Def Leppard's Steve Clark once said something to me that to this day has helped me as both a player and an educator. In talking about the development of one's style, he suggested, "Rather than copy the fashionable hero of the moment, find out where his influences come from and start from there. Then put in your own ideas and bring it up to today's standards."

From a Leppard's lips to Soundgarden's ears, or Godspeed's or Danzig's. Black Sabbath's influence can be heard in musicians 20 years younger, giving the still-contemporary Sabbath a new measure of importance perhaps even bigger than in their heyday. With '90s grunge and metal bands heralding an era of Sabbath superlatives, and a boxed set and tribute album on the way, Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler recently met with GFTPM to talk up Cross Purposes, their newly released recording on I.R.S. Keeping in mind the words of Steve Clark, we used our time to look into the musical and sonic roots of Black Sabbath.

I've always been intrigued with a band's roots and seeing how they branched out from them. Didn't Black Sabbath start out as a rockin' blues band much like Ten Years After?

Tony Iommi: We were doing that same sort of thing.

Geezer Butler: The stuff we had when we first started was all 12-bar blues. We used to do a lot of Willie Dixon songs, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters. We learned them from listening to the records. They were easy to play. When we first came together we formed in one day and had a gig a week later| We never had played together so we learned 18 12-bar blues numbers in a week.

Tony: It was great practice for learning how to play. It was mainly instrumental. We'd do a bit of vocals and then 10 minutes of instrumental. It was good for us to do that. We used to play clubs in Europe and we could play for hours. We did seven 45-minute spots a night, which was good experience for us to be able to play stuff.

Geezer: Ten Years After were one of our heroes. Alvin Lee was billed as "the fastest guitar in Britain." One of our big breaks was when we did a gig with him. We supported Ten Years After and they really liked what we were doing. Alvin Lee got us a gig at the Marquee in London. That sort of started the ball rolling for us.

Could such a scenario exist today?

Geezer: It does in bands like Robert Cray and newer blues bands, but back then there were hundreds of bands doing it. That was the way you had a band-you formed a band and you became a blues band and you jammed and then you formed into whatever music you were eventually known for. Today it seems like heavy metal replaced what the blues was then. Everybody get up and does "Paranoid" or "Smoke on the Water" instead of the old blues stuff.

The blues was a good place to start.

Geezer: Especially for me with the 12-bar blues. I never had played bass before. In fact, when we did the rehearsals it was on a Fender Telecaster because I used to play rhythm guitar. It was so easy to pick up 12-bar blues bass lines. That got me started. Once I was confident doing that I could go on to other things.

Tony: It was a great experience and a great way of going into what we do play now. As you keep playing all those 12-bars, you start experimenting around those three chords.

Geezer: That's because it was so simple. Then you get bored of that so you go on to some other bits and you can feel yourself progressing all the time. Eventually you've got the background to go and write your own songs. We were up against bands that were just starting, like Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, and Zeppelin. We knew we had to be as good as them to make a go of it. We knew we had to practice every day and rehearse every day to get as good as them, or to be good at all!.

Tony: And different. In those days it was like every band was different. Ten Years After, Traffic, and Tull all played different sorts of music.

Geezer: Whereas now you've got a lot of bands doing heavy metal and that's it. Back then you had to be totally different from anybody else to get recognized. It still happens now but it seemed more adventurous then.

Tony: It was. You could put the radio on and tell who the different bands were; nowadays it's difficult to tell who's who.

Would you consciously try to be different?

Tony: Maybe we did. I don't know.

Geezer: We never sounded like The Beatles, but if you did something that sounded like The Beatles, for example, you would immediately drop it because there were so few bands around then. You would know what everybody else was doing. The last thing in the world you wanted to do was sound like everybody else.

Tony: In fact, we'd done one track where I played flute and immediately it was like "Jethro Tull" but it was nothing like Jethro Tull.

Geezer: But because somebody else had used the flute-and obviously Tony liked Jethro Tull-we didn't do it.

Bands like The Beatles, Zeppelin and Sabbath did their first albums very quickly. They were essentially live, and captured a moment that others still try to duplicate today by spending tons of time and money on their recording.

Tony: In those days you didn't have the luxury of being able to take a long time. You didn't know the difference. To take a day in the studio was a long time for us. We thought, "Great, We've got a day to record the album." We already played the show every day.

Geezer: In those days it was either do it or forget it. You got two days to do it and that's it. Then some other band was in there.

In hindsight, is that a better way of recording? Is it good to give yourself that pressure?

Geezer: We didn't know any other way so it's hard to say. The Beatles took a day to record their first album.

Tony: I think it's good in some ways to have pressure, otherwise it will take forever. We're done that same thing. We've gone along on past albums with Ozzy and they got longer and longer. Some albums have taken months and there was no need for it, had we put a limit on it. We do that now. With Cross Purposes we were done on time.

