my love for fanzines and the metal underground but also my frustration of not being able to get enough of my photographs published in the metal press. I'd been sneaking my 35mm camera into metal clubs like L'amour in Brooklyn for years and taking photos of all the latest bands. Finally, in 1985, I figured I'd take my photographs and put them next to my ramblings about the bands I loved, so I started Powerline with a typewriter, pasteboards, and veloxes from my photographs. And, at first, I dropped off copies to sell in all the record stores in the tri-state area that carried metal. It progressed from there.

Since Powerline started as a fanzine. How much did the editorial content change upon hitting the newsstand?
After I teamed up with my friend Mike Smith in 1988, we merged the essence of the fanzine with the more popular hard rock/ metal acts of the time like Ozzy, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, etc. It was really a great combination because it covered everything. Soon we were able to hire renowned metal journalists like Mick Wall (a favorite of mine from Kerrang!). And the graphics and quality became really fantastic. Some might of seen it as a sell out. But it was really an evolution.

What was your favorite issue to put together?
Each issue had its own great experience. But I would have to say the Metallica issue, September 1989. I was into Metallica from the very beginning of their existence but by the time I started Powerline in 1985, Metallica became too big to get access to. Finally, we were able to get an exclusive interview and make it a cover story, with great color live shots.

What was the strangest interview you've done?
L.A. Guns. It was in a hotel room in New York City and the band had their rock star hats on. They were rude and seemingly drunk out of their minds. My questions were repeated back at me and answered in a nonsensical manner. Steve Riley was laying on the bed and bouncing a rubber ball off the walls and giving me a juvenile play-by-play of it. I had brought Powerline t-shirts to give the band and Phil Lewis stood up and said sarcastically, 'Oh, great, t-shirts.' He picked one up and rubbed his crotch with it and then threw it across the room. Up to that moment Powerline had been a big promoter of LA Guns — not that that demanded my respect, but it certainly hurt witnessing this kind of behavior. I walked out of the room with Riley, Lewis, and Kelly Nickels in a laughing/giggling fit. I had loved Lewis' singing since he was in the UK band Girl, but I thought 'F*ck you. I don't care who you are.' The PR woman finally directed me to Tracii Guns' room. And walking in, you can clearly tell Tracii was in the middle of getting hardcore stoned. It was like walking into a hash den. But, completely opposite of his bandmates, Guns was one of the coolest musicians I've had the pleasure to meet. That's why when people ask me nowadays which faction of LA Guns I support — Tracii Guns' L.A. Guns or Phil Lewis' L.A. Guns — it becomes quite an easy question to answer.

How is the metal genre different than it was when you started Powerline?
Today's metal now has standardized extremities — it seems too forced at times. I like all kinds of metal for its musical value but I don't agree with this way of thinking. You don't have to be extreme to be intense.

Is it harder for a metal band to be recognized nowadays?
Metal seems to be making a comeback. Genres can be cyclical as far as popularity. But hard rock and heavy metal will always be there. It was very hard for metal bands to get recognized in the early - to mid-'80s— which made it seem more exciting, actually.

How are Metal fans/collectors unique? Do you collect metal memorabilia?
When you listen to a genre exclusively, you like to think that your music is the most unique, and its followers are the most enthusiastic. And there are some aspects of it that are unique. But, basically, fans and collectors are the same all over, no matter the genre. After being the editor of Goldmine I certainly realized that!
A lot of my favorite memorabilia, unfortunately, has been lost over the years. I had almost all the metal demos from the '80s, including Metallica's. And the heavy metal demos of the '80s were the most fun to collect and trade. It was a world onto itself — almost a secret society. And, unlike today's MP3s, bands wanted you to trade demos -- get the music out there. I'm glad I experienced it. The demos from bands like Malice and Mercyful Fate were better than a lot of the stuff that made it onto their studio albums. Brilliant stuff that you'd could only hear if you were part of that scene. And then you had bands like Surgical Steel that you can only hear on demo tape. It's a moment in time that you really can't recapture.

Why did you resurrect Powerline as a Web site?
I listen to all kinds of music now, but I had missed Powerline and the music it cherished being an important part of my life. Plus I got kind of sick of bands like Korn being seen as the face of heavy music. What about bands like Saxon, Riot, Accept, Raven and the hundreds of other great bands from the '80s — the ones that started it all?! They deserve the most respect!

What are Powerline's future plans?
To have Powerline conitnue to represent vintage Hard Rock/Heavy Metal bands. I love the idea of turning kids onto all that old school stuff for the first time. Kind of like how Kerrang! turned me onto it in the early '80s.

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DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne"

DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne"
Eagle Vision
All Access Review:  A+

In retrospect, that bubbly, tongue-in-cheek lounge version of “Crazy Train” – served with off-the-charts levels of irony – that became the theme of “The Osbournes” reality TV show wound up being more telling than its creator, Lewis Lamedica, perhaps intended. His speech largely unintelligible, except for the omnipresent swearing, Osbourne seemed to have difficulty mastering the simplest of everyday, domestic tasks, a fact borne out by the famous scenes of him befuddled by that dastardly TV remote. 

This was heavy metal’s crowned “prince of darkness”? This was the man regarded by God-fearing, Bible thumpers as evil incarnate? Surely, Satan had more capable henchmen to do his bidding. At home, everybody was laughing at the bumbling, semi-coherent mess train wreck they watched from their living rooms, making light of a family’s seemingly benign dysfunction. What they didn’t know was that, behind the scenes, Ozzy – as well as two of his children, Jack and Kelly – was a drunk and a drug addict seriously in need of help. Ozzy was going off the rails. 

In truth, Osbourne has always been more of a court jester than a powerful master of the dark arts. And like most clowns, underneath the greasepaint, there was sadness, crippling insecurity and a deeply flawed human being who needed to be the life of the party. His son, Jack, has seen Ozzy at his worst, and he produced the warts-and-all documentary “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne,” an unflinchingly honest portrayal of Ozzy’s wild life and times that pulls no punches in telling the whole unvarnished truth. And those who come to “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne” with a mighty thirst for tales of rock and roll excess and debauchery shall be sated. Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler talks about the bags of cocaine the band had at its disposal after its early brush with success, while Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee relates the revoltingly funny stories of how Ozzy, in a game of one-upmanship, once licked up Nikki Sixx’s pee and snorted lines of ants before regaling us with another that has Ozzy smearing his own feces over a tour bus’s walls. 

But, Ozzy is, for the most part, the main storyteller here, and before launching into confessionals of his less-than-stellar parenting skills, the film details Ozzy’s failed teenage criminal enterprises, his troubled working-class upbringing, Sabbath’s rise and fall, his unexpected rebirth as a solo artist and the emotional torture he experienced after the death of his musical soul mate Randy Rhoads. All of this is well-traveled territory, of course, but it is skillfully and compelling traversed in “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne.” When Ozzy and Sharon, once again, are prompted to explain how, in a fit of drug-addled madness, he came to bite the head off a dove during a pow-wow with record label executives, they hold nothing back, and the filmmakers follow it up with a nicely edited montage of hilariously clueless TV news reports about Ozzy coming to their town to slaughter cats during a concert and, predictably, the bat-biting incident. Directors Mike Fleiss and Mike Piscitelli, with Jack’s help, are no slouches when it comes to crafting a visual biography – the endless stream of black-and-white home-life stills, Ozzy party shots, vintage interview and Sabbath and Ozzy concert video pieced together so cleverly that it all just flows from the screen. The vast amount of interviews done with Sabbath cronies Tony Iommi and Bill Ward, plus sit-downs with Henry Rollins and others in Ozzy’s inner circle, flesh out the story, as does the footage culled from two years spent following Ozzy on the road. 

