Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi says that the band’s earliest recordings, dating back to when they were known as Earth, will be released “at some point”.
Last year it was announced that an album’s worth of material from Earth has been unearthed and would be released as The Legendary Lost Tapes.
At the time, the group’s former manager Jim Simpson stated, “These recordings clearly demonstrate what fine music they produced right from the very beginning. We recorded these tracks at Zella Studio in Birmingham in 1969, but held back from releasing them as their style was evolving so quickly.
“Now, some 57 years later, the recordings assume a greater importance, illustrating how these four young men from Birmingham, barely out of their teens, were excellent musicians and a fine band, fully deserving of all the success that was to come their way.”
However, the album release was blocked after Sharon Osbourne wrote to Simpson insisting that the four members of Black Sabbath were against the release.
“The Band do not want these tapes released, not least as they haven’t heard them despite you saying you would provide copies long ago,” Osbourne wrote. “You know that, as a band, Black Sabbath don’t take things lying down and you can be assured that if you go ahead with this against the Band’s wishes we will take any action we can where their rights are infringed, both here and in America.”
In April this year, Osbourne announced that the 1969 recordings had been returned to the group, saying, “All of that stuff should be theirs. So it all ended well.”
In a new exclusive interview with Rolling Stone, Tony Iommi says that the demos “will come out at some point”.
“It’s weird when you hear stuff from so long ago, and all these things crop up that you forgot about,” the guitarist admits. “But it was fun to hear them, actually. I sat listening to them all, and it was good because there’s some jazzy stuff and bluesy stuff we done on them where we just used to jam. On a lot of the jams, it was all guitar, and I forgot about half of that. I can’t play that now.”
Iommi will release From The Dark, his first solo album since 2005, on October 23 via BMG.