Tony Iommi

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Anthony Frank Iommi (born 19 February 1948) is an English guitarist, songwriter, and producer.

He was the lead guitarist and one of the four founding members of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath.

He was the band's primary composer and sole permanent member for almost five decades. Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring fingers of his right hand when he was a child, an event that had a major influence on his playing style.

Iommi left Black Sabbath (then known as Earth) for a brief period of time in 1968 to join Jethro Tull, but did not record any information with the band, and he returned to Black Sabbath in 1969.

He recorded his first solo album Iommi in 2000 and 2005's Fused, which featured his ex bandmate Glenn Hughes.

He founded Heaven & Hell, which disbanded after Ronnie James Dio's death in 2010. Iommi was ranked 25th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." With Black Sabbath, he published his autobiography Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell in 2011.

Early life

Iommi was born in Birmingham, the only child of Sylvia Maria (née Valenti), who was born in Palermo and Anthony Frank Iommi. In Italy, Sylvia's family was wine growers. The family was Catholic, but they seldom attended Mass. The family's home in Aston's Park Lane neighborhood also housed a store, which was a popular meeting place in the neighborhood, with the living room doubling as the shop's stockroom. While his father was a carpenter by trade, his mother ran the store while his father was a carpenter by trade.

Iommi was born and raised in Handsworth, Birmingham, where future bandmate Ozzy Osbourne was also a student one year behind him. Iommi fell and cut his upper lip while being chased by another boy at age 8 or 9. As a result, he acquired the word "Scarface," which made him more aware of the scar, and he eventually grew his trademark moustache as a way of masking it.

Iommi started working out and learned judo, karate, and later boxing as a way to shield himself from the local gangs that gathered in his neighborhood. He imagined himself as a bouncer in a nightclub. Iommi initially wanted to play the drums but instead, as a child, he picked the guitar instead. He has always played left-handed guitar. Iommi spent a brief time as a plumber and then in a factory manufacturing rings after finishing school. He said he worked in a music store at one time but resigned after being incorrectly accused of stealing.

In an industrial accident on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, Iommi lost the tips of his right hand's middle and ring fingers (his fret board hand). "You'll never play again," Iommi described how he was told. It was just amazing. I sat in the hospital with my handkerchief in this bag, and thought, 'I'm done.' But then I thought, 'I'm not going to believe that'. "I can play" must be a way." After the accident, Iommi's factory foreman performed a recording of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, which inspired him to continue as a guitarist.

As Iommi later wrote:

Iommi decided to play guitar again after being inspired by Reinhardt's two-fingered guitar playing, but it was difficult to do so due to the injury. Although it was a possibility, Iommi never considered switching hands and learning to play right-handed. In an interview with Guitar World magazine, he was asked if he was "ever encouraged to switch to right-handed playing."

Iommi responded:

He ultimately decided to play left-handed. He added thimbles to his injured fingers to extend and protect them; the thimbles were made from an old Fairy Liquid bottle – "melted it down, got a hot soldering iron, and shaped it as a finger" – and cut sections from a leather jacket to cover his new handmade prosthetic, which caused two technical difficulties. First, the thimbles stopped him from feeling the strings, causing him to press down really hard on them. He had trouble bend strings in the second place, causing him to buy light gauge guitar strings to make it possible to do so. However, Iommi recalls that such strings weren't available at the time, so he switched to banjo strings instead, which took place until about 1970–71, when Picato Strings began making light-gauge guitar strings. In addition, he used the injured fingers more for fretting chords than single-note solos. The thimbles "aided with his technique" in 1974, according to Iommi's Guitar Player magazine, because he had to use his little finger more often than he did before. Later, he began tuning his guitar to lower pitches, often to three semitones below average guitar tuning (e.g. on "Children of the Grave," "Life of this World," and "Into the Void," two tracks on the album Master of Reality). Despite the fact that Iommi claims that the primary aim of doing so was to produce a "bigger, heavier sound," slackening the strings makes it possible to bend them.

In 2016, Iommi expressed that losing his fingertips was his biggest regret.

Personal life

In 1972, Iommi bought his first house in Stafford, England. He also purchased a nearby house for his parents.

Iommi has been married four times:

Iommi briefly met rock singer Lita Ford, formerly of The Runaways, in the mid-1980s. Iommi co-produced her solo album The Bride Wore Black, which has yet to be announced. Ford has stated that her relationship with him at the time was strictly personal, and that she had no involvement in the half-finished album.

She said in a 1989 Kerrang!

"There's a certain amount of bad blood between Tony and I," the interviewer said.

Iommi received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts degree from Coventry University on November 19, 2013. "In honor of his contribution to popular music," the university said, "his role as one of the founding fathers of heavy metal music and his reputation as one of the industry's most influential figures." Iommi is also a visiting professor of music at Coventry University.