If that was all to “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne” – there are plenty of extra scenes from the cutting room floor included in this DVD, plus an in-depth Q&A with Jack and Ozzy – it would fall just short of expectations, but this isn’t so much about Ozzy the rock star as it is about Ozzy the damaged addict, still reeling from the deaths of his beloved father and Rhoads and unable, or perhaps unwilling, to salvage his first marriage or establish much of a relationship with the two children it spawned. This is about repairing the devastation wrought by Ozzy’s almost inhuman substance abuse and how Jack’s sobriety became the model by which Ozzy would get clean himself. There’s a clip where Kelly, while admitting her own drug abuse, explains how she found her daddy’s stash of booze in the oven at the family home, and it illustrates just how far Ozzy had fallen and how chaotic the Osbournes’ family life really was. But, this is a story of redemption, and Ozzy’s moment of clarity does come. When the exasperated rock god relates how he asked Jack how he could be so angry when he and Kelly and Aimee, the one Osbourne with enough self-respect not to participate in the circus that was “The Osbournes,” wanted for nothing, Jack responded by saying that maybe he had lacked a father. That, Ozzy reveals, was the catalyst for his rehabilitation. In the end, there is a faraway shot of Ozzy in his dressing room bowing to his knees to pray. It’s a poignant moment, one that engenders a great deal of sympathy for this particular devil. 

-            Peter Lindblad

Ozzy's Official Website: http://www.ozzy.com/us/home

Ozzy Osbourne: The Doctor Is In

The Doctor Is In
By: Jeb Wright - Classic Rock Revisited

Ozzy Osbourne continues to entertain people around the world as one of the top vocalists in Heavy Metal history. Now, Ozzy is back with two new projects, neither of which features him on center stage. The first, a book titled Trust me, I’m Dr. Ozzy, is an advice column where the Prince of Darkness listens to questions about kids, relationships, sex, drugs and anything else on his reader’s mind before giving them advice on what to do in their current situation. It is a hilarious book; however, Ozzy does the unexpected and comes across as actually caring what these people are going through. You get his over the top sense of humor but Ozzy also reveals he is much more in touch with humanity then one might expect.

The other project is a documentary by his son, Jack Osbourne, titled God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Jack went behind the lens and delivered big with a behind the scenes look at who Ozzy really was, and is, and what it was like to grow up his son. At times this is humorous, but other times it is soul searchingly honest and emotional. Ozzy discusses the project in-depth in the interview that follows.

At the end of our time together, I took the opportunity to ask Dr. Ozzy for some advice with a personal problem I am currently facing. His answer was spot on, so much so that I’m hoisting a piece of pepperoni pizza in his honor as I type these words.

Jeb: Your new book is a collection of question and answers from your advice column that was in the Times in London and in Rolling Stone Magazine. What was your reaction when you were asked to do the column?

Ozzy: What happened was that I was asked to get this test on my DNA because of everything that I had done with drugs and alcohol, and the lifestyle I had led the last forty years. I did this thing called Genomics, which is where they take some of your blood and they go clear back in your bloodline and figure out where you came from, and what diseases and things you could be facing in your lifetime.

The Times in London said, “Why don’t you do a column since you’ve survived everything and give advice to people.” The column is really just common sense. I suddenly found myself relating to a lot of the people writing in. They wrote in about kids and marriage and all of this stuff. If I didn’t know what to say, or if it was serious, then I would tell them to go and see a doctor.

Jeb: When they did the DNA test, I heard they found you were part Neanderthal.

Ozzy: Yeah, yeah, that explains the thick part of my skull [laughter].

Jeb: Did you expect the results to be that in-depth?

Ozzy: I didn’t know what to expect. I did find out one thing that I didn’t like. Every morning, I like to get up and have a strong cup of coffee and I found out I’m allergic to coffee because of this test. I go, “Oh fuck.” I have one cup of good strong coffee a day but that’s it.

I can only decipher about a third of it [the test] because two thirds of it is a lot of technical jargon. It’s not a cheap test; it costs quite a lot of money. It is beyond my fucking brain, what they talk about. It is hard for me to digest information because it may as well all be in Latin.

Jeb: Did you have a lot of fun doing the column?

Ozzy: If it wasn’t fun then I wouldn’t have done it. I suppose people were expecting me to tell them to take a ton of acid, and an aspirin, and go to bed.

Jeb: I think the book has more charm because you’re so open about substance abuse.

Ozzy: I was talking to my wife just the other day about this; most of my old associates, people that I used to get stoned and drunk with, are dead and gone. There are a few stragglers but most are dead. The word moderation has never applied to Ozzy Osbourne. I never went out for a fucking drink; I went out to get fucking crippled. I would say, “I am going down to the local pup, darling. I’ll be back in a little while.” I would show back up three days later in a pair of fucking handcuffs.

Jeb: Now, at age 62, is moderation something you can achieve?

Ozzy: I can‘t drink and I can’t do drugs. I mean, I live in California and I could get a bag of mild marijuana from the doctor but who I am fucking kidding? I’d start out with a mild bag of marijuana and I’d end up with a fucking bag of crack. My mind runs away with the fantasy because one drink, or one joint, or one whatever doesn’t apply to me but my head still thinks it does. I will think about it and my head runs away with the thought.

Jeb: You have tried to quit for as long as I can remember. Why is it different now?

Ozzy: I got fed up with quitting. The first thing I stopped was tobacco, and don’t ask me how I did that. I have been in nearly every rehab around. I have been in rehab with heroin users and they say, “I can put the smack down but I can’t give up tobacco.” I put it down first. My voice would crack in concert and I felt like a soccer player kicking the fucking wall when he was not in the game.

To be honest with you, I was not having a good time. I would make all of these grandiose statements about how I was Mr. Sober, now. In the National Enquirer, the following day, you would see me on the floor in a bog covered in piss.

There is a lot more help these days than there used to be. It is a lot more openly spoken about then when I was a kid. My folks didn’t say, “He’s got a drinking problem.” You just didn’t talk about it. My drinking problem was that I couldn’t get e-fucking-nough. If I knew, and I honestly thought to myself, that I could drink moderately, then I would, but I know I can’t. I never ever did, I never ever will and I don’t want to.

Jeb: I think when someone like you tells people to stop doing drugs it comes across loud and clear. What was one of your favorite questions on drugs?

Ozzy: The one that I remember was this guy who had just come back from a doctor who had prescribed this medication that said on the bottle, “While taking this medication, do not drink alcohol.” This guy asks, “What should I do?” I said, “Well, if you’re a dummy, and you’re fucking nuts, then you will drink alcohol with the medication. If I were you, then I would do what it says on the bottle and not drink any alcohol.” Some people are fucking insane.

