Ozzy: “I used to go around barefoot, because I literally couldn’t afford shoes.” To celebrate 40 years of Black Sabbath’s seminal heavy metal tome, ‘Black Sabbath’ we spoke to Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne for this month’s issue of Hammer.

Here is a section of Hammer’s extensive story behind the making of Black Sabbath’s ‘Black Sabbath’. You can read the whole article in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now!

…The session was produced by Gus Dudgeon and engineered by Rodger Bain. In all, an amazing 19 takes were done of this song.
“Gus Dudgeon tried to tell us what to do,” says Ozzy. “And, if you knew us back then you’d understand that when we got ordered to do something a certain way, then we’d deliberately fuck it up. Gus was lucky that Tony didn’t wrap his guitar round his head!”
The ploy of using an outside writer didn’t work. The band also recorded another Norman Haines song, When I Come Down (sometimes called When I Came Down), but Jim Simpson couldn’t get Sabbath signed, which doesn’t surprise Bill.
“They didn’t work, because it wasn’t us. We felt uncomfortable and it shows through on the demos. We were far happier with our own material, which was very different to these songs.”
In a final act of desperation, and inspiration, Jim Simpson elected to make a bold move. He did a deal with producer and one-time jazz critic Tony Hall, who’d co-hosted a short-lived late-1950s music TV series called Oh Boy! – almost a precursor to Top Of The Pops. It was agreed that Hall would put up the money for Sabbath to do an album, and then try to sell the results to a record company.
“I think Tony Hall gave us £1,000,” says Geezer. “We each got £100 to pay off debts, and the rest went to pay for the album – £600. It sounds like nothing these days!”
“I thought I was rich,” adds Ozzy. “I spent some of the money on a pair of shoes. I used to go around barefoot at the time, because I literally couldn’t afford shoes.”

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In November 10, 1969, the band went back to Trident to have another go at recording a commercial cover. The song chosen this time was Evil Woman (Don’t You Play Your Games With Me).
“This had been a hit in America for a band called Crow [it reached number 19],” says Bill Ward of the choice. “To be brutal, none of us liked the song and we didn’t wanna do it. But what did we know? Jim Simpson and Tony Hall felt it could do us some good, so we reluctantly went along with it.”

Read the whole feature in the latest issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now!

See what else is in this issue of Hammer here.