50 Fun Facts About Black Sabbath

In which Birmingham district did Black Sabbath form in 1968?

Aston is where all four grew up, within a few streets of each other, among factories whose heavy machinery Osbourne later likened to the thunder of the band's riffs.

What did Black Sabbath's four founders call their band first, before renaming it Earth?

Polka Tulk began as a six-piece blues band with a saxophonist and a slide guitarist; nobody is sure whether the name came off a tin of talcum powder or a clothing shop's sign.

Which band did Tony Iommi briefly leave Earth to join in 1968?

Jethro Tull kept him only long enough to mime a song on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, but he came back preaching their work ethic and had his own band rehearsing early every morning.

Black Sabbath took their name from a 1963 horror film starring whom?

Boris Karloff's film was drawing queues at the cinema near their rehearsal room, and the band reasoned that if people paid to be scared by films, they might pay to be scared by music.

The doomy main riff of the song 'Black Sabbath' is built on which musical interval?

The tritone, long nicknamed the Devil's interval, gives the riff its dread; bassist Geezer Butler says it was inspired by Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War.

The music-shop advert that brought Black Sabbath together boasted that singer 'Ozzy Zig' had his own what?

A PA system was the selling point of the card Osbourne pinned up; Iommi answered it and found on the doorstep a boy he remembered from school as a pest.

Roughly how long did Black Sabbath spend recording their debut album?

One day: they played their live set straight through in a London studio, singer included, thought even that was generous, and left the next morning for a club date in Switzerland.

Black Sabbath's debut album reached British shops in 1970 on which ominous date?

Friday the 13th of February 1970 suited the record; the reviews were savage, Lester Bangs's among them, and the album still climbed into the British top ten.

What was Black Sabbath's first single, a cover of a song by the American band Crow?

Evil Woman had been an American hit for Crow only months earlier; Black Sabbath's version, issued six weeks before their album, did not chart at all.

What was Black Sabbath's second album originally going to be called?

War Pigs was the planned title, after the protest song that opens the record; the label instead named the album after a filler track knocked out at the last minute.

The coughing fit that opens Black Sabbath's 'Sweet Leaf' was Tony Iommi choking on what?

A joint, handed to him by Osbourne while the tape was running: the splutter was kept as the opening of a song that is the band's love letter to marijuana.

Which song, knocked out in minutes as album filler, became Black Sabbath's biggest UK hit single?

Paranoid took about 25 minutes: the album was a song short, Iommi found the riff while the others were at lunch, and the throwaway reached number four in Britain.

Which 1971 album contained the band's first acoustic songs and 'Children of the Grave'?

Master of Reality owes its sludgy weight to a practical fix: Iommi tuned his guitar down three semitones to spare his damaged fingertips, and Butler followed him down on bass.

What was Black Sabbath's Vol. 4 originally going to be titled?

Snowblind, the band's hymn to cocaine, was the title until the record company balked at so plain a drug reference; their drummer called the replacement a pretty stupid title, there being no Volumes 1 to 3.

Which sounds open Black Sabbath's debut album before a note of music is played?

Rain and a tolling bell, with a roll of thunder, were almost the only effects added to an album otherwise recorded live; the storm runs for half a minute before the first riff.

Where did Tony Iommi find the riff of 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' after weeks of writer's block?

A castle dungeon: after a fruitless month in Los Angeles the band rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean, rehearsed below ground, frightened themselves with ghost sightings and began writing again.

Which rock keyboard star guested on Black Sabbath's 'Sabbra Cadabra'?

Rick Wakeman was next door making an album with Yes and would not take a fee; he recalls finding the band slumped asleep, with Osbourne waking just long enough to approve the take.

Which 1974 American festival put Black Sabbath on a bill with Deep Purple and the Eagles?

California Jam was staged by the ABC network, which televised parts of the show and so put Black Sabbath in front of an American audience far beyond their concert crowds.

Which notorious manager did Black Sabbath sign with in 1974?

Don Arden, dubbed the Al Capone of pop, took them on amid lawsuits with their old management; his daughter Sharon later married Osbourne and wrested control of the singer's career from her father.

Which band opened for Black Sabbath on the 1975 Sabotage tour?

Kiss were the support until the tour stopped early in November 1975: Osbourne had torn a muscle in his back in a motorcycle accident.

Which compilation, Black Sabbath's first, did the record companies release without the band's input?

We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll was compiled without consulting the band, who were busy fighting their old management in court; it still charted through 1976 and sold two million copies in America.

What are the two figures on the Hipgnosis sleeve of Black Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy?

Robots, passing on escalators: the designers took the album title literally, and Osbourne's verdict was that it showed two robots having sex on an escalator.

Which musician sang lead on Black Sabbath's single 'It's Alright' in place of Ozzy Osbourne?

Bill Ward, the drummer, wrote the ballad and had to be coaxed into singing it for fear of offending Osbourne, who wrote that he was more than happy to let him.

Dave Walker, who briefly replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1977, had earlier sung with which band?

Fleetwood Mac was one of his old bands. With Black Sabbath he sang one new song on a local television show and was gone as soon as Osbourne changed his mind.

As a teenager, before Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne spent time in prison for which crime?

Burglary: he had robbed a clothes shop and could not pay the fine, and his father refused to pay it for him, hoping that prison would teach him a lesson.

Which young American band opened Black Sabbath's 1978 Never Say Die! tour?

