‘That’s great,’ said Geezer.
‘Well, I’m not sure I’m gonna to be taking the gig, to be honest,’ said Plant, shrugging. ‘I’ve got some pretty good stuff going on here, y’know? Matter of fact, I’ve just put a new band together.’
‘Oh, er… cool,’ said Geezer. ‘What’s the name?’
‘Hobbstweedle,’ said Plant.
Later, when Plant was gone, I asked Geezer if the bloke was out of his fucking mind. ‘Is he seriously going to pass up a gig with Jimmy Page for that Hobbsbollocks thing?’ I asked.
Geezer shrugged. ‘I think he’s just worried it won’t work out,’ he said. ‘But he’ll do it, as long as they change the name. They can’t go around calling themselves the “New Yardbirds” for long.’
‘It’s better than fucking Hobbstweedle.’
‘Good point.’
Bumping into someone like Robert Plant wasn’t unusual when you were with the Geezer. He seemed to know everyone. He was part of the cool crowd, so he went to the right parties, took the right drugs, hung out with the right movers and shakers. It was a real eye-opener, and I loved being part of it. Still, there was a big problem hanging over us: our band, Rare Breed, was shit. We made Hobbstweedle look like The fucking Who. When I joined they were set on being ‘experimental’: they had all these trippy stage props and a strobe light, like they were trying to be the next Pink Floyd. Now, there was nothing wrong with trying to be the next Pink Floyd – later on, I would enjoy dropping a few tabs of mind detergent while listening to ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ – but we couldn’t pull it off. Pink Floyd was music for rich college kids, and we were the exact fucking opposite of that. So Rare Breed wasn’t going anywhere, and me and Geezer both knew it. Rehearsals were just one long argument about when the bongo solo should come in. Worst of all, there was this bloke in the band who called himself Brick, and he fancied himself as a bit of a San Francisco hippy type.
‘Brick’s a dick,’ I kept telling Geezer.
‘Aw, he’s all right.’
‘No, Brick’s a dick.’
‘Give it a rest, Ozzy.’
‘He’s a dick, that Brick.’
And so on.
I got on fine with the other members of the band. But with Brick on the scene and me getting increasingly pissed off, Rare Breed was never going to last. Even Geezer started to lose his patience after a while.
The only gig I can remember playing in those very early days – and I think it was with Rare Breed, but it could have been under a different name, with different band members, ’cos line-ups changed so often back then – was the Birmingham Fire Station’s Christmas party. The audience consisted of two firemen, a bucket and a ladder. We made enough dough for half a shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), split six ways.
But that gig made an impression on me, because it was the first time I ever experienced stage fright.
And fucking hell, man, did I get a bad case of the brown trousers.
To say that I suffer from pre-show nerves is like saying that when you get hit by an atom bomb it hurts a bit. I was absolutely fucking petrified when I got up on that stage. Sweaty. Mouth drier than a Mormon wedding. Numb legs. Racing heart. Trembling hands. The fucking works, man. I literally almost pissed myself. I’d never felt anything like it in my life. I remember downing a pint beforehand to try to calm myself down, but it didn’t work. I would have had twenty pints if I’d had enough dough. In the end I croaked my way through a couple of numbers until we blew out one of the speakers of the PA. Then we fucked off home. I didn’t tell my old man about the speaker. I just swapped it with the one in his radiogram.
I’d buy him a new one when I got a job, I told myself. And it seemed like I would have to get a job, because, judging by the fire station gig, there was no way I was ever going to make it in the music business.
A couple of days later, I decided to pack in singing for good.
I remember saying to Geezer down the pub, ‘I’ve had enough, man, this ain’t going nowhere.’
Geezer just frowned and twiddled his thumbs. Then, in a dejected voice, he said: ‘They’ve offered me a promotion at work. I’m going to be number three in the accounting department.’
‘Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘Suppose.’
We finished our drinks, shook hands, and went our separate ways. ‘See you around, Geezer,’ I said.
‘Take it easy, Ozzy Zig.’
Knock-knock.
