The following report is courtesy of Jeremy Hainsworth from Canada.com:

At age 11, rock writer Martin Popoff (BW&BK; Editor In Chief) plunked down his allowance in a Trail, BC, record store to buy the records "Vol. 4" and "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath."

Yes, records. Vinyl. BLACK SABBATH vinyl.

Spinning those discs marked the beginning of Popoff's love affair with the legendary Birmingham, England, heavy-metal rockers, one that reached its apex with the recent release of his book Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose - An Illustrated History.

"I've been a Black Sabbath fan since the very beginning," says Popoff, who lives in Toronto. "I've interviewed them enough times over the years. I love their material. "It's just classic rock," he says. "It's like old buddies that I've been thinking about on a daily basis . . . for 30 years."

But, while he had many interviews with the Sabs saved up over the years, it was a dearth of decent books on the band that finally spurred Popoff, 43, to pull all his material together - about 15 years after seeing his one and only Black Sabbath concert in Vancouver.

"This really is the best for now until someone tops it - which I'm sure they will," he says. "Also, I just love the opportunity to say my piece on all these Sabbath albums."

And, say his piece he does, weighing in on 17 studio albums, two live albums and four compilations.

While he's sat down with all the Sabs - Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi - plus others who have come and gone, Popoff speaks most highly of Sabbath drummer Ward.

"He's really intelligent, has great stories about the songs and the music and is unfailingly polite," says Popoff, a drummer in his high school band class.

He has had three interviews with Ozzy over the years, and says the rocker -cum-reality-TV-star is a "super nice guy, very intelligent."

Lately, though, he says Ozzy has become harder to understand. And, he says something of Ozzy's character was missed on the hit TV show "The Osbournes."
"Rather than the antics, what you get is somebody who's a really interesting guy to talk to," Popoff says of interviewing Ozzy.

Between the dark, demonic lyrics and Ozzy's mistakenly biting the head off a bat onstage, the band has had to deal with accusations of Satanism.

Popoff lets the Sabs set it straight in the book.

"People feel evil things," Butler says, "but nobody ever sings about what's frightening and evil . . . Everybody has sung about the good things."

Adds Ward: "Most people live on a permanent down, but just aren't aware of it. We're trying to express it for people."

Popoff says he has an ulterior motive in producing his tome.

Writing books about heavy metal allows Popoff to "get all the clutter and trivia and fan-boy knowledge out of my head onto the page."

Don't be expecting music historian-speak here, though.

To read the entire interview head to this location.