Iommi holds dual British and Italian citizenship, having obtained the former due to his parents' deaths.

Iommi was diagnosed early in lymphoma in early 2012, a condition for which he underwent successful therapy. The 2013 tour dates for Black Sabbath were planned so that Iommi would be able to return to the United Kingdom every six weeks to have an antibody test conducted. Iommi revealed in a New Year tweet on January 3rd that his regular therapy will be completed some time next year. Black Sabbath revealed that due to Iommi's health, they were unable to travel for the final time a few months back. Tony Iommi's cancer was in remission as of August 11, 2016.

Iommi revealed that he would have an operation to remove a lump from his throat, according to a Rolling Stone magazine postdated from September 9, 2016. Iommi said that the lump was not cancerous in a brief 2017 interview with British radio show Planet Rock.

Iommi said in 2016 that he believes in God and was a Catholic but that he had not attended church services since childhood. "How Good It Is" by Iommi in January 2017, with lyrics inspired by Psalm 133, made its debut at Birmingham Cathedral. "This is the most wonderful gift Tony gave to the cathedral," Catherine Ogle, Dean of Birmingham, said.

Tony's autobiography claims that his parents were Catholic but not regular churchgoers. "I hardly go to church either," the singer says. I'd be uncertain what to do there. I do believe in God, but I don't think that I have to press the point.'

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Career

Iommi had appeared in a number of blues/rock bands, one of which was the Rockin' Chevrolets, from 1964 to 1965. The band had regular bookings. Iommi joined The Birds And Bees later in life, and when they were given jobs in Germany, Iommi decided to leave his factory work to take up the challenge. Iommi performed in the Rest of the Rest from 1966 to 1967. It was in the Rest that Iommi first met future-Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, who performed drums and sang in the band.

Iommi, a guitarist in Mythology from January to July 1968, served until May, with Ward joining a month later in mid-February. Police searched the group's practice flat in May 1968 and discovered cannabis resin, resulting in fines for the band members. Most importantly, the incident made it impossible for the band to secure future bookings as the majority of club owners avoided bands that were viewed as drug users. Following a concert in Silloth on July 13, 1968, mythology disbanded.

Rare Breed, a Birmingham band, also broke up in August 1968, at the same time as Mythology's dissolution. After the pair replied to an advertisement in a local music store announcing "Ozzy Zig Requires Gig has own PA," Ozzy Osbourne joined Iommi and Ward. Osbourne referred to his late breed bandmate Geezer Butler, who was later hired alongside slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips and saxophonist Alan "Aker" Clarke as the first bassist. The Polka Tulk Blues Band formed in New Orleans and was named after the six-piece group. Phillips and Clarke were dismissed from the band after just two shows (the last of which was at Banklands Youth Club in Workington). Polka Tulk was shorted in name.

In September 1968, Iommi, Butler, Ward, and Osbourne were renamed the band Earth. Iommi left Jethro Tull for a short time in the month. However, after only two appearances (one on "A Song for Jeffrey" with which the band mimed "A Song for Jeffrey," when Ian Anderson performed live, and a live appearance at BBC), Iommi returned to Earth in November 1968.

Iommi wrote about his brief collaboration with Jethro Tull vocalist Ian Anderson:

The Black Sabbath appeared in August 1969, after being confused with another group named Earth (who had limited success in England), and the group renamed themselves Black Sabbath. The Black Sabbath music was influenced by his factory accident; Iommi had detuned his guitar by 1971's Master of Reality album, lowering string tension and easing the pain to his fingertips. Geezer Butler, a black Sabbath bassist, was similar to Iommi. Sabbath was one of the first bands to detune, and the technique became a mainstay of heavy metal music. Iommi mixed blues-like guitar solos with a gritty, minor-key riffing style, resulting in a new, distorted tone, a Gibson SG, and a blues-like guitar solo.

Black Sabbath's late 1970s were struggling with opioid use, organizational difficulties, and touring exhaustion. In addition, the band's stifling, blues-driven riffs had been viewed by some as outmoded against the rising generation of metal bands such as Judas Priest and Motörhead. Never Say Die and Ecstasy are two of the albums' technical immanence. Iommi and Butler decided that Sabbath needed a fresh start in 1979, and Ronnie James Dio, the former vocalist for Rainbow, was not widely accepted. Black Sabbath released Heaven and Hell, an album that attempted to reimagine Black Sabbath's sound in the 1980s and feature the soaring vocals that characterized the NWOBHM (New Wave of British heavy metal) scene. Bill Ward dropped out halfway through the 1980 tour due to alcohol addictions and dissatisfaction with the band's direction. Vinny Appice had him removed from his duties. This line-up included Iommi and Geezer Butler as the only original participants. Dio resigned from a year as a result of a revolving door line-up for the next decade, including Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen, and Tony Martin. Geezer Butler was also involved after Ian Gillan (formerly of Deep Purple) left the band in 1984. Iommi's debut solo album, entitled Seventh Star, was released with Sabbath in a vivacious hiatus. Glenn Hughes (also formerly of Deep Purple) was on vocals, but "Black Sabbath" featuring Tony Iommi was released on the album as a result due to market pressures.

