Tony Iommi in Conversation at Gibson – report and photos by Dawn Osborne

In Conversation with Tony Iommi

Personal guests and members of the London Rock press gathered this afternoon at a special event organised by Gibson for the launch of Tony Iommi’s signature pick ups, decades in the making.

Before Iommi came on stage, by way of introduction, clips were shown from a new Gibson TV series ‘Godfather Of Heavy Metal’ featuring luminaries of the Rock world talking about the significance of his work. Comments included Brian May (Queen) “you know it is Iommi playing in a nanosecond” and Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne band/Black Label Society) “he’s like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart all in one”.

Iommi then came out on the Gibson Garage stage to loud applause. Talking about why he is now wedded to using Gibsons, he explained that in the beginning he used a Stratocaster. (He had a right handed Gibson as a spare, but he didn’t use it being left handed. Humorously he recounted that he swapped it in a car park for a more suitable left handed one with a right handed man in the opposite awkward position.) In an act of providence the pick ups on the Strat failed during the recording of  ‘Wicked World’ on the first album. Sabbath were under pressure with only a day of studio time to record the whole of the first album. By necessity Iommi used his other guitar, a Gibson, to record the rest. He has always used Gibson since.

Immediately upon trying one he realised that the Gibson guitar was “it” for him. The original white SG he used on Top Of The Pops was, however, unfortunately stolen. Gibson made him another and that was also stolen. He said with some emotion “I couldn’t believe it!”. He now has a third that so far he has managed to keep. His use of Gibsons evolved to the famous ‘Monkey’. In New York he had a fairly plain jacket from Take 6 that needed to be spiced up a little and so he put a few stickers on it. At the same time the monkey decal out of the sticker set was put on his SG guitar “and it just stuck”.

Iommi is always on the quest for technical improvements and customises his guitars. He works on them regularly filing his frets, lacquering the neck etc. On a quest early on he began to use light thinner banjo strings and after being turned away by a lot of manufacturers found a company Picato in Wales who made these lighter strings to his specification “for years before other companies caught on”. He laughed as he told a story of how once dipping his pick ups in beeswax he stunk out a caravan in which the whole band was staying. (Imagine Ozzy turning the air blue!)

In the early years Iommi only had one such personally carefully-customised Gibson guitar for a long time. Because of this he typically would not let it out of his sight and had to wrestle with airlines because he refused to put it into the hold, the neck being too fragile to survive rough handling.

Iommi worked with “mad professor” luthier John Birch and, although people had told him it would never work, asked Birch to make a 24 fret guitar. Iommi refused to accept this ideas wouldn’t work and they managed to make one. They devised locking nuts “before they were out”. He would look for solutions to buzzing/interference of his guitar between notes. A lot of the technical solutions available in the modern world were not available and he worked together with Birch on innovations. Recalling that ignoring people who told him things couldn’t be done was “the story of my life” he demonstrated a Gibson with a Tremolo Arm that others had said could never be fitted.

Gibson also produced a guitar with crucifixes inlaid into the neck “synonymous with Sabbath” which Iommi personally likes very much. Having guitars made for him to his specification is “a real step up”. He appreciates Gibson under the management of Cesar Gueikian who “really cares”. Gueikian had come backstage at the last Sabbath gig ‘Back To The Beginning’ and listened to Iommi’s ideas for further evolutions of his guitar vowing to get it done.

Iommi continues to pursue improvements to this day, trying different things. 28 years ago he had the idea for his signature pick ups and went to Nashville for ten days. He raised a laugh that after ten days of using loads of different pick ups “I couldn’t tell the difference I had heard that many”. We were then treated to a demonstration of the newly launched Iommi pick ups based on this original idea from almost three decades ago. He played the Iron Man riff using them and, yes, it sounded like Iommi! (Not so strangely enough!)

Iommi confided that he and his old friend Brian May often talk about each other’s sound, in fact “most of the time”. Again he made everyone laugh when, in response to Sir Brian saying anyone could identify him playing in a nano second, he made a quick high pitched squeak on the Gibson on his lap quipping “I bet he doesn’t know that one!”. He mentioned Brian May played on his past solo albums. There is a new Iommi solo album in progress and he has now settled on one singer. He is taking his time as there is no pressure of deadlines and he is taking it in stages, “usually doing it on Mondays and Tuesdays, but things keep cropping up like this” (today being Tuesday). And yes he is using his new pick ups!

Iommi was Gibson’s first signature artist and the first to have signature pick ups. When asked if he would produce another guitar in future “I will always try. If I can improve something – absolutely!” Watch this space!

Dawn Osborne