Jeb: Oh, come on, I imagine back in the day you would’ve drank with the medication.

Ozzy: I did. If they would have asked me that question ten years ago, then I would have been on drugs and drunk and I would’ve gone, “Dude, this is Ozzy, I’ve just taken this medication and I’m about to down a quart of vodka. Where is the nearest fucking hospital from where I am?”

Jeb: Were there any sex questions that were uncomfortable for you to answer?

Ozzy: The newspaper would get them all in and then just send through the funny things. One guy wrote in telling me that he was worried about his relationship because he used to have sex with his wife three to four times a week. He said, “Now, we are only doing it once a week. I’m 80 years old and I’m worried we are growing apart.” I said, “Stop complaining, man!” I mean fucking hell, he’s doing good.

Jeb: I want to talk about a project your son Jack did called God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Tell me about how that came about.

Ozzy: He decided to go behind the camera, rather than in front of the camera. He wanted to start a production company and he said, “Would you mind if I did a documentary on you?” I said, “Just don’t make me look like something that I’m not. If I’m bad then say that I’m bad.” I didn’t want him to do one of these documentaries that say, “Look at me, I’m the wonderful one.” I’ve had my wonderful moments but I’ve also had my fucked up moments as well. I said, “Jack, you’ve got the freedom of the camera. Do the best job that you can.”

I must confess, when I was watching it in a theater in New York, part of me said, “Fuck, be careful what you ask for.” I’m not afraid to talk about the bad things I’ve done in my life. So many of us are the great and glorious and never talk about the things that we don’t want to talk about.

Jeb: Was it emotional for you to see you through your son’s eyes?

Ozzy: No, because when I was watching it, I was just watching a film. We’re a very close family. There were parts of it that kind of got me. There was a question that asked if I was a very good father and the answer was no. I thought about it and I suppose it was true because I was always fucked up, you know.

Jeb: I think that would be hard to take now that you’re not all fucked up.

Ozzy: But it’s the truth. I remember one time I was arguing with my son Jack and I said, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re always complaining about what I’m doing. You’ve never wanted for a damn fucking thing.” He said, “Oh yeah?” I said, “Name one fucking thing in your life that you’ve wanted that you haven’t got? If your bicycle broke, you got a new one. If you wanted to go somewhere you got to do it.” He said, “You want to know what I’ve never had? A father.” He stopped me dead in my fucking tracks. Alcoholics and drug addicts are self-centered people. We only care about ourselves.

Jeb: You can’t go back and do it again.

Ozzy: If you could buy love then people would be selling it in gold boxes.

Jeb: Are you at a place in your life where you can finally say that you’re happy and that you’re satisfied?

Ozzy: No.

Jeb: How can that be?

Ozzy: I’m a worrier. I will worry if I don’t have anything to worry about.

Jeb: From the outside looking in, it appears you’re doing great. You can tell that you are really in love with your family.

Ozzy: We do stupid things and we have rows but it’s a family. When we started filming The Osbournes T.V. series people would come into my house and go, “Is it always like this?” I was like, “What?” They would go, “Your son just put a fucking spike in his shoe and your daughter just bought a new party dress. Your wife is coming in with all these shopping bags and the fucking cat is on fire.” It was just how our life is. When we did the show, a lot of people ended up relating to us. We didn’t go Hollywood bullshit.

Jeb: My daughter, Cassidy, watched the show and said, “We are like The Osbournes but without the money and drugs.”

Ozzy: [Laughter] I love it.

Jeb: My last one is asking Dr. Ozzy for some advice. I need some help with an issue that I know you have struggled with. I have discovered a new authentic Mexican restaurant in town and I’m hooked on burritos. What do I do to get off the burritos?

Ozzy: Switch to pizza [laugher]!

Jeb: That’s perfect. I’m getting a pizza today.

Ozzy: I will do that with burritos. I will eat nothing but burritos for about a month and then I will go, “This is fucking boring.” A normal person wouldn’t eat burritos every day for six weeks. If they did then they would never eat one again for the rest of their life.

When I was doing that TV show people were noticing that I was eating these energy bars, and then they got them for me for free. Then, I was eating burritos all the time and I was given a lifetime supply and I never had to buy one when I went to the place to get one. Once they started giving them to me for free, I’ve never had one since. When it was free, I didn’t want it. I have no idea why I’m like that.

For more of Jeb Wright's interviews, reviews and news check out Classic Rock Revisited. 

A Tribute to Ronnie James Dio from Vinny Appice

Famed drummer also unveils new Kill Devil Hill project and reveals what’s in his memorabilia collection


By Peter Lindblad

Tributes for Ronnie James Dio have been pouring in since the iconic heavy metal singer’s death back in May. The sense of loss throughout the metal community is still palpable, and even now, one of his closest friends and musical conspirators can hardly believe he’s gone.

“He was a leader, a father figure, a brother, musician … it was like he was going to live forever,” said Vinny Appice, who served as drummer for Black Sabbath during the Dio years and subsequently followed Dio when the singer left Sabbath in the acrimonious aftermath of Live Evil to form his own project, the hugely successful fantasy-metal outfit Dio.

Sabbath was in a state of flux when Vinny Appice joined the band in 1980. One year earlier, following the unceremonious dismissal of Ozzy Osbourne, Dio was plugged in to replace the legendary wild man as the band’s singer. Beset with personal problems of his own, bassist Geezer Butler exiled himself from Sabbath during the lion’s share of the writing sessions for Heaven and Hell, the band’s first album with Dio, with Geoff Nicholls of Quartz at the ready just in case Butler wasn’t coming back – he would eventually become Sabbath’s keyboardist, however. And then there’s the fuzzy evidence of the involvement of former Elf and Rainbow bassist Craig Gruber in Sabbath during the whole Heaven and Hell period; he left when Butler returned.

As for Appice, he had to fill the shoes of none other than Bill Ward as Sabbath’s drummer in the middle of the band’s tour backing Heaven and Hell. He had to learn the songs on the fly as Sabbath was preparing for a huge outdoor show in Hawaii. As time went on, Appice and Dio grew close, understandable considering their similar East Coast backgrounds.

“We’d always say, ‘I’ll kick you in the ass.’ He’d kick me in the ass onstage. We had the same New York attitude,” said Appice.

On the other hand, Butler and Iommi were British, born and bred. And when arguments erupted over the making of Live Evil, it was Iommi and Butler on one side and the Americans, Appice and Dio, on the other. So, when Dio left Sabbath, it was only natural that Appice would go with him, even though, according to Appice, he didn’t really take sides in the dispute and had gotten along with everybody in Sabbath.

In Dio, Appice saw something special, and it wasn’t just that magnificent voice.

“First of all, it’s just the way he sang, you know,” said Appice, when asked what it was that made Dio such a unique talent. “I’ve never been around anybody who sang like that – just soul and heart, you know. The way he sounded, the sound of his voice, and then he was just totally into his music – totally loved it. And it was just nice to be around somebody so strong. He was a great leader, and just an incredible voice. It made you feel secure. You know, if I stay with this guy, nothing’s going to happen. That’s why his death was a shock. Man, this is one of the strongest persons I’ve ever met in my life. He was a leader, a father figure, a brother, musician … it was like he was going to live forever. Or if he got sick, he’ll beat it. And that’s why it’s a shock. Man, he went down. He had so many qualities. It was so easy to be drawn to him.”

As so many people were, be they fans or fellow musicians who idolized Dio. Not surprisingly, Appice has wonderful memories of his days with Sabbath, Dio and Heaven and Hell. And, as expected, over the years, Appice has accumulated many prized mementos from those halcyon days.

“Obviously, I got gold and platinum records,” said Appice. “And then I got different things that were given to the band, one from Madison Square Garden in 1980 [that marked how the band] sold a million dollars worth of tickets, cool stuff. Years ago, you used to get a lot of swag; there were Black Sabbath bags that only the band had, Black Sabbath robes … it was like that kind of stuff, some old posters, not a lot. And Dio, I got a lot of the same kind of stuff, plaques and different things like that. There are some pictures, but that’s about it. Not a whole bunch of stuff.”

What are the pieces that mean the most to him?

“Well, all the gold records,” says Appice. “So, all the gold records and platinum records; those are priceless."

As has been reported recently, Appice has a new project going called Kill Devil Hill with former Pantera bassist Rex Brown “ … and two unknown guys – Dewey Bragg on vocals and Mark Zavon on guitar. And this stuff kicks butt. Right now it’s called Kill Devil Hill, but we might change the name, so we’re working on that right at this moment and it’ll be out next year. So there’s a lot more stuff coming along.”

And Appice isn’t closing the door on his days with Sabbath’s survivors. “We might continue. Who knows?”

Official Website Vinny Appice 

  

Rudy Sarzo - A Man with a Story to Tell

Rudy Sarzo

For over 25 years Rudy has been playing bass and recording hits with Ozzy, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake, Dio and Blue Oyster Cult, just to name a few. In the early 80s he was a member of Ozzy Osbourne's band, playing alongside the legendary Randy Rhoads and then later with Quiet Riot. Moving into the late 80s, Rudy landed a spot with Whitesnake, where he remained until the mid 90s and then in 1997 reunited with Quiet Riot. In 2004 he became a member of Dio and also plays with Blue Oyster Cult when his schedule permits.

His recordings with all of these artists combined have sold over 30 million copies and when you add up all the tours and videos he did to support those albums it's no wonder that Sarzo's career as a bass player, earned him the reputation of an accomplished musician. Sarzo is also involved with the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp as a camp counselor and can be seen on the new reality show currently featured on VH1 Classic.

Rudy's latest project, "Off The Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz" is his personal account of his friendship on and off the road with Randy Rhoades and Ozzy Osbourne.

Sarzo has put several iconic pieces in the Rock Gods 'n Metal Monsters Auction from the Whitesnake and Dio era. One of the pieces is a denim jacket that he wore on stage and in various official videos while playing with Whitesnake and another rock relic is a studded cross shirt that he wore while performing with Dio. Both of these items are very well documented and photographed. All of Rudy's items can be easily found in the auction by doing a quick search of the auction catalog.

'87 - '88 Whitesnake Era

The auction event, aptly titled the "Rock Gods and Metal Monsters Auction", is a not-to-miss opportunity for fans and collectors around the world to own an authentic piece of one of the most significant genres of music history. The auction, which will be held on-line at www.backstageauctions.com starts on October 31, 2010 and will run through November 7, 2010. A special preview of the entire auction catalog is available now for viewing.

Artist Links
Rudy Sarzo Official Website 
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Myspace

Walter O'Brien - The Metal Music Man

Backstage Auctions’ consignor Walter O’Brien opens up about managing the careers of some of the biggest acts in heavy metal history.

By Peter Lindblad

Walter O'Brien

All the stars aligned for Walter O’Brien and Concrete Management during one amazing two-week period in 1989, even though the music-industry veteran almost didn’t answer when opportunity knocked. Signing a little ol’ band from Texas called Pantera, this fearsome tornado of sh*t-kicking, brutally intense groove metal and canyon-deep, guttural vocals that would destroy everything in its path, came first, and soon after, White Zombie was brought aboard.

Concrete was fast on its way to becoming heavy metal kingmakers. And it all started with an impromptu trip to Texas that O’Brien had been dreading, one that friends like Derek Shulman, formerly of the U.K. progressive-rock favorites Gentle Giant and later a music industry big shot at PolyGram Records and other labels, urged him to take.

At the time, O’Brien was representing Metal Church and trying to extricate the band from Elektra Records, who wasn’t doing much for Metal Church but refused to let them out of their contract. After much legal wrangling, Concrete managed to free Metal Church, so O’Brien went shopping for another label. He didn’t find much interest in the ill-fated metal band, but Shulman, who was running the Atco label, had another act he was high on.

“I went to him and I said I need a deal for Metal Church,” said O’Brien, “and he thought about it for a couple of weeks, and he said, ‘You know what? I just don’t want to take on anything that’s already been through the ringer a couple of times. But I’ve got this new band called Pantera that I’m signing and I’d love you to be their manager.’ And I went, ‘Oh God. You mean that glam band from Dallas?’”

True, Pantera did start out as glam-metal dandies, and they had the shiny stage clothes and teased hair to prove it. But when singer Phil Anselmo joined Pantera, a sea change occurred. Ditching the glam look, Pantera also transformed their sound into a swirling vortex of thick, aggressive, adrenaline-fueled riffs, driving bass and pummeling drums, made all the more evil by the trademark Anselmo growl. O’Brien wasn’t aware of just how much Pantera had changed.

Steer Horns Given to Walter from Pantera
Only Texas boys would think of this and yes they wanted
him to put it on the hood of his car. He didn't, but it
is featured in the auction

“[Derek] said, ‘Talk to Mark Ross, the A&R guy here,’ and tried to talk me into it,” remembered O’Brien. “And I said, ‘You know what? I’ve seen their pictures, I’ve heard their records and [they’re] just, well they're just not interesting. And they’d always send me their stuff, and I just wasn’t interested. Mark said, ‘Oh no, they’re different now. You’ve got to see them live.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to go all the way to Texas just to [do this]. So he tried to get me to do it for about two weeks, and I just didn’t want to do it. Finally, about 5 o’clock one afternoon, he calls me up. He goes, ‘It’s your last chance. I’m leaving for Dallas now. I’m going to the airport. I’ll send a limo to go get you.’ I literally looked at my watch and I went, ‘Well, I could be there in an hour. Oh hell, I’ve got nothing else to do tonight.’”

So O’Brien went, but only on the condition that Ross had to provide that limo and a hotel room. “And he was all excited,” said O’Brien. “I said, ‘I’m not going to like them, but for you I’ll come. And, of course, I went there and they were the most unbelievable live band I’d ever seen.”

Soon thereafter, Michael Alago, the man who signed Metallica to Elektra, knocked on O’Brien’s door with another proposition. “He was at Geffen, and he felt bad for what Elektra had done to [Metal Church], and he said, ‘I just signed this great new New York band at Geffen called White Zombie. Why don’t you manage them?’” recalled O’Brien.

Though he was too wrapped up in trying to break Pantera to take over White Zombie himself, O’Brien, who recognized the band’s potential, passed them off to a man who worked for him named Andy Gould.