Iommi performed four songs with the remaining members of Queen and other guest artists at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. Geezer Butler was also back to Sabbath last year. "Starcrossed (Lovers in the Night)" was written by Iommi in 1993 for their 1993 Death and Progress album. Dio refused to appear at Costa Mesa's "goodbye" performance and left the band abruptly. As a result, Rob Halford was hired as the vocalist for two gigs (Halford also appeared on one of the dates on the 2004 Ozzfest tour, but Osbourne was unable to perform due to bronchitis). The performance ended with the remaining members of the original Black Sabbath line-up joining for a 4-song reunion following Osbourne's solo set.

Before the original line-up reunited as a touring band in 1997, Black Sabbath went on to record two more albums with Tony Martin. Bill Ward appeared at the two initial reunion shows in Birmingham, NEC, in December 1997, he was unable to attend the following two reunion tours, his second absence due to a heart attack. Mike Bordin and then Vinny Appice replaced Ward Ward.

The original band members announced on November 11, 2011 that they were reuniting and recording a new album, but Bill Ward did not attend, and Brad Wilk took his place at drums for the session. In June 2013, the new album, 13th, was released. At the conclusion of The End Tour in early 2017, they disbanded.

Osbourne released "Degradation Rules" on July 22, 2022, which stars Iommi and will appear on Osbourne's thirteenth solo studio album Patient Number 9. Iommi is also expected to be included on one more song from this album, which will be released on September 20, 2022.

Iommi and Osbourne met in Edinburgh on August 8th, 2022, at the closing ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in their home city of Birmingham. They were joined by 2017 Black Sabbath touring musicians Tommy Clufetos and Adam Wakeman for a medley of "Iron Man" and "Paranoid." Iommi appeared at the opening ceremony on July 28th, 2022, where he performed guitar on a song called "Hear My Voice" performed by British saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch.

Iommi's first proper solo album, released in 2000, was released in Iommi. The album featured several guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury, Skin, Henry Rollins, Serj Tankian, Serge Grohl, Billy Corgan, Phil Anselmo, Peter Steele, and Osbourne. The 1996 DEP Sessions, Iommi's second solo album, was released in late 2004. This album was released in 1996 but not in any way. However, a Dave Holland bootleg called Eighth Star came as a bootleg. Glenn Hughes performed vocals on the album, and he continued his friendship with Hughes with the introduction of his third solo album, Fused. Kenny Aronoff, a John Mellencamp drummer, completed the trio on the album on July 12, 2005.

Iommi has contracted with Mike Fleiss' film production company Next Films to film a series of horror films titled Black Sabbath.

Tony Iommi has been involved in the Rock Aid Armenia project since 1989. The Orders of Honor were given to Iommi and his colleague Ian Gillan in October 2009, Armenia's highest order, after the Spitak earthquake was distributed to them by the Prime Minister of Armenia. They formed the supergroup WhoCares and recorded "Out of my Mind," which was released 6 May 2011 for the benefit of the music school in Gyumri, Armenia. In January 2012, as Iommi announced stage 3 lymphoma, the Armenian Prime Minister sent a letter of support: "We know your spirit is as strong as ever, and we hope the inspiration that guides you on the new Black Sabbath album will give you a boost of confidence and motivation when times are tough."

Iommi would tour with Ronnie James Dio, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward once more in October 2006, but not under the name Heaven & Hell. Ward was forced to miss out on the game, and Vinny Appice was hired as his replacement. On April 3, 2007, Rhino Records released The Dio Years (under the moniker of 'Black Sabbath') album. The album featured older songs with Dio as well as three brand new songs with Dio and Appice.

Megadeth and Down as opening acts on a North American tour in April 2007. The tour ended in November in England, with the promise of an album to follow in 2008. During this period, the band's appearance at the New York Radio City Music Hall was released as both a live DVD and CD as well as a vinyl version in the United Kingdom in 2008. The band, along with Judas Priest, Motörhead, and Testament, embarked on the Metal Masters Tour in the summer of 2008. The Devil You Know, the band's first and only studio album, was released on April 28, 2009.

On the Birmingham Walk of Stars in November 2008, Iommi had a star. Dio died of stomach cancer in May 2010, and Iommi announced on June 14, 2010, that Heaven & Hell would hold a one-off tribute to Ronnie James Dio at the High Voltage Festival in London on July 24, 2010. This was the band's last show under the name.

Iommi wrote the song "Lonely Planet," which was performed by Dorians for Armenia in the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

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