Bet the title caught your attention, huh? Well, this is the title of an autobiography by none other than Black Sabbath lead guitarist Tony Iommi. My opinion of this book: FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!!! Perfect for any fan of Black Sabbath, whether it be long time fan or first time fan :D
The book takes you through the life of the famous black clothing-clad guitarist. From being born to Italian immigrants in England, to his days with his first band, the Rockin' Chevrolets, to eventually meeting Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward and forming Black Sabbath. Turns out, Ozzy was a year behind him in school, and is nowadays a year younger than him. Also, he used to bully Ozzy for some strange reason. Also, like most rockstars, he's a prankster. He likes to pull pranks. And they also know how to get him back. One night after pulling a prank on one of the guys, they got him back by having Ozzy knock on the door after he got a shower and somehow they got Tony to chase him down to Ozzy's room naked. So somehow, he ended up in the hall with no clothes on, clueless what to do. It also tells what happened to his fingers. A lot of people know he's missing the tips of two of his fingers on his right hand. Somehow, when he was younger, he had a job in a sheet metal factory in Birmingham, England, where he's from. One day, this woman, who ran a machine that used a giant steel cutter to bend metal, was out and Tony had to fill in. He lost concentration for a second and that was all it took to chop off the tips of his fingers. Being a natural reflex to pull away, he severed the tips of his fingers. When he was taken to the hospital, they brought the tips in a matchbox, but they had turned black from gangrene and were useless. They had to end up grafting skin from his arm and putting it over the stubs. Now on those fingers, he uses specially made thimbles to help him play and cut down on pain. He says that the two most important things he brings with him on tour is those thimbles and his cross. Another thing I never knew was that he has a scar along his upper lip and it's hidden by his facial hair. Somehow, he fell and gravel scraped his face above his lip, giving him a scar. He decided to hide it by growing a mustache
He was also married 4 times. His first wife was Susan Snowden, in the early 1970s, introduced by Black Sabbath manager Patrick Meehan. John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin, served as best man. What led to the dissolving of this marriage was the troubled recording of the 1976 album Technical Ecstasy
-In 1980, he married a woman named Melinda, who was an American model. In 1983, along came his daughter Toni-Marie and the couple divorced in the mid 1980s. She banned him from seeing his daughter Toni and even later had him arrested for supposedly not paying child support. Toni-Marie is currently married to a guitarist from the band HIM
-In 1986, he married a woman named Valery and after 6 years, they married. She had a son from a previous relationship, named Jay. In a 1991 interview with
Guitar World, he said he had a son and that he gave Tony a copy of Metallica's
Black album
-He also briefly dated Lita Ford in the 1980s
-In 2005, he married Maria Sjoholm, lead singer for all girl rock band Drain STH. They met in 1998, when he was working on music for the band. After a year of talking and getting to know each other better, she relocated to England. On Aug. 19, 2005, they married at the Sunset Marquis hotel, with only one witness present: Eddie Van Halen. He says this wedding was the "best thing I ever did"
But one thing he never mentioned in the book is in 2012, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. As of January 2013, he has undergone successful treatment. Black Sabbath is kind enough and awesome enough to rearrange tour dates so that Tony can fly to the UK every 6 weeks for an antibody vaccine.
And in Birmingham, where the band is based, they have their own Walk of Fame, in which Tony has a star with his name on it. Also, a shocking bit of history here. When he was doing a solo album, he wanted Dave Holland from Judas Priest to play drums on it. But the real shocker came when he found out Holland was molesting boys. He said he didn't want a child molester on his album, so he had the drum parts Holland played re-done by someone else
