Black Sabbath - featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler - are calling it a day with two concerts in their home city of Birmingham this week. The band performed on February 2nd at Genting Arena, and will return to the venue for their final show ever on Saturday night (February 4th). BBC News has published an article featuring the band taking a look back on their formative years. An excerpt is available below.

For a group that has been widely credited with creating the sound of heavy metal, influencing thousands of bands and inspiring generations of guitarists, it was a term Black Sabbath initially wanted to have nothing to do with.

"We called it heavy rock," recalls Iommi. "The term heavy metal came about from a journalist when I came back from America (in the '70s). "He said 'you're playing heavy metal' and I said 'no, it's heavy rock - what's that?'"

Who coined the phrase is disputed, with Rolling Stone critics Lester Bangs and Mike Saunders both credited with using it first. Throughout the 1970s, many reviewers used it as an insult - a sneering description of this new wave of "aggressive" musicians, their loud, thrashing sounds reverberating around packed, sweaty rooms full of fans.

"At first we didn't like being called heavy metal," admits Butler. "But everyone likes to put you into certain pigeon holes, so we sort of got used to it. "And then instead of it being derogatory, it became a whole lifestyle."

I t was Butler and Iommi's love of horror films that gave the group its signature, stirring sound.

"We wanted to create a vibe like you get off horror films - try and create a tension within the music," says Iommi. "We thought it would be really good to get this sort of vibe, this fear and excitement. It was a struggle. There was nothing like what we were doing. We'd taken on something because we believed in it, and loved what we were doing."

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"My emotions are flying all over the place," Ozzy Osbourne told the BBC in a separate interview as the band rehearsed at the Genting Arena. "Since I've got to this building today, I've been happy, I've been tearful. Let's see what happens."

Read the full story at BBC.com

Fan-filmed video footage of Black Sabbath’s January 31st concert at The O2 in London, England can be seen below: