“Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!” Black Sabbath’s run-in with the paranormal – and how a haunting helped end Tony Iommi’s writer’s block
In 1973, Black Sabbath, creatively spent and fresh from a failed writing stint in Los Angeles, returned to the UK and rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean to write their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. After four albums in as many years, Tony Iommi had hit a wall. By his own account: “It just went dead.” The castle was supposed to fix that. And it didn’t hurt that it came with its own ghost.
One night, Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne were talking along a corridor when a figure came towards them and ducked left into an armoury room. Startled, they rushed in after him but there was no way out of the room and nobody inside. When they sheepishly told the owners, they replied: “Oh yeah, that’s the castle ghost. Don’t worry about him,” Iommi recalls in an interview with Uncut.
READ MORE: “You killed it!”: Diamond Rowe just played Enter Sandman at an NFL game – and Metallica have given their seal of approval
Bill Ward, however, wasn’t taking any chances. “Why’ve you got that?” Iommi asked when he found a dagger in Ward’s bedroom. “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!”
Whatever the ghost did, the effect was immediate. Iommi came up with the riff to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and in his words, “the rest came fairly shortly afterwards”. Geezer Butler likened hearing it for the first time to seeing his first child born, and it marked the end of the band’s drought.
Not bad for a band who went to a castle to get away from it all and found paranormal inspiration instead…
In other Iommi news, the guitarist’s first solo album in 21 years, From the Dark is out on October 23 via BMG. The follow-up to 2005’s “Fused” features Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande, Merciful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin and former Robbie Williams drummer Karl Brazil, with Iommi co-producing alongside longtime collaborator Mike Exeter.
The album’s lead single World Alone, delivers the kind of high-gain riffs and thunderous rhythm section you’d expect from the Black Sabbath legend, while other tracks promise more sinister territory.
The record will also feature Queen guitarist Brian May on Death Wake, while a deluxe edition will include expanded versions of Iomi’s recent solo releases Scent of Dark and Deified.
From the Dark is available to pre-order now.
The post “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!” Black Sabbath’s run-in with the paranormal – and how a haunting helped end Tony Iommi’s writer’s block appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
