{"id":351433,"date":"2025-12-16T04:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T04:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351433\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T04:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T04:46:07","slug":"how-exactly-did-ozzy-osbourne-and-tony-iommi-first-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351433\/","title":{"rendered":"How exactly did Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi first meet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tony<\/p>\n

(Credits: Tony Iommi)<\/p>\n

Mon 15 December 2025 23:00, UK <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine rock<\/a> music\u2019s tapestry without four working-class Brummies joining forces at the 1960s\u2019 tail-end, standing tall in its centre.<\/p>\n

Without lapsing into lofty hagiographies or stuffy pop lore, but it can\u2019t be overstated how foundational Black Sabbath\u2019s impact was during their classic era across the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Paving the way for heavy metal along with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, guitarist Tony Iommi\u2019s heavy blues attack and frontman Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s distinct vocal howl all scored a gloomy, skulking horror trip, daring to lift the veil on a peace and love idyll long turned to a bad joke amid the febrile political engulfment at home and across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Birmingham\u2019s Aston area, Iommi and Osbourne\u2019s paths crossed early on, long before musical paths came calling. Both attended Birchfield Road Secondary Modern School, Osbourne behind a year, and even reputedly on the receiving end of occasional bullying from the elder Iommi. Such schoolyard experiences forced creative paths to split due to the early mutual disliking.<\/p>\n

Iommi played in a string of local blues bands, meeting Sabbath drummer Bill Ward in The Rest and later Mythology, before the latter\u2019s dissolution after a drug bust.<\/p>\n

In the neighbourhood, bassist Geezer Butler<\/a> was in need of a singer for a band he\u2019d started at school, Rare Breed. Hearing the word and turning up to Butler\u2019s house with a chimney brush and no shoes, Butler embraced the eccentric budding frontman. Rare Breed disbanded just as Mythology had streets away, and rock history would be cemented from an all-important ad in the local music shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cOzzy Zig Requires Gig \u2013 has own PA\u201d. Better than nothing. Boasting the attractive asset of owning a sound system courtesy of his father\u2019s generosity, the name sprung to Iommi\u2019s mind the old schoolmate from his Birchfield days. \u201cI know a guy called Ozzy,\u201d he reportedly told Ward. \u201cBut it just can\u2019t be the same guy. I\u2019ve never heard him sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went round to his house and his mum answered the door,\u201d Iommi recalled to Kerrang in 2018. \u201cI saw him walking up the hallway and I said, \u2018Bill, this is the guy from school. I don\u2019t think that\u2019ll work.\u2019 And we went back to my house.\u201d Yet, a PA\u2019s a PA. Coming round to Osbourne\u2019s role in the band, the recruitment of old Rare Breed bassist Butler forged the genesis of the band not long after, initially called the Polka Tulk Blues Band an featuring a slide guitarist and saxophonist.<\/p>\n

Losing the extra members, the reduced quartet played the local Birmingham pub circuit as Earth in September 1968. Curiously, Iommi left for a couple of months to join Jethro Tull<\/a> and even appeared on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus film with the band, before rejoining Earth in November. Inspired by the popularity of horror films, and noticing their material take a spookier, heavier turn, Earth borrowed the title of a Boris Karloff horror feature and burnished the metal pioneer that inspired countless future metalheads forever in their debt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Tony Iommi) Mon 15 December 2025 23:00, UK It\u2019s hard to imagine rock music\u2019s tapestry without four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[89,88,4595,216,90,4594],"class_list":{"0":"post-351433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-black-sabbath","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-geezer-butler","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-ozzy-osbourne","13":"tag-tony-iommi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}