In case you missed it last week, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi released a new song and video on Thursday.
“Scent of Dark” is his first new song since composing “How Good It Is,” a classical piece for the Birmingham Cathedral in 2017 and his first rock song since Sabbath’s last album, 2013’s 13.
The instrumental track, which at times sounds similar to Metallica‘s “Enter Sandman,” was written to coincide with his new Scent of Dark fragrance. He developed it luxury Italian perfume house Xerjoff, the same company that his friend Brian May worked with earlier this year to launch Save Me, a limited-edition fragrance that benefited the Save Me Trust, which he co-founded to protect wild animals.
Commenting on the song, Iommi says, “I’ve had the riff for quite a while and I’d never done anything with it, but it gave us a base to start from. We built up the track with programmed drums at first and then Mike Exeter demoed bass and keyboards on it, and I added my guitar solos, just to give us an idea of how it was going to sound. Then we added the strings. I’d worked with string sections on Sabbath albums before, but this was a whole new experience.”
As for lending his celebrity to a fragrance, he says, “It’s something I’ve always been interested in, ever since the early days of products like Brut and Old Spice, which I’d always get given for Christmas.
“Once I started touring the world with Sabbath though, I started discovering different sorts of fragrances from other countries and began collecting them. I met [Xerjoff founder] Sergio [Momo] through another friend of mine, and Sergio kindly sent me a box of his fragrances and asked if I’d be interested in creating my own, which I certainly wasn’t expecting. Sergio suggested I come up with a list of things I like the smell of. He developed some different samples made up from my suggestions and I picked the one I like.”
In other Iommi songwriting news, he says he’s written one for Ozzy Osbourne‘s next album.
Iommi says “I wrote the whole track and played on it and played the solo on it. It’s horrible, really. … No. I’m joking. No, it’s good. It’s really good. And I like what Ozzy sang on it. I think he did a really good job. And I think they had Chad [Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers] play drums on it. I’ve left it in their hands now.”
No word on the title or when Ozzy will release the album, his first since last year’s Ordinary Man.
And lastly, Iommi recently snapped a tendon in his arm, but he says it hasn’t affected his playing.
REUTERS PHOTO
