Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi names his favorite song by another legendary band

Black Sabbath was obviously one of the pillars of heavy metal and would inform the way many other bands made records. They were legendary and not just former lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. Guitarist Tony Iommi was as influential as anything Osbourne would do. The collaboration of the two, however, led to a ridiculous amount of brilliance.

Sabbath as well as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple for the unholy trinity of heavy music in the early 1970s. Each sounded a bit different but no other band sounded exactly like them. Sabbath and Deep Purple had more commonalities as far as which musicians played with others at different times. To be sure, Iommi was a fan of Deep Purple.

In an interview with Classic Rock magazine earlier in 2024, Iommi was asked about Deep Purple and he did not hold back in his praise. He admitted he always liked the band but also had a favorite album and favorite song from Deep Purple.

Tony Iommi names the Deep Purple song that was his favorite

Iommi said, "I always liked Deep Purple, and my favorite album of theirs is In Rock. It has one classic song after another. They always used to come up with great riffs, and "Speed King" is hard to beat. It’s a great, energetic song that shows every member of the band doing what they did best. (Ian) Gillan’s vocals and the keyboards of Jon Lord… They were such great musicians."

Ironically, in the early 1980s Iommi asked Gillan to join Sabbath to replace departing vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Gillan said he had never heard any of Black Sabbath's music before joining the band. So while Iommi was a fan of Deep Purple, Gillan did not seem to be an active fan of Sabbath's. Still, Gillan joined the group though that ended up being a mistake.

Gillan did not know the words to Sabbath's songs and when he appeared in concert with the band he had written down the words to help him remember them. Unfortunately, the band used dry ice as part of their shows and that affected what Gillan could see on the stage. He had to leave the stage several times in order to refresh his memory of the words. He only lasted as the singer of the band for a year.

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