“He had a bunch of bands that were just going nowhere fast like Princess Pang and … two or three others, and I went, ‘Andy, listen. Geffen really wants us to manage this band, White Zombie, and the record is unbelievable, but I just don’t have time,’” explained O’Brien. “And he listened to it, and he says, ‘This is a great record. Sure I’ll do it. And that was how we picked up Pantera and White Zombie in a couple of weeks or so. It changed everything.”

And in the end, O’Brien got the last laugh after everybody, it seemed, thought he’d lost his mind in signing the two bands.

“Funny thing, everybody we knew in the business thought we were nuts,” he said. “Everybody uniformly thought these two bands are going nowhere. And they turned out to be the biggest bands we worked with ever.”

One of the biggest consignors in Backstage Auctions’ upcoming “Rock Gods ‘N Metal Monsters Auction,” scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 7, with a special preview slated for Sunday, Oct. 24, O’Brien has long history in heavy metal and hard rock. In his 30-plus years in the music business, O’Brien did it all, from promotion and publicity to marketing and artist management. Working at the grass-roots level and exhausting all avenues of promotion, O’Brien helped propel acts such as Anthrax, Ministry and Winger, in addition to Pantera and White Zombie, to the top of the heap.

As one might expect, O’Brien has accumulated a vast collection of music memorabilia over the years, and he’s put most of it in Backstage Auctions’ hands to sell. Cleaning house wasn’t so easy for him, though his reasons for doing it are understandable.

“When I closed the company down, I turned 50,” said O’Brien. “I retired. I figured 32 years was enough in the business. And Pantera had broken up, and then I went back to finish my journalism degree, which is what I do for a living now. And of course what happened was about three days before my final exam, Dimebag [Darrell of Pantera] got murdered. And that was a whole other … for me that was it. I always in the back of my head said, someday, Phil will get better [he’d been fighting a drug problem] and they’ll bury the hatchet. Wouldn’t it be great to go out and see those guys play live again? And of course now that’ll never happen. And I’ve just been carrying all this stuff around and collecting it since I was a kid. You just get to a point where it’s just too much. I’m moving to a different house, and I just couldn’t pack it up one more time. So it was time to downsize and go a little Zen.”

O’Brien’s loss could be your gain. A previous auction sold all of O’Brien’s Beatles items and material he’d gathered while working with Peter Gabriel and Genesis. Talking about what he consigned for the metal auction, O’Brien said, “Of course there’s a lot of Pantera stuff – special items and things the band gave me, or things the promoters gave. There’s a jacket that’s a beautiful leather jacket that was custom made. There are maybe 16 of them in the world – a beautiful embroidered leather jacket from a tour, that kind of stuff. There’s laminates and tour passes, just backstage stuff.”

Fully Signed by Pantera Members - Dimebag Designed Guitar
This super rare and unique rock relic is featured in the auction.

The highlight, according to O’Brien, is something he is very fond of – a Washburn Dimeslime guitar, autographed by all four members of Pantera, with a Dimebag Darrell crybaby and a special Dimebag guitar strap and picks. “I think it was [from] '98, the peak of everybody being happy,” said O’Brien. “They autographed it with a big, thick Sharpie, so it still looks great and of course it’s been protected ever since.”

Parting with it is tough, but it had to be done. “I just got to the point where I thought, I’ve had the pleasure of owning it for a long time,” said O’Brien. “Somebody out there would love to have it.”

There is more … lots more, including a Cheap Trick tour program signed by Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen. “Cheap Trick is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I got to meet them in Japan with Pantera,” said O’Brien. “I kind of feel bad giving that one up, but again, once I decided to do this, I just went, ‘I can’t pick and choose.’”

White Zombie RIAA Astro-Creep 2x Platinum
featured in auction along with other RIAA Awards

But that’s exactly what collectors will be doing in this auction, which includes loads of vinyl from O’Brien’s collection, including test pressings, and more autographed items, plus many Pantera and White Zombie gold and platinum records from around the world – all trophies of a highly successful career that began way back in the early 1970s.

From 1973 to 1975, O’Brien worked in radio promotion and publicity for Jem Records, Inc. He then moved on to ATV/Pye Records before becoming label manager at Passport Records. In March 1978, O’Brien helped run the artist management company Hit and Run Music, aka Run It Music, where he worked with Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Rod Argent. After a short stint as label manager at Hannibal Records, O’Brien founded Relativity/Important Records as a domestic label for a music importer.

While with Relativity/Important, O’Brien greased the wheels to get The Cure’s classic single “Let’s Go to Bed” released while the gloomy, darkly pop Romantics were between labels. He also founded Combat Records and helped get Megaforce Records – the label that served as the first home of Anthrax and Metallica – up and running. But bigger and better things were soon to come, and they arrived via Concrete Marketing and Concrete Management.

It all started with a long-shot by the name of Grim Reaper, an ominous U.K. progressive-metal that needed representation in the U.S. O’Brien figured he was the man for the job. “I founded Relativity Records and Combat Records,” said O’Brien, whose familiarity with import records led him to Grim Reaper, “and I was trying to sign Grim Reaper for America. Their then-manager in England wouldn’t sign with me because he wanted to hold out for a major label. We laughed because what major label was going to pick up Grim Reaper in 1984? RCA came out of the corner and said, ‘We do.’ But [the woman who expressed interest] was a friend of mine and she said, ‘I’m going to sign them, but I know you wanted them first. They need a manager. Well, I know. We’ll sign them and hire you to be their tour manager, and after about a week or two on the road, they’ll probably beg you to be their manager and you’ll have a management company.’ And I went, ‘Deal (laughs).’”

A special project, Grim Reaper didn’t come ready made for stardom. Instead of rock god looks, they had complex musicianship and Grim Reaper, though melodic, could sometimes be a challenging, but ultimately rewarding, listen. Knowing MTV wasn’t in the cards for Grim Reaper, O’Brien didn’t have pie-in-the-sky dreams for the group. So he had to think outside the box to do what he could for them.

“We knew we weren’t going to get radio play,” said O’Brien. “So we did every possible grassroots thing we could think of, because I had a past in independent record companies. So I knew how to promote at a grassroots level, and that involves doing everything you can – every show you can get your hands on, every in-store appearance in any store that’ll have you, every interview on a radio station you can get, all the signed posters, the signed record jackets … just everything.”

Walter's Grim Reaper Passes featured
in auction.

It worked. At a time when bands were lucky if they could sell 50,000 copies of their debut album, the first Grim Reaper release O’Brien pushed sold 250,000. “Everybody asked, ‘How did you do that?’” said O’Brien. “At first we started saying, well, we did this, we did that. And then after about three months of realizing we were going to be broke soon – we had just started the company about three months ago – we said, ‘No. How did we do that? Pay us and we’ll show you.’ And that’s how Concrete Marketing got started.”

One man who shouldn’t be forgotten in all this is Bob Chiappardi, O’Brien’s partner in Concrete Marketing and Concrete Management. When he and O’Brien first met, Chiappardi wasn’t exactly on the fast track to upper management at Arista Records.

