Many fans put ‘Paranoid’ on a pedestal as a shining example of metal, but Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi doesn’t rate it quite as highly.
To metal fans everywhere, ‘Paranoid’ arguably the song when it comes to the development of heavy metal music. But to Iommi, all he can hear is how irritating the solo is.
Chatting to Kerrang about the 50th anniversary of Black Sabbath’s seminal album Paranoid, Iommi said that his big issue with the iconic title track was how the solo sounded.
Specifically, the guitarist hated how producer Rodger Bain ran ‘Paranoid’ through the same ring modulator used to the “I am Iron Man” intro in ‘Iron Man’, but it ended up being used on the album despite his protests.
“Rodger also used that [ring modulator] on the guitar solo on the track ‘Paranoid’ itself,” said Iommi. “At first, I said, ‘What the hell’s that?! It sounds horrible!'”
“But they went ahead and picked it as the solo that ended up on the record all the same. I’ve got to used to it now.”
While Iommi personally has issues with ‘Paranoid’, he acknowledges how influential the song is for musicians and the heavy metal genre: “Nowadays people know what we’ve done and what we’ve achieved so I can accept what ‘Paranoid’ represents, whereas back then I would’ve been more critical of it because it stood for something else.”
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The guitarist also dived into Black Sabbath’s creative process during the making of Paranoid, saying how it usually began with him coming up “with a riff” and then “Geezer, or whoever it might be, would go, ‘I like that one,'” which the led to the rest of the band to “pile in” and “build the song from there.”
Certainly explains how War Pigs came about then.
In discussing ‘Paranoid’, Iommi also talked about how the song came about, recounting the famous origin story of how it all happened because the band needed a filler song and recorded ‘Paranoid’ last minute.
“The rest of the band were out of the studio when Rodger said to me, ‘Have you got any more songs?’, and I said, ‘No.’ We genuinely didn’t; we’d used everything,” recalls the guitarist.
“I had a basic riff and I showed it to the band when the others came back. As everyone knows, we just recorded that song really quickly and pretty much at the last minute.”
“It was going to be a filler and that was why it’s also the shortest song we’ve probably ever done as a result.”
Tony Iommi won’t have to worry too much about playing that irritating (to him) solo in ‘Paranoid’ any longer since Black Sabbath are retired and Ozzy Osbourne isn’t keen on a reunion any time soon – if ever.
Check out ‘Paranoid’ by Black Sabbath:
