Billy Idol |
 |
|
Wed. October 25.2000 12:00 AM EDT |
||
Famous Pals Help Out Tony Iommi |
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|
||
It wasn't hard for Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi to get Henry Rollins to appear on his all-star solo debut, Iommi. All he had to do was play Rollins the riff for "Laughing Man (In the Devil Mask)." "I said,
That kind of reaction was shared by other guests on the disc who had grown up with Iommi's thick, crunching guitar tone in such Sabbath classics as "Iron Man," "Paranoid," and "War Pigs." Smashing Pumpkins head Billy Corgan, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, and Pantera leader Phil Anselmo were among the disc's contributors, along with such veterans as Billy Idol, the Cult's Ian Astbury, and Sabbath foil Ozzy Osbourne. "They did all the lyrics and melodies they were singing," Iommi said of his guests. "I wouldn't ask somebody to come in and join me on a track and tell them what to do. The whole purpose of it was the amalgamation of it all, to see what happens." What happened was a collaborative effort, released October 17, that might be viewed as a hard-rock cousin to Santana's Supernatural in its mix of youth and experience. "A few people have said that - that it's a heavy version of the Santana thing - but I've had the idea for a few years," said Iommi, who was delayed by a reunion tour of the original Sabbath. "It's just more or less that he beat me to it. "I wanted a selection from old to new [singers], which I've got. The only one I couldn't get was Tom Jones. I wanted to get him on, but he was too busy at the time doing his own project. "You never know what you're letting yourself in for when you're getting involved with other people. So it was actually great to get into the studio together and really click - and we all did. It's amazing. I was very impressed with the way each one of them worked, just the different characters and the way they took the songs on." At times, the process was spontaneous, as when Corgan arrived at the studio with drummer Kenny Aronoff and picked up a bass to carve "Black Oblivion" from a jam. "In the morning, we came up with a riff, and in the afternoon, we were putting it to tape," Iommi said. "Billy was writing the lyrics while I'm doing some overdubs." Nonetheless, there's surprising continuity to the tracks, which shift from the emotionally volcanic "Meat," with singer Skin of Skunk Anansie, to the melodic majesty of Grohl's "Goodbye Lament," to more brooding takes from Type O Negative's Peter Steele and System of a Down’s Serj Tankian. In the Osbourne track, "Who's Fooling Who," Iommi found some familiar chemistry. "I didn't actually intend to have Ozzy on the record. I'm really glad he did it," he said. "We were sitting down together one day, and Ozzy said, 'Aren't you going to have me on the album?' I said, 'Ah, sure.'" Sabbath drummer Bill Ward was also at that table, and wanted in. "I more or less had a sound before we actually got together as Black Sabbath," Iommi said. "I was in a band with Bill Ward and we played a lot of blues and stuff, loads of guitar solos, and I developed a sound from that. "When we first came out with Black Sabbath, nobody was doing anything like that. It was the whole mood of it, just because it was heavy and loud and doomy. It just hit a spot with everybody." Rollins included. "I'm such a fan, I had him sign my lyric sheet," the tattoo-clad vocalist said. "He means a lot, and his band and his music have meant a lot to people for decades. Black Sabbath is one of the most universally spoken languages in music." In addition to the singers who brought their own lexicon to Iommi's solo project, guests included Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron and Queen guitarist Brian May. "There's no way you could have done this in the '70s," said Iommi, who remembers catching flak from his Sabbath mates for appearing on a solo record by Procol Harum's Bobby Harrison that even tapped horns from Tower of Power. "Everybody was into their own band, and if you ventured out of that band, you were a traitor." Things are different now - apart from the timeless sound of Iommi's Gibson SG. "The original guitar I kept under lock and key, and it will remain there unless somebody offers me $100,000 for it, and then it will go away," Iommi said, before reconsidering. "No, I'll keep that. That's my history there." (SonicNet News) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  |
 |
Black Sabbath |
 |
|
|
Henry Rollins |
|
|
|
The Smashing Pumpkins |
|
|
|
Foo Fighters |
|
|
|
Pantera |
|
|
|
Billy Idol |
|
|
|
The Cult |
|
|
|
Ozzy Osbourne |
|
|
|
Santana |
 |
All Holla For Lolla |
|
Live Aid: A Look Back At A Concert That Actually Changed The World |
|
Foo Fighters, Good Charlotte Usher In Summer Concert Season |
|
Billy Idol Launching Summer Trek |
 |
 |
 |
|
Receive Free Music News Daily Via Email |
|
Receive Free Artist Updates Via Email for Billy Idol |
|
All news for Billy Idol |
|
Breaking Music News |
 |
Add VH1 News to My Yahoo |
|
