BLACK SABBATH Guitar legend Tony Iommi Talks Riffs, Volume, Dio Influence
August 26, 2009, 15 years ago
BLACK SABBATH guitar legend Tony Iommi spoke with Jed Gottlieb from Bostonherald.com recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:
Iommi on his famous box of riffs: "I stockpile them at home. I’ve got a hundred of them stashed away, but I never go back to them. Every time I go to write an album they come more fast and furious then before.”
Iommi on his love of volume: "From day one, we were always louder than anyone,” he said. “We certainly made sure no one could talk in our shows. We were always asked to turn it down. They’d tell us to turn it down or they wouldn’t book us again. And unfortunately even now, and this is a sign of the times, there’s a lot of restrictions on the sound. In Europe, we’d play 50,000, 60,000-people festivals and we’d go out there and there would be somebody with a meter saying, ‘You can’t play any louder than this.’ At one show in Bond, the limit was so low that I actually used only two (amplifier) cabinets of my eight. Bloody hell, I haven’t used two cabinets since maybe the ’60s.”
Iommi on the Dio albums: "A lot of bands, like METALLICA and FOO FIGHTERS, really relate to those Dio albums,” Iommi said. “I think Dave Grohl has said one of his favorite albums is (1981 Dio Sabbath album) Mob Rules. A generation of bands like that have taken to this stuff, and it’s trickled down to the fans.”
Read the entire interview here.
