“I picked him up and we drove by a music shop. I said, ‘Do you want to pick a guitar up?’ and we did – one of his Eddie Van Halen ones”: Tony Iommi on that time Eddie Van Halen helped co-write a Black Sabbath song – but didn’t get a credit
Tony Iommi has opened up about how Eddie Van Halen helped co-write a Black Sabbath song in the ‘90s.
The electric guitar legends first crossed paths on the 1978 Never Say Die! tour, with Van Halen picked to support the British heavy metal icons. During this time, the pair struck up a friendship and they remained close until Van Halen’s passing in 2020.
Speaking alongside vocalist Tony Martin to promote the newly remastered Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath box set, Iommi shed some light on how Van Halen ended up shredding on the 1994 track, Evil Eye.
Iommi recalls, “He had a day off, and I said, ‘We’re having a rehearsal, do you want to come?’ I picked him up in Birmingham, at the hotel, and then we drove by a music shop.
“I said, ‘Do you want to pick a guitar up,’ and we did – one of his Eddie Van Halen ones. Then we went down to the rehearsal. We started playing a new song we were working on. He started playing a solo.”
The track, from the album Cross Purposes, features numerous guitar solos, and there are some distinctly Eddie moments in it. However, despite his contributions to the track, an existing contract with Warner Bros. reportedly prevented him from receiving credits. So, it remained a secret for some time.
But as Iommi reveals, even Eddie Van Halen was capable of getting things wrong on the guitar.
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“We played a couple of old Sabbath songs first,” he remembers. “And I said, ‘You’re playing that wrong.’ I think it was Into the Void. ‘Cause [Van Halen] used to play Sabbath stuff, before they were known. That’s the sort of relationship we had. We stayed friends until he passed away; I spoke to him just before.”
The conversation with Martin, which is being released in stages, has already revealed some interesting anecdotes, including how Iommi once dressed his guitar tech up as himself and sent him on stage.
The interview series continues to celebrate the upcoming Martin-era box set, Black Sabbath: Anno Domini 1989-1995. Two singles – including the Van Halen-propelled Evil Eye – have already been released, with the full package set to arrive on May 31.
That era of the band may not have produced classic anthems like the Ozzy and Dio-fronted chapters of Black Sabbath’s history, but as Guitar World scribe Rich Davenport writes, it featured some of Iommi’s greatest guitar playing.
The Anno Domini 1989-1995 box set is available to pre-order now.
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