I poked my head through the curtains in the living room and saw a dodgy-looking bloke with long hair and a moustache standing outside on the doorstep. What the fuck was this, déjà vu? But no, despite the hair and the tash, the bloke didn’t look anything like Geezer. He looked… homeless. And there was another bloke standing next to him. He also had long hair and a king-sized ferret on his upper lip. But he was taller, and he looked a bit like… Nah, it couldn’t be. Not him. Parked behind them on the street was an old blue Commer van with a big rusty hole above the wheel arch and faded lettering on the side that said ‘Mythology’.
‘JOHN! Get the door!’
‘I’m getting it!’
It had been a few months since I’d left Rare Breed. I was twenty now, and had given up all hope of being a singer or ever getting out of Aston. PA system or no PA system, it wasn’t going to happen. I’d convinced myself that there was no point in even trying, because I was just going to fail, like I had at school, at work, and at everything else I’d ever tried. ‘You ain’t no good as a singer,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t even play an instrument, so what hope d’you have?’ It was Self-Pity City at 14 Lodge Road. I’d already talked to my mum about trying to get my old job back at the Lucas plant. She was seeing what she could do. And I’d told the owner of Ringway Music to take down my ‘OZZY ZIG NEEDS GIG’ sign. Stupid fucking name, anyway – Geezer was right about that. All in all, there was no reason whatsoever why two long-haired blokes should be standing on my doorstep at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night. Could they be mates of Geezer? Did they have something to do with Rare Breed? It didn’t make any sense.
Knock-knock.
Knock-knock.
Knock-knock-knock-knock.
I twisted the latch and pulled. An awkward pause. Then the shorter and scruffier bloke asked, ‘Are you… Ozzy Zig?’
Before I could answer, the bigger guy leaned forwards and squinted at me. Now I knew for certain who he was. And he knew me, too. I froze. He groaned. ‘Aw, fucking hell,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’
I couldn’t believe it. The bloke on my doorstep was Tony Iommi: the good-looking kid from the year above me at Birchfield Road, who’d brought his electric guitar to school one Christmas, driving the teachers crazy with the noise. I hadn’t seen him for about five years, but I’d heard about him. He’d become a bit of an Aston legend since leaving school. All the kids knew who he was. If you wanted to be in a band with anyone, it was Tony. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to feel the same way about me.
‘C’mon, Bill,’ he said to the homeless-looking bloke. ‘This is a waste of time. Let’s go.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Bill. ‘Who is this guy?’
‘I’ll tell you one thing: his name ain’t “Ozzy Zig”. And he ain’t no singer, either. He’s Ozzy Osbourne and he’s an idiot. C’mon, let’s get out of here.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ I interrupted. ‘How did you get this address? How d’you know about Ozzy Zig?’
‘“Ozzy Zig Needs Gig,”’ said Bill, with a shrug.
‘I told ’em to take that fucking sign down months ago.’
‘Well, you should go and tell them again, ’cos it was up there today.’
‘At Ringway Music?’
‘In the window.’
I tried not to look too pleased.
‘Tony,’ said Bill, ‘can’t we give this guy a break? He seems all right.’
‘Give him a break?’ Tony had already lost patience. ‘He was the school clown! I’m not being in a band with that fucking
moron.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just stood there staring at my feet.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Tony,’ hissed Bill. ‘That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’
But Tony just huffed and started to walk back towards the van.
Bill shook his head and shrugged at me, as if to say, ‘Sorry, mate. Nothing more I can do.’
That seemed to be that. But then something caught my eye. It was Tony’s right hand. There was something wrong with it.
‘Fucking hell, Tony,’ I said. ‘What happened to your fingers, man?’
It turned out I wasn’t the only one who’d had a rough time with jobs after being turfed out of school at the age of fifteen. While I was poisoning myself with the degreasing machine and going deaf testing car horns, Tony was working as an apprentice sheet-metal worker. Later, he told me his education mainly involved learning how to use an electric welder.
