(Credits: Warner Bros. Records)
Sun 19 October 2025 14:30, UK
It was a dog-eat-dog world for rock and rollers when Black Sabbath got started.
There was no chance that anyone was going to do them any favours when they were getting things going in Birmingham, but it was going to be even more difficult once they got out of their homes and had to convince millions of people that their macabre take on rock and roll was worth anything past a few cheap thrills. Ozzy Osbourne knew they could go the distance, but there was always going to be a few hiccups along the way.
For instance, the idea of them existing at all really comes down to the fact that Tony Iommi stuck by them that whole time. He was the one behind all of those classic riffs, and while ‘The Prince of Darkness’ did have the bellowing voice to tie everything together, Iommi’s choice to come back to the group after saying yes to Jethro Tull was a blessing in disguise when the group finally started to gain traction on the charts.
But while many people call it heavy metal today, that was never how any of the members of Sabbath would have put it. They did have the same dark themes that would creep up in a lot of bands going forward, but there was always a great deal of rock and roll’s past laced throughout every one of their tunes as well.
Let’s take a look at one of their biggest songs from around that time, for instance: ‘War Pigs’. A classic song, yes, but is it really a heavy metal song? It sounds like it, but check out the actual specifics of the track. Pivoting between chords, Osbourne’s massive voice calling on God for his troubles, and Iommi’s pentatonic-based lead playing? Yeah, this is simply a blues song that happens to have a little bit of scary imagery behind it.
So, really, it should have fit right in amongst the other blues bands of the world. If anything, Cream had broken up only a few months before, so Sabbath and Zeppelin were practically two of the competing figures from around that time, but when they actually went out with the true blues-rock legends Osbourne remembered the band getting the cold shoulder a few too many times from The Faces.
There’s no doubt that Sabbath were the oddity there, but he felt that the band were never treated well on tour, saying, “We were pissed off with [them], actually, because they didn’t give us any time for a soundcheck. And Rod kept well out of our way. Looking back now, I don’t suppose he was too happy about having Black Sabbath supporting him. We were the unwashed hooligans and he was the blue-eyed boy. He was all right, though, Rod; always very polite. And I thought he was a phenomenal singer.”
At the same time, anyone in hindsight could have seen what made both of them so different. Stewart was about to break out with tunes like ‘Maggie May’ once he got his solo career in order, so having the same guys that were singing about soldiers marching off to war with a guitar that sounded like it was summoning the gates of Hell to open wasn’t really the kind of vibe he was going for.
But it was only a matter of time before Sabbath started to become one of the biggest bands in the world. The tides were already turning in their favour, and despite them not being the commercial rock act in the world, it was hard to listen to a tune like ‘Sweet Leaf’ or ‘Paranoid’ and not manage to bang your head just a little bit.
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