“I had already been in the music business for like 16 or 17 years, and I was hanging out with a friend of mine who did publicity at Arista Records, and Bob was some kid working in the mailroom in Arista’s publicity department,” recalled O’Brien. “I would sit down and wait for my friend to leave work, and we’d end up sitting around talking. And I liked him, and he liked me, and he just kept pressuring me to start a management company together. In my head I was saying, to be totally honest – not that he doesn’t know already – ‘I don’t want to do that,’ because I knew that I had almost 20 years of experience on this guy.”

But Chiappardi was persistent. All the while, O’Brien was in the process of leaving Relativity/Important Records and doing computer training work. “I was training and installing electronic mail systems, if you can believe it, in 1983 and 1984 for the music industry, the international departments,” said O’Brien.

But then along came Grim Reaper, and all the drama that can play on tour. Out on the road, one of the crew for the band overdosed on heroin. “I fired him,” said O’Brien. “He didn’t overdose and die. But that’s when we found out what he was doing, and I said, ‘I don’t work with junkies.’”

A painful personal experience earlier in life had taught him that it was impossible to trust drug addicts, but his crew of three people was now down to two. “And then Bob jumped and said, ‘I’ll come out on the road with you for a week,’” said O’Brien. “I’ll cover until you get somebody out here. I got somebody out there, and then all of a sudden, the band asked me to manage them. And Bob said, ‘Well, who’s going to be in New York handling meetings and the record label and all that while you’re out on the road?’ And I said, ‘Okay, you know what? Let’s start a management company.’”

Concrete Management...in the beginning. 

Innovative, creative and known for beating the bushes to promote their clients any way they could, Concrete built a sterling reputation in the business. Early on, they picked up Cities, a New York City band Chiappardi knew that included past and future Twisted Sister drummer A.J. Pero.

Steadily, Concrete built its client roster, with O’Brien taking on Metal Church at the behest of Alago, who was working for Elektra, the label that had planned to put out Metal Church’s second record around this time. Interestingly, Concrete also took on Winger, helping shepherd them to the top with their million-plus selling self-titled debut.

“We worked on all the preparation for Winger’s debut record,” said O’Brien. “What we used to say at the time was we took ‘em from nothing to like two million.”

Winger’s partnership with Concrete only lasted through the band’s first record, but that didn’t stop Concrete from steaming ahead. Going strong for years, Concrete really took off when Pantera and White Zombie came along. By the late ‘80s, Concrete was a well-oiled marketing and management machine. Word of mouth had gotten around, and in good time, some of the biggest bands in hard rock and heavy metal came knocking on Concrete’s door.

“Yeah, it was just ridiculous,” said O’Brien. “First, we did all the marketing, and the marketing company went through the roof. Then we started Foundations Forum, the big heavy-metal convention down in L.A. We drew 2,000-4,000 people for a week in a big hotel. We had like Judas Priest and Ozzy [Osbourne] playing in the hotel ballroom, people buying vendor stands at a heavy-metal convention for $2,000 a week. And we just sat there and looked at each other and said, ‘What the hell is going on?’”

It wasn’t just O’Brien who thought the idea of a heavy-metal convention was strange. “The funniest thing was, one day I was having lunch with an old friend of mine out in L.A. the weekend of the Foundations Forum. I think it was like the second or third one,” recalled O’Brien. “It was Don Bernstine, who had actually just become the head of acquisitions for Hard Rock Café for about six years, and unfortunately about two years ago, he passed away … so I’m going to lunch with Don Bernstine out in L.A., and he said, ‘Hey, would you mind? I just found out that Robin Quivers and Howard Stern are in L.A. this week. They’re going to bring the show into L.A. for a week live,’ because they’d just gotten picked up. At the time, they were just starting to get syndicated. And he said, ‘I was going to have lunch with Robin Quivers, but today is the only day she can do it. Would you mind if she joined us?’ And I said, ‘As long as she doesn’t mind me joining you, I don’t care. I’ve never met her. I’ll meet her.’

“So we sit down. It’s me, Don and Robin Quivers, and she’s very nice and very sweet, and she says, ‘Before we start, you know how we always think that L.A. is this weird, out-of-this-world, crazy place where anything can happen …’ and she doesn’t really know who I am, right? She says, ‘Can you believe in this town, right now as we speak, there’s a convention about nothing but heavy metal?’ And Bernstein cracked up and pointed to me and said, ‘That’s his company. That’s why he’s here.’ And she said, ‘You’re kidding me. Tell me all about it.’ And in fact, she talked about it on the air with Howard Stern that day, which probably didn’t hurt us any. But she was like flabbergasted, and I said, ‘Nobody’s as surprised as me.’ And it went for seven or eight years or something like that.”

Foundations, first heavy metal trade publication to be
featured in the auction.

Foundations Forum was just one piece of the Concrete pie. There was Foundations, the first heavy-metal trade publication, which also featured the Concrete/Soundscan Hard Music chart. The chart was featured in a number of national and worldwide publications, including Metal Hammer and Guitar World.

Perhaps the most ingenious marking tool Concrete came up with was Concrete Corner. Started in 1992, Concrete Corner was a unique retail program for heavy metal and alternative/hard rock promotion and distribution that set up its own section in independent record stores and a few chains. It made use of special point-of-purchase displays, in-store play, pricing strategies and a monthly sampler CD, plus a free magazine titled “Concrete Corner” – all designed to showcase new releases so they didn’t become lost in the crowd, so to speak.

“We were getting paid by people – record labels, managers, whatever – to promote their records in the retail environment,” said O’Brien. “And anything we could do to have those records stand out, we wanted to do. So we came up with this plan to put a whole separate display case in the corner, which also gave Concrete a name to the kids, because the kids didn’t know who Concrete was. But then they got to know us because of the Concrete Corner, so that helped our own credibility in the marketplace, but it also gave us another product to sell to stay in business because a lot of people, especially with independent records … you know, just like in the supermarket business, the little tiny products, and little tiny companies, vendors, whatever you want to call them, can’t get shelf space. Well, in the record store, it was the same thing. We have all the superstars and the Top 100, and the Columbia Records and Capitol Records … we don’t have room for Shrapnel and Metal Blade, and all the other little tiny things. Well, this gave those labels and bands and groups another way to get seen without being buried in the M section or the Q section, or the Metal section of the rack.”

In return, stores got stuff like free records and tickets to concerts. “They were encouraged to give up that placement, which took up a little piece of their real estate,” said O’Brien. “It worked for them too, because those things started to sell. At the beginning at least, when people saw something on the Concrete Corner rack, they said, ‘That’s probably a good record’ – as opposed to the 40 metal records that came out that month that were sitting in the bins. These, they figured, they wouldn’t put it up there if it wasn’t better than most.”

And there was more associated with Concrete Corner, including listening parties and midnight sales for newly released product, the first being a Metallica box set, that were promoted through mailings to Concrete fans. Discounts were offered, raffles were held, free stuff was given away and there were bonus disc giveaways in which a disc of extra tracks was shrink wrapped to a new record from the Concrete stable. The first of these was a compilation disc attached to Korn’s Follow the Leader, which featured tracks from other Korn-approved artists like Kid Rock, Orgy, Limp Bizkit and Powerman 5000. Add to that a program called RetailVision, which offered videos of the latest hits in Alternative, Rap, Hard Rock and Pop.

