Tony Iommi is synonymous with the Gibson SG, but if it weren’t for an electronics mishap on the very first day of recording Black Sabbath’s debut album, he might have ended up playing a totally different electric guitar altogether.
As the heavy metal guitar legend explains in the new issue of Guitar World, he didn’t actually go into the studio that day armed with an SG. The SG he owned then was only his backup.
Instead, he planned on playing his heavily modified Fender Stratocaster – a guitar that, at the time, he viewed as his main instrument, and one he initially picked up ahead of the SG. However, as fate would have it, some electronics failures on the opening day of recording meant he wasn't able to play the Strat.
“When the Strat went, I couldn’t bloody well believe it,” Iommi tells Guitar World. “I’d worked on that guitar myself for a long time, getting the fretboard right, the frets down and the feel just how I like it. I needed to do all that because of my accident.
“So we went in to make our first album and the guitar pickup went right at the beginning of the process. In those days, it was a big fiasco getting a pickup changed or fixed. It wasn’t like how it is now, where you can go into any guitar shop and someone will be able to swap it. Not only that; we only had two days to make the album, one of which was for recording.”
Iommi’s solution was to reach for his backup – the Gibson SG, which he rarely played up until that point. It proved to be a hugely influential chain of events that would change the course of Iommi’s guitar career.
“I had to use my SG, which was the backup I kept on the side,” he continues. “I hadn’t owned it long, so I’d never really used it. When the Strat pickup went, I had to pick up the SG. From that day on, I never looked back. I stuck with the SGs.
“But at the time, I’d only used my Strat in combination with my booster and the Laney. That’s what I’d been using to create my sound, so it was quite scary having to improvise with something else.”
Iommi may have tried other guitars over the years – including Les Pauls and ES-335s – but he always found himself coming back to the SG, which he’s now become synonymous with. Indeed, he's one of Gibson's most notable artists, and has helped produced a range of signature SGs over the years.
However, despite his decades-long affection for Gibson’s devilish double-cut, the guitarist confesses he still longs for his original Strat, which he no longer has.
“The only other guitar I really liked was that original Strat, which I wish I’d kept,” he admits. “I can’t believe I got rid of it. This was before I knew you could easily change pickups and things. I just thought the guitar had completely had it, so it was time to get rid of it. A big mistake.”
Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World and read the full interview with Tony Iommi.
