![\"Tony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Tony-Iommi-Black-Sabbath-1970s-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Sat 1 November 2025 12:00, UK <\/p>\n
Right from the band\u2019s inception, Black Sabbath<\/a> was never about flair or about showing off technical prowess; it was simply about pushing rock music to an extreme in ways that others hadn\u2019t had the bravery to attempt previously.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean that members weren\u2019t flexing their abilities at every opportunity, and it certainly doesn\u2019t mean that they weren\u2019t blessed with an embarrassment of talent from the get-go. The rhythm section of Geezer Butler and Bill Ward helped define the deathly dirges of heavy metal with pounding bass and drums, respectively, and frontman Ozzy Osbourne was distinct from other vocalists of the period with his guttural wails, but arguably the biggest showman of the whole group was guitarist Tony Iommi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Innovative, heavy, and able to drop a rip-roaring solo on command, Iommi was perhaps the element of the group who produced the greatest amount of imitators, with so many other budding axe-wielders in the 1970s looking up to him as the basis for their own styles, which they\u2019d bring to later incarnations of metal. However, as much as it may not have been rooted in a desire to showboat, Iommi himself felt as though it would later reach a point where his approach to soloing became excessive.<\/p>\n While he was appearing as a guest on Eddie Trunk\u2019s radio show on Sirius XM in 2023, the guitarist would reveal that, in retrospect, he had taken things too far when it came to giving himself an opportunity to stand in the spotlight. Because he was seen as an innovator in his field, he didn\u2019t have anyone else to base himself upon, and it wasn\u2019t until he started noticing other players begin to mimic his style that he realised he\u2019d been overplaying all along.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the \u201870s, I\u2019d always played a solo,\u201d Iommi argued. \u201cI mean, yes, I got carried away a bit too long sometimes. Listening back to things, you think, \u2019Bloody hell! That was a bit over the top. Too long.\u2019 But you just sort of get taken over with it, and it doesn\u2019t seem as long as it is. And we had done it from the \u201870s. It was the thing. Everybody done guitar solos and drum solos in the \u201870s. That was what we did, and just never changed. We went on and on and on, and always done that.\u201d<\/p>\n