Walter O'Brien's collection of passes which
will all be featured in the auction.

All of which contributed to Concrete’s rise as a major player in the music world. Eventually, as O’Brien recalled, bands began writing Concrete Marketing into their deals, and these were heavy hitters like Faith No More, Soundgarden and Blind Melon. At one point, said O’Brien, Concrete had 17 acts, including Winger, Ministry and Anthrax.

O’Brien stayed with Concrete Marketing until 1991, when he and Chiappardi amicably split, which left O’Brien staying with Concrete Management, Inc. The list of acts O’Brien has worked with over the years through Concrete boggles the mind. There’s Limp Bizkit, Aerosmith, Korn, Marilyn Manson, Alice in Chains and Ozzy, among the many others already mentioned in this story.

Now, O’Brien works as a staff writer and photographer for the Courier News newspaper in New Jersey and with the consignments he’s issued to Backstage Auctions, by buying one of his pieces, you can feel a connection to one of the most creative and inventive business people heavy metal has ever seen.

The Rock Gods 'n Metal Monsters Auction
October 31 - November 7th
Registration is Now Open: VIP ACCESS (There is no registration fee)

Hands Of Doom: Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward looks back on ‘Paranoid’

A storm was brewing on the northwest coast of England around 1969 and 1970, and it was moving inland fast.

The origins of this tempest, however, first stirred in the industrial wasteland of a city called Birmingham, where four scraggly, but wildly creative, young men were transforming the heavy blues of such legends as Cream and Blue Cheer into a new kind of minor-key sonic monster, a ponderous beast capable of pummeling of great pillars into pebbles with immense, explosive guitar riffs, pounding rhythms that buffeted and followed those powerfully struck chords to hell and a singer whose pained howl expressed horrors both real and imagined.

It was a scary, almost apocalyptic sound that both shocked and awed rock audiences in Cumbria, an English county that relied on the bounty of the Atlantic Ocean to eke out what was at times a meager existence. And they loved the devastatingly loud, sludgy dirges and hallucinogenic jams that were blasting out of the rugged amps of a then-unknown Black Sabbath that toured the area hard.

“We’d done a lot of work in northwest England in what they call Cambria,” remembers Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, “and without realizing it we built up quite a fan base in northwest England.” Playing to increasingly packed houses in the region, Sabbath cultivated a rabid, extremely loyal following that Ward believes put its collective shoulders to the band’s foggy, drug-addled, yet crushingly powerful and disturbingly spooky, self-titled debut, released in May 1970, and helped nudge it into the U.K. Top Ten album charts. All of which set the stage for Sabbath’s master stroke, Paranoid, also unleashed in 1970, in September of that year, and the subject of a new Eagle Vision “Classic Albums” series DVD as we approach its 40^th anniversary.

“I was just amazed,” exclaims Ward. “I think [our debut] came in at No. 26 out of the Top 30. It was just like, ‘Oh my God.’ And it was something that, after all the years that you are playing on the stage and playing all the clubs, playing all the different places we had to play, comes as a surprise. So it was enormous, really. It was like, ‘Oh, wow. We’ve actually accomplished part of a dream,’ if you like. That was a big part of the dream, to get a hit record.”

But, why Cumbria? What was it about Sabbath’s bleak musical black magic, still in its infancy but growing more and more mature with each performance, that appealed to denizens of the area’s sparsely populated towns?  

Ward explains that, “On the west coast, the northwest coast of England, they’re mainly fishing villages. However, they’re very hard. It’s a very hard life, and it’s very hard weather. It’s a really tough place to be, working in Aspatria, Whitehaven … these are all tough towns. They’re granite. The houses are built of black granite. And so they actually look quite dismal when it’s raining with these black, monolithic houses that exist up there. They paint the landscape with granite silhouettes if you like. But at the same time, you can see the beauty in that as well, but there’s almost a sense of morbidity there that was … I know we were very attracted to playing there. We wanted to be there all the time (laughs). The biggest city in that specific area is Carlisle, and Carlisle is a fortress. It’s a fortress town. It’s right on the border of England and Scotland. So it’s got a lot of pagan history, and it just goes way back in time. And so [Sabbath guitarist] Tony [Iommi] and I used to live in Carlisle. We were in another band, but when we had Black Sabbath, we all loved Carlisle. That’s where a lot of our roots were in the beginning, to play our music. So, I don’t know. The people just, you know, really liked hard-core music.”

That’s putting it lightly. Ward compares Sabbath’s original fans in that area to the more intense ones you’d also find in places like New Jersey and Philadelphia. In other words, they’re extremely passionate about what they like.

“I think it was great in the sense that not much came up to that part of northwest England,” says Ward. “You know, there are rolling hills; it’s called the ‘lake district.’ There are lots of lakes there. There’s not a large population. It’s quite isolated. So, being up there, it was a real treat when a band went up there, and I loved the audiences around that area. And they loved it when rock bands would go up there and visit these different small towns and so on and so forth. It’s just a very fanatical crowd, and I like the Scots. The Scotsmen were the same way.” 

With momentum building among the black masses, Sabbath, true to its blue-collar roots, continued working. Touring was constant, and on the road, the quartet of Ward, Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and iconic metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne jammed and wrote during the hours when they weren’t onstage. There was a bit of a break, though.

“Yeah, well, what was happening was, as we were playing more and more, we became more and more intuitive toward one another, and so, by the time we’d done our first album, we were continually on the road,” says Ward. “It didn’t stop us from jamming out. You know, we could jam out in hotel rooms. So we’d get ideas all the time.”

Their fertile imaginations working overtime, the men of Sabbath were becoming more and more cohesive as a unit, and when they did get a little window of time to exit the road, they decided to go to Monmouth in Monmouthshire, Wales, for more work.

“We actually took a week or maybe 10 days to rehearse some of our songs,” says Ward. “I’ll give you an example of that. I’ll always remember, we rehearsed ‘Electric Funeral,’ ‘Hand Of Doom’ and I think we did some of ‘War Pigs’ there as well. So we actually had - which had never happened to us before – rehearsals, just writing material for what was to be Paranoid. So, with the combination of having licks and different things in our heads and what have you, and also by now being a very intuitive band, when we played, we knew almost … I can’t describe it. We knew where the other person was going to go. We would often sit down and write something, and we’d all go to the same place at the same time. It was actually a little strange, a little scary. But without being too analytical, it was just something we had as a band that we were able to do that. We knew intuitively when to change, when we were going to go into a different place, you know. So it was really quite a ride in making a Black Sabbath track, you know.”

Deciding on a driver for the trip was easy. Everyone followed Iommi’s lead, the guitar wizard who seemed to be able to pluck innovative, instantly memorable riffs out of thin air. Ward and Iommi, both of them heavily influenced by what Ward called the “incredibly rich soil” of the British music scene of the 1960s, began playing in bands together at the age of 16. In Birmingham, Iommi was, even at that tender age, was as good as any guitarist in the city. In quick order, he moved past them all, fluidly navigating more complex pieces than the blues and rock standards of the day.