Geezer: I thought that was one of the main ingredients of the early records. Because you had two days, all it was is the band playing live in the studio. If we had more time we would have added whatever was hip at the time-a synthesizer or something-which would have totally ruined the sound of the band. Whereas now you can still listen to the first albums and it's just us, as we were playing. There is nothing softening it up; it's just raw in the studio. So it doesn't date. The sound might date a little bit but it's really a live band in the studio.

Mick Taylor told me for John Mayall's Crusade album they played a gig, moved the gear to a studio, did the same set for the record and moved the gear back for another gig.

Geezer: That's what we did. The only difference with us is Tony did an 18-minute guitar solo on "The Warning"! and that was cut down by the producer for the album Black Sabbath!. We didn't have any control whatsoever over that. We weren't allowed in on the mix.

Tony: I remember I asked, "Can we do it again?" But we were out of time.

Geezer: We didn't have time to take that song and put it into a five- minute song. We did a gig one night, the next two days we were in the studio and the day after that we were off to Europe.

Were you comfortable recording for the first time?

Geezer: We were probably nervous but we were excited at the same time. We had a chance to make an album. It was what we worked for. We finally had the chance to do it. The only thing I can remember about when we were done with the first album was we played some of the tracks either too slow or too fast because of the excitement; the energy. It was a bit faster than what we normally played.

What was the origin of your detuning the guitar?

Geezer: We couldn't tune up. [laughs|

Tony: We didn't have a pitch pipe in those days. Originally for me the whole concept of using light-gauge strings and tuning down a lot was that when I cut the end of me fingers off I couldn't bend a lot of the strings because it used to hurt. So I thought I'd make a light-gauge string because you couldn't buy them in those days. They didn't know what a light-gauge string was. I sort of made one up that I felt I could bend and it worked. Tuning down certainly helped me in those days.

Geezer: It helped with the sound, too. Then it got to the point where we tuned even lower to make it easier vocal-wise. But Ozzy would then sing higher so it sort of defeated the object.

Ozzy has expressed his feeling that the two of you (Butler and Iommi) ARE Black Sabbath.

Geezer: Obviously Tony covered the whole sound of the band. Mainly what people copy is Tony's guitar sound.

Geezer, with the songwriting credits listing everyone in the band, few people know that you wrote the lyrics.

Geezer: Because it was a band thing. It was nice to get a lot of inspiration from one line. Ozzy might come up with a line at the time when we were writing the stuff, such as "Iron Man." He was humming along and said, "Iron Man." Then I'd write the rest of it.

Tony: It worked great. It was a lot of pressure for him because he wrote the lyrics and played the bass. He used to have a moan at the end: "Oh, I've got to write the lyrics."

Geezer: I used to hate doing it towards the end of the Ozzy era. I used to write these lyrics and give them to Ozzy. He'd say, "I'm not singing that." So you'd have to re-think the whole thing again.

Was the development of the Sabbath sound something you liked or did you hunt for it?

Tony: It was as simple as it sounds: Just turn up. That was it, really. It was a combination of Geezer and myself; that unique wall of sound we had.

Are you still pretty much the same blues players who just turned up?

Tony: I hope not!

Geezer: I have definitely improved since then. Though sometimes I hear the first album and think, "How the bloody hell did I do that?" Not technically, but the way I used to bend the notes in certain things.

Tony: Roots-wise I'm still blues-based. If I'm doing a solo, I would think in blues terms as opposed to tapping. That's not my style at all. I like it when other people do it.

Do you still record solos off-the-cuff?

Tony: It's more or less "just do it" then wait till you find a good one. I usually go four tracks and comp them, or sometimes you take a particular one.

Have you fallen in and out of love with your instruments?

Geezer: I have. I've gotten to stages where I can't even look at a bass and I think I've gone as far as I can with it and I'm just not good enough to improve anymore-I've got mental blocks on what to play. Tony will come up with a riff and I'll be sitting there thinking, "What the bloody hell am I going to play to that?" It's not that it's a bad riff but I don't feel up to being musically capable of making it a better riff. It's just like writer's block-some people get used to it, some people don't. I used to get it a lot and think I was crap. I'd think, "I've got to give up, I'm absolute rubbish." Having someone like Tony talk to me about it helps a lot. The worst thing I can do is bottle it up and believe in it myself. Only you can get yourself out of it in the end. If somebody says, "What about doing this?" you think, "It's their idea, it's not mine, I'm still crap." You have to give yourself time. I've talked it out with Tony, for instance, and maybe we'll go into something else and I'll get more time to come back and hopefully come up with something I think is up to my old standards.