Van Halen's debut album was only months old; Tony Iommi recalled that they 'were really hot to trot, whereas we were burning out', and within a year Osbourne had been fired.

Which singer replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1979?

Ronnie James Dio had just been dismissed from Rainbow; his first album with Black Sabbath revived a band that many had written off after two weak records.

Which drummer joined Black Sabbath mid-tour in 1980 and stayed for Mob Rules and Live Evil?

Vinny Appice got the call when the original drummer walked out in mid-tour; he had only a few days to learn the set before his first show with them, at a stadium in Hawaii.

Which Deep Purple singer fronted Black Sabbath on Born Again (1983)?

Ian Gillan says he agreed to join during a long night's drinking with Iommi and Butler, and woke the next day with little memory of having done it.

The stage set for Black Sabbath's 1983 Born Again tour, built too big for most venues, was a replica of what?

Stonehenge came out so large that many venues could not take it, and accounts differ on who botched the measurements; the makers of This Is Spinal Tap insist their own Stonehenge gag was a coincidence.

Bev Bevan, Black Sabbath's 1983 tour drummer, co-founded which Birmingham band?

Electric Light Orchestra's drummer was a close friend of Iommi's, who called him in when Sabbath's own drummer was too unwell to tour.

At which 1985 charity event did Black Sabbath's original line-up briefly reunite?

Live Aid gave them a 9.55am slot in Philadelphia; after a night of reunion drinking, Iommi played all three songs behind dark glasses with what he called a dreadful hangover.

Which second ex-Deep Purple singer fronted Black Sabbath's 1986 album Seventh Star?

Glenn Hughes sang on what Iommi had made as a solo album; the record company wanted the famous name on the sleeve, so it went out as 'Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi'.

Which singer, Black Sabbath's longest-serving after Ozzy, joined in 1987 for The Eternal Idol?

Tony Martin walked into an album already written for another singer and re-sang it; dropped in 1991 for a reunion with an earlier frontman, he was back two years later, making five studio albums in all.

Which 1992 album reunited Black Sabbath's Mob Rules line-up?

Dehumanizer's reunion lasted one tour: when the band agreed to open Ozzy Osbourne's farewell shows in California, their singer refused and quit, and Judas Priest's Rob Halford stood in.

Which song from the 1998 live album Reunion won Black Sabbath their first Grammy?

Iron Man grew out of a remark by Osbourne about an 'iron bloke': bassist Geezer Butler took the phrase and built a science-fiction lyric around it.

Under what name did Black Sabbath's early-1980s line-up reunite to tour and record from 2006?

Heaven & Hell took the title of the line-up's first album so that nobody would turn up expecting the Ozzy-era songs; the Black Sabbath name stayed with the original four.

Who produced 13, Black Sabbath's final studio album, in 2013?

Rick Rubin had first tried to record the reunited band in 2001, when the sessions fell apart; twelve years later the album he finally got out of them topped charts around the world.

Which song from 13 won Black Sabbath the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2014?

God Is Dead? has a stand-in, Brad Wilk, on drums: the band's original drummer had stayed out of the reunion in a dispute over his contract.

What was the name of Black Sabbath's 2016–17 farewell tour?

The End closed in the band's home city in February 2017 and was sold as the last word, yet the original four regrouped eight years later for one final charity show.

Ozzy and Iommi surprised the crowd at the closing ceremony of which 2022 event?

The Commonwealth Games were being held in their home city; it was Osbourne's first live performance in years after a run of health problems, and one of his last.

At which stadium did Black Sabbath's original line-up play their final show, Back to the Beginning, in 2025?

Villa Park hosted a ten-hour bill of bands paying tribute before the original four closed the night; Osbourne sang seated on a black throne and died seventeen days later.

Who served as musical director of Black Sabbath's 2025 farewell concert?

Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine's guitarist, promised the greatest heavy metal show ever and led one of the day's all-star supergroups himself.

Black Sabbath's 2025 farewell concert raised money for two children's charities and research into which disease?

Parkinson's disease: Osbourne had gone public with his own diagnosis in 2020, and the proceeds were split equally between Cure Parkinson's, a children's hospital and a children's hospice.

Shortly before their 2025 farewell show, Black Sabbath's four original members were given which civic honour by Birmingham?

Freemen of the city is an honour Birmingham hands out so rarely that Iommi remarked on how few are given; Osbourne said he was shocked to be considered and wished his parents had lived to see it.

Whose records persuaded Tony Iommi to keep playing guitar after an accident cost him two fingertips?

Django Reinhardt had become a great guitarist with two fingers of his fretting hand crippled by a caravan fire; hearing him, Iommi stopped listening to the doctors who said he would never play again.

Tony Iommi made his first homemade fingertips by melting down what?

A detergent bottle, the British washing-up liquid kind: he melted the plastic into caps for his two damaged fingers and covered them with leather cut from an old jacket for grip.

Which band inducted Black Sabbath into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006?

Metallica's Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield did the honours and the band played two Sabbath songs; seven years earlier Osbourne had dismissed a nomination from the same hall as meaningless.

On which day at the factory did Tony Iommi lose two fingertips in an accident?

His last day: at 17 he was leaving the sheet metal factory to turn professional musician when the accident happened, and doctors told him he would never play again.

Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are often grouped with which band as the 'unholy trinity' of early-1970s British hard rock?

Led Zeppelin made up the trio with Deep Purple. Rivalry did not rule out friendship: Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham, was best man at Tony Iommi's wedding.