Now, they’re lethal fucking things, electric welders. The biggest risk is being exposed to ultraviolet radiation, which can literally melt the skin off your body before you even know it, or burn holes in your eyeballs. You can also get killed by electric shocks, or end up poisoned by exposure to the toxic rust-proofing shit they put on the panels. Anyway, Tony was doing this welding job during the day and playing in a band called the Rocking Chevrolets on the club circuit at night, waiting for his big break. He was always talented, but hammering out all those numbers by Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Eddie Cochran every night made him shit fucking hot. Eventually an agent spotted him and offered him a professional gig over in Germany, so Tony decided to quit his job in the factory. He thought he’d made it.
Then it all went wrong.
On Tony’s last day in the workshop, the bloke who was supposed to press and cut the metal before it was welded didn’t show up. So Tony had to do it. I still don’t know exactly what happened – if Tony didn’t know how to use the machine properly, or if it was broken, or whatever – but this fucking massive metal press ended up ripping off the tips of the middle and ring fingers on his right hand. Tony is left handed, so they were his fretboard fingers. It makes me shiver just to think about it, even now. You can’t imagine what a bad scene it must have been, with all the blood and the howling and the scrambling around on the floor trying to find the tips of his fingers, and then Tony being told by the doctors in the emergency room that he’d never be able to play again. He saw dozens of specialists over the next few months, and they all told him the same thing: ‘Son, your days in a rock ’n’ roll band are finished, end of fucking story, find something else to do.’ He must have thought it was all over. It would have been like me getting shot in the throat.
Tony suffered from terrible depression for a long time after the accident. I don’t know how he even got out of bed in the morning. Then, one day, his old shop foreman brought him a record by Django Reinhardt, the Belgian Gypsy jazz guitarist who played all his solos using just two fingers on his fretting hand because he’d burned the others in a fire.
And Tony thought, Well, if old Django can do it, so can I.
At first he tried playing right-handed, but that didn’t work. So he went back to left-handed, trying to play the fretboard with just two fingers, but he didn’t like that, either. Finally he figured out what to do. He made a couple of thimbles for his injured fingers out of a melted-down Fairy Liquid bottle, sanded them down until they were roughly the same size as his old fingertips, and then glued these little leather pads on the ends to improve his grip on the strings. He loosened the strings a bit too, so he wouldn’t have to put so much pressure on them.
Then he just learned to play the guitar again from scratch, even though he had no feeling in two fingers. To this day, I’ve no idea how he does it. Everywhere he goes, he carries around a bag full of homemade thimbles and leather patches, and he always keeps a soldering iron on hand to make adjustments. Every time I see him play, it hits me how much he had to over-come. I have so much awe and respect for Tony Iommi because of that. Also, in a strange way, I suppose the accident helped him, because when he learned to play again he developed a unique style that no one has ever been able to copy. And fucking hell, man, they’ve tried.
After the accident Tony played in a band called the Rest. But his heart wasn’t in it. He thought all the hype about ‘Brumbeat’ was bollocks and he wanted out, so when he was offered an audition with a band called Mythology up in Carlisle, you couldn’t see him for dust. He even convinced the Rest’s singer to go up there with him. Once the guys in Mythology had heard the two of them in action, they couldn’t sign them up fast enough. Then, a couple of months later, Mythology’s drummer quit. So Tony called up his old mate Bill Ward from Aston, who was only too happy to take the job.
I never went to a Mythology gig, but I’m told they brought the house down wherever they went: they had this dirty, swampy, heavy blues sound, and they’d cover songs by bands like Buffalo Springfield, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers – whose new guitarist at the time was Eric Clapton, who’d just quit the Yardbirds, giving Jimmy Page his big break. It was a classic era for rock ’n’ roll, and it was all going gangbusters for Mythology. The band quickly built a massive following in Cumberland, playing sold-out shows all over the place, supporting acts like Gary Walker, of the Walker Brothers. But then they started to run into trouble with the law. That’s what happened in those days if you had long hair and moustaches and tight leather trousers. From what I heard, the first time they got done was for using the label from a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale in place of a tax disc on their tour van. The next time was a lot more heavy-duty, though, and it finished them off. Their dope dealer – a student from Leeds, I think – got busted. Then the cops drew up a list of the guy’s clients, got a search warrant, and raided Mythology’s flat at Compton House in Carlisle. It was bad news, man.