Tony: You do get a block. You can't just constantly be creative every minute of the day. You've got to come up against obstacles where you can't think or you can't play. Sometimes I can't pick up the guitar-I can't play it, I don't want to play it. Other times I really want to play it. Usually I want to play it when I'm somewhere that I haven't got it.

Geezer: I don't like to play bass at home; I always play guitar. When I'm writing I play guitar. I just cannot pick up a bass on my own. It always has to be when Tony is doing something; then it will come out of me.

Where do you go for musical inspiration?

Tony: It just comes at times when maybe you are more relaxed.

Geezer: With me it's always after a tour. You're doing it every day and getting the groove of the thing. You come off tour and you still think, "It's time to go out and play now." You've finished the tour so you go up to the recording studio and put something down. That's the only time when I get inspired to write. The only thing that really gives me inspiration is playing live on tour. Immediately after the tour is when I come out with most of my things. You are all riled up from playing every night. Your fingers are working properly. You're still thinking about the road. You're still thinking rock 'n' roll.

Tony: I usually get inspired when we play together. Geezer either comes to my house or I go to his house. As soon as we start playing together I can come up with things.

Do you ever practice?

Tony: No.

Do you ever think you want to get better or add to the vocabulary?

Geezer: I used to think like that but now I just accept my limitations-I know my limitations now. I was trying to bloody master this thumb bass for a long time. Then you hear someone who can really play it and you know you'll never be as good as them. Plus it doesn't fit in with anything we do, so what's the point? I know my limitations and I stay within them. I don't profess to be the greatest bass player on earth. As long as it works within the band, that's all I ever want.

Tony, do you add to what you know about playing?

Tony: I probably try but whether I do or not is another thing.

Geezer: We both do when we're making an album. I'll say to Tony, "I'm not going to do that bass riff-that's what anybody else would do." I've got to come up with something that sounds like I'd do it. I always strive for something out of the ordinary rather than just chugging along playing one note. I'll try and do anything else but that. Sometimes I have to come back to having a root note.

Tony: We all put something down. We tend to do stuff pretty quickly so it's impossible to come up with something there-and-then on most of them. It happens so quickly. The ideas fly out and then Geezer will probably go away and come back and he'll have the whole thing all sorted out. He'll know what he's going to play. The early stuff had quite a lot of changes. You go from one riff right into another one. For a while people couldn't figure out how they jelled. When we first had vocalist Ronnie Dio with us we wrote "Die Young," he couldn't understand how it all fit together.

Geezer: When we first used to write, it used to be all together. That's the way it was done. Tony would come out with a riff, then I would put the bass in and Bill Ward would drum along. Ozzy would instantly put a lyric or a vocal melody on top. You actually would hear the song the way it was going to end up. You knew immediately if it's going to work or not and where to put the bits in what songs. The collaboration was immediate and it was all there. If we got stuck we'd do a vocal bit next or a change. Dio would like to have the riff first, then go away and come up with his side of it; whereas with Ozzy it was always instant. We always knew what it was gonna be. We could always change something and that would be it, and then I would go and put the lyrics to his melody and it would be finished. If you work as a team, which we did on Cross Purposes, there is no problem at all because we could change it and everybody was bouncing off each other.

Have you ever felt Black Sabbath in any way was limited to the style of music you played?

Geezer: We never were afraid to do whatever we felt at the time. I think that's what kept us as Black Sabbath. Listen to anything past the first three albums; we do soul stuff, not what everybody else would do, but there's funky bass lines in there or funky guitar in bits, some synthesizers ("Who Are You") and straight-ahead ballads ("Changes"). Anything. We thought it would kill the band if we weren't allowed to grow up within it.

Tony: It was a thing said years ago when we did "Laguna Sunrise" and "Supertzar" with the choir. We went out to do what we liked. We played what we enjoyed.

Geezer: You get known for what catches on. When we were doing ballads you could say EVERYBODY used to do ballads. But nobody has ever done a song like "Black Sabbath." You get known for the original stuff. Obviously everything that you ever write isn't 100 percent original. It can't be.

Tony, which of your many SG-like guitars are you using these days?

Tony: For this record I used the JD, which I've used for years. It's basically a Gibson shape but it isn't a Gibson. Everybody THOUGHT it was a Gibson. I have got an old red Gibson that I started off with. Gibson did, in fact, build me a guitar a couple of years ago. It is really nice. I approached them to make me a guitar-a production model- and they were interested but we never could seem to get together. So this company in Birmingham approached me to do it and so we've done it with them. Now I've got an Eggle guitar. It's a different sort of design. I've been in the factory working to get the shape and feel right. It will be called the Iommi Legend. I wanted them to do an SG originally. We came up with more of a contoured and bigger body so it's similar to a Paul Reed Smith, I suppose. I've got my own JD pickups, which are going to be put on the production model as well. The production model will be exactly the same as the one I'm using on stage. Right-handed will be no extra charge laughs. We've been working on it for a while and I'll be using that one on tour as well with me new Laney amps. I got together with them to design a new amp. Up till then I'd been using Marshalls and Boogies. I think I've picked the best of the stuff that worked on those and put it into the Laney amplifier. For effects I use a short delay, a wah and a chorus. The ones I have now are built into a big board. I use the rack-mounted delay. I've got some DigiTech stuff.