“I just watched him all his life, you know; observing from his later teenage years, he just shot up,” says Ward. “He just grew into this young songwriter, this riff master. His uncanny ability to come up with parts and pieces, and just even sometimes [with] three notes, and then they were so devastatingly good, they would just blow the rest of us away. I mean, just playing drums, as far as playing drums to the notes that he was playing, it was a drummer’s dream. It was the best job in the world. But then, of course, it was all about talent [allowed] to flourish when we started making more and more music. But it was a prime growth period for all of us, and definitely for Tony.”

However brief, that short rehearsal period, plus the nonstop gigging, prepared Sabbath well for the tight studio timeframe the band had to record Paranoid. Having booked just two days, Sabbath was ready and willing to work long hours to get the job done, going from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Undaunted, Sabbath was up to the challenge.

“God, we were so weird,” laughs Ward. “I don’t recall us being savvy enough to put that together. It’s almost like we were told that this is what it is, this is what you have fellas. This is what you do. It was like, okay, well, we’ll just do it then. So we just showed up and did it.”

Having engineer Tom Allom and producer Rodger Bain, real recording professionals, onboard helped Sabbath stay on schedule. Allom, for his part, says on the DVD that he knew exactly how to record Sabbath.

“With what he had, and with what Rodger had, I think that they used the tools very well,” says Ward. “You know, we tried to scramble everything to put it all together the best we could. We had some fairly decent microphones, which was the case back in the late ‘60s, around ’69, early ’70. So, I think with the tools that they had and the equipment that they had, they were able to capture at least part of what we sounded like.”

Time being an issue, Sabbath laid down tracks in three takes or less. “I don’t think we’d ever [gone beyond] that,” admits Ward. “I think if we were in Take 4, we’d probably forget the song, you know, because we knew we were on a timeline, and we intended to keep to that timeline, much to Tom Allom and Rodger Bain’s efforts to keep that tight. We knew that’s what we were being given, to try to take every advantage of that. So in that sense, we encouraged each other. We were very pushy towards each other.”

And Sabbath, being the force of nature they were live and always pushing to play at a volume that was troublesome to manage, had trouble adjusting to the confines of the studio.

“This was like the band’s fifth day in a recording studio, ‘cause we were only a couple days with Black Sabbath and now we were doing Paranoid and it was like a few more days for Paranoid,” says Ward. “We were very inexperienced, but what we were at the time was we were a touring band. We were playing live and we were playing loud and we were playing very aggressively. So, for anybody to capture that in a very small studio, with the baffles and the microphones of the day … I remember just my snare drum, they were trying to just get the microphone to not just go into the red and just overpower the microphone, ‘cause I was just playing full strength. You know, I didn’t know how to play in the studio.”

Being young and somewhat naïve about the recording process, Sabbath decided, whether consciously or unconsciously, to sort of mimic the chords and notes Iommi was churning out, and in doing so, they added incredible heft to the overall sound.

“It was whatever Tony was doing, we’d try to enhance, fill and do that,” says Ward. “That was the priority: getting as big a sound as we possibly could. And so, in doing that, keeping that in mind, then we would look at how to create that bigger sound that we had to make it dramatic or dark or hard or critical – any of those things. So, that would be our focus. Whatever we needed to do, whatever the ingredients were note-wise or rhythmically to get to those places, of the latter that I just mentioned, whatever we would do, we’d go wherever we needed to go to get that and just pour all that out.”

That flood intensified tracks like “War Pigs,” the title track and Ward’s particular favorite, “Hand of Doom.”

“It’s just raw and naked, and Ozzy’s phrasing is superb,” says Ward. “I like the fact that we got some of our little jazz things going on in there (Ward being a big fan of drummer Gene Krupa and Iommi being heavily influenced by Django Reinhardt). And we go from our little jazz things to a wonderful dynamic of sheer volume. When we played that live, we used to blow everybody away, because we were playing very, very soft and then suddenly you can hear the amps just rise up, baarrangg … you know, so to me, that’s pure metal.”

If “Hand of Doom” was “pure metal,” the trippy, acoustically sketched out space travelogue “Planet Caravan” was something altogether different.

“I think it was something that we would go to when we needed a bit of peace, and I strongly suspect it was the same formula, as always, which was that Tony had, you know, some kind of a riff going on or some kind of chord, because that’s how things would normally start,” says Ward. “When I listen to that, it sounds like Ozzy immediately caught on to the guitar and interpreted a melody straightaway, so even after 30 seconds of it, we could turn it into a song. Yeah, it was a nice resting spot.”

There wasn’t much rest for the wicked, though, on Paranoid. The album starts with the raging anti-war epic “War Pigs,” which, perhaps surprisingly, has some basis in Sabbath’s appreciation for the Latin-tinged poly-rhythms of a band called The Shadows, whose influence on Sabbath, according to Ward, is subtle but omnipresent.

“That was one that we had rehearsed before, so it wasn’t something that was brand new that we built in the studio or anything,” says Ward. “And we’d already been playing that out, playing it in front of audiences. I thought it was just such a good song live, very compelling. But yeah, I like the way we did play the grooves, especially the top groove … you can feel the jazz influence, only it’s played extremely f**king loud.”

Another song that was honed to perfection live was “Jack The Stripper/Fairies With Boots.” Ward says, “It’s one of the band’s favorites. It always has been. I think it was fairly well recorded. We’d been playing that for quite some time. And it was a fun song to play. Onstage, we got really, really raucous with it.”

Speaking of raucous, the stinging, frenetically paced title track, a classic song that describes, in horrifying fashion, a struggle to maintain one’s sanity, was something unexpected, a last-minute fill-in that Sabbath put together in under half an hour. It all started with an idea in Iommi’s head. As Ward, Ozzy and Butler went to lunch that last day in the studio, Iommi excused himself. He wanted to work on what’s become one of the greatest riffs in rock history, “ … and we followed about 10 minutes later,” recalls Ward. “He was playing the top 30 or 40 seconds of what was going to be ‘Paranoid,’ and so, we didn’t say a word. It was quite subdued actually. I got up there on my drums, Geezer got on his bass, and Ozzy [got] behind the mic, and we just slammed in and took about 20 minutes to do it. And again, I think that’s one of the good things about being a band sharing everything equally and being intuitive to each other. And that’s what can come out. And I think it was 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, from beginning to end. We recorded it, and then there was an overdub the next day, I think, where Tony played through it, and I played through it.”

Firing on all cylinders, Sabbath, in just two days, had created not only an album for the ages, but they had also drawn up the blueprints for what a genre that become known as heavy metal. Critics, at the time and for years afterward, loathed Sabbath, but they got the last laugh. Paranoid went straight up to #1 in the U.K. and the songs “Paranoid” and “Iron Man” marched into the lower reaches of the U.S. charts.

As for Sabbath, the realization of what they’d accomplished took a while to sink in.

“I guess we must have stopped to enjoy the party and congratulate each other for being No. 1, but I don’t think any of us knew even when we were doing it what that meant,” says Ward. “It must have meant something different for everybody, like ‘Oh, we’re No. 1’ and I was expecting something to happen, like there’d be a bolt of lightning out of the sky or something, you know, and I’ll be invited to see the Queen. The only thing we really thought about was getting a little bit of sleep and making sure we had some food. It’s strange because when it actually happens, it’s like, “Oh, yeah, right. What do we do with this now?”

Sabbath was about to find out.

- Peter Lindblad