All four members of the band were done for possession of marijuana. That might not sound like such a big deal now, but in those days it was fucking horrendous. Not so much because of the punishment – they all pleaded guilty and were fined just fifteen quid each – but because of the stigma. No one would book a band that had been done for drugs, ’cos they thought you were a bad crowd. And no one wanted any trouble with the law, not when they had licences that could be revoked. By the summer of 1968, Mythology’s gigs had dried up to the point where they were all flat broke. They could barely even afford food. Tony and Bill had two choices: give up full-time music and get proper jobs in Carlisle like their bandmates were planning to do; or fuck off back to Aston, where they could live at their folks’ places while they tried to save their careers. They chose Aston, which is how they ended up on my doorstep.
I’ve no idea what I said to Tony outside my house that night to make him change his mind and give me a chance. The fact that I had a PA system probably helped. And maybe he realised that it had been five years since school, and that we’d both grown up a lot since then. Well, perhaps I hadn’t grown up too much, but at least I knew I never wanted to go back to prison or work in a factory again. I think Tony felt the same way after his drugs bust and his accident at the metalworks. And although his folks made a decent living – they owned a little corner shop on Park Lane – he’d left Birchfield Road with a no-hope future just like mine.
Without music, we were both fucked.
Bill also helped to calm Tony down. He’s the nicest bloke you’ll ever meet, Bill. A phenomenal drummer – as I would soon find out – but also a solid, down-to-earth guy. You could tell that by the way he dressed: he was the anti-Geezer when it came to fashion. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was living in a cardboard box on the hard shoulder of the M6. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never changed, either. Years later, I went on Concorde for the first time with Bill. He was late, and I was sitting on board thinking, Where the fuck is he? Eventually he strolled into the cabin wearing an old man’s over-coat and carrying two Tesco bags full of cans o
f cider. I looked him up and down and said, ‘Bill, you do know that they provide drinks on Concorde, don’t you? You don’t have to bring your own Tesco cider?’ He replied, ‘Oh, I don’t want to put them to any trouble.’
That’s Bill Ward for you.
After Tony had warmed up a bit, we spent the rest of the night sitting in the back of the van, smoking fags, telling stories about prison and Carlisle and drugs busts and severed fingers and Mr Jones from school and how to slaughter cows with a bolt gun and what blues records we’d been listening to lately. Then we started to plot our next move.
‘Before we do anything else, we’re going to need a name and a bass player,’ said Tony.
‘I don’t know any bass players,’ I said. ‘But I know a bloke called Geezer who plays rhythm guitar.’
Tony and Bill looked at me. Then at each other. ‘Geezer Butler?’ they said in unison.
‘Yeah.’
‘That bloke’s crazy,’ said Bill. ‘Last time I saw him he was off his nut in Midnight City.’
‘That’s because Geezer’s already a rock star in his own head,’ I said. ‘Which is a good thing. And he doesn’t eat meat, so it’ll save us money on the road. And he’s a qualified accountant.’
‘Ozzy’s right.’ Tony nodded. ‘Geezer’s a good bloke.’
‘I’ll go round his house tomorrow and ask him if he wants to do the honours,’ I said. ‘He’ll need some time to learn to play the bass, but how hard can it be, eh? There’s only four fucking strings.’
‘And what about a name?’ said Tony.
The three of us looked at each other.
‘We should all take a couple of days to think about it,’ I said. ‘I dunno about you two, but I’ve got a special place where I go to get ideas for important stuff like this. It’s never failed me yet.’
Forty-eight hours later I blurted out: ‘I’ve got it!’
‘Must have been that dodgy bird you poked the other night,’ said Geezer. ‘Has your whelk turned green yet?’
Tony and Bill snickered into their plates of egg and chips. We were sitting in a greasy spoon caff in Aston. So far, everyone was getting along famously.
I Am Ozzy Page 6