Geezer: I like to use the Ampeg SVT, especially for live. I use EV speakers because I keep blowing up everything else. Only EV's can stand what I put through them. I use Viger basses mainly for the live show. In the studio I use Spectre and Status. I love Spectre basses but then they went bust so I can't get any custom ones. I went on to Viger and they were really helpful. Fender asked me to use a Fender Precision. I said it's got to be 24 frets to start. "Oh no-this is what you get." Bollocks" Viger said, "What do you want?" I said, "This is the basic thing-redesign it for me."

Is there a style of music you enjoy listening to or playing that might surprise your fans?

Tony: I play Frank Sinatra; I'm a fan. Django Rheinhardt, the Shadows. I really like Django. I like the way he fought through what happened to him when his hand was burned; the way he mastered his own style of playing. He developed a technique where he could play chords with two fingers, and the way he played them and some of the runs are incredibly fast. You'd never believe he had only a few fingers.

Geezer: I listen to practically everything, really, except for dance music-I hate dance and techno stuff. I love playing funk bass. I've always loved playing that but I never would record anything like that. Tony always comes up with these commercials; these daft English commercials you hear on television. Soap opera things. Then he will learn it on guitar. How about The Mothers Of Invention? I used to love them. I loved Zappa's lyric approach. That influenced me lyrically, definitely. There was a band in England called Art. They heavily influenced all of us.

Tony: The band Taste I think, but Art definitely.

Were you involved in putting together the Black Sabbath boxed set?

Geezer: No.

That being the case, which songs would you like your fans to focus in on?

Geezer: Probably anything off of Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. The song "Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath" itself. It was a whole new era for us. We felt really open on that album. It was a great atmosphere, good time, great coke| Just like a new birth for me. We had done the first four albums and done it that way. Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath was like Part Two of your life. It was a weird feeling; a good feeling.

Tony: Some great tracks on that album. It was a great feeling from rehearsals to writing to recording. It was just a great time.

Geezer: Right before that we were in a terrible slump. We were all exhausted from touring. We weren't getting on very well. Then Tony came up with the riff for "Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath" and everybody sparked to life. The year while we were doing that was a really good year personally. I'll always remember that album and look back on it with a good feeling.

Tony, who has had the most impact on metal guitar playing?

Tony: I can't think of anybody off hand. Do people like Satriani come under metal, or Steve Vai?

Geezer: Eddie Van Halen was the most recent.

Tony: Eddie Van Halen was probably the most influential. He's the one who set the trend of tapping. Eddie is the one who really made the mark.

What band in recent years will be influential the way you are?

Geezer: Metallica. It's hard to say because it's so faddish now. It depends on what they do. Metallica is one of the best albums I ever heard. That's a classic album. That's the sort of music I really like listening to; something that is heavy but has got melody at the same time. It's still in the Sabbath sort of vein. It's not too extreme, where you are going "What the hell is he doing on the bass?" or the singing sounds like he is puking. I like bands. Metallica has strong songs. That's what's missing from a lot of bands - they've got the riffs but the songs aren't going to stand up as songs. I like hear an actual song, great riff, good vocal line and good lyrics. I'm too old- fashioned really, but it still works. Metallica sold big around the world, so if you're into metal that's probably what a lot of people want to hear. To me it's just got really strong songs on it.

When did you first have an idea Sabbath's influence was reemerging?

Tony: When we got an extra $100,000 on our royalty (laughs)!.

Geezer: When Metallica admitted they were influenced by Black Sabbath. In fact, Lars Ulrich, Metallica's drummer! said he's never heard of Led Zeppelin when he was a kid. He was brought up on Black Sabbath albums. Iron Maiden were probably the first band I read about who admitted to the press that we had influenced them. Anthrax was one of the first bands I heard cover Sabbath. It was great to hear somebody else cut "Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath." I think Cathedral are very Sabbath-like. Soundgarden are one of the bands I've heard closest to the original Sabbath sound. Even the way Chris Cornell sings reminds me of Ozzy. Usually it's just the music a lot of people go for; they even seem to go for the vocal approach as well. I think they are a great band. They are not like clones or ripoffs; they have taken that sort of Sabbath feel and spirit.

Are you flattered by that?