Paranoid is the second studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath. Released in September 1970, it was the band’s only album release to top the UK Albums Chart until the release of 13 in 2013. Paranoid contains several of the band’s signature songs, , Paranoid the single was the band’s only Top 20 hit, reaching number 4 in the UK charts. It is often regarded as one of the most quintessential and influential albums in heavy metal history. Vertigo’s eagerness to capitalise on the success of Sabbath’s debut album, putting the band back in the studio for a follow-up. That record, initially titled War Pigs but changed at the last minute to Paranoid,
46 years ago today Black Sabbath released their single ‘Paranoid’ taken from their second studio album. The album features some of the band’s best-known signature songs, including the title track, ‘Iron Man’ and ‘WarPigs’. The album was originally titled War Pigs, but allegedly the record company changed it to Paranoid, fearing backlash from supporters of the ongoing Vietnam War. Watch Black Sabbath perform the iconic riff fueled/drum filled “Fairies Wear Boots” off Paranoid live in 1970.
Tony Iommi: The producer said, “We haven’t got enough songs. We need another three minutes.” So Paranoid was made up there and then. It was just a throwaway thing. While everybody popped out for a bite to eat, I came up with this riff.
Geezer Butler laughs as he tells the story of how he and Ozzy both refused to play the song Paranoid when Tony Iommi originally came up with the riff.
“It was right at the end of recording the second album, which was going to be called War Pigs,” he recalls. “We were short on material, and Tony just kind of came up with the riff on the spot. But Ozzy and I thought it was too close to Communication Breakdown by Led Zeppelin. We always loved Zeppelin in them days, sitting round on the floor smoking dope and listening to that first album.
“So when Tony came up with the riff to Paranoid me and Ozzy spotted it immediately and went: ‘Naw, we can’t do that!’ In fact we ended up having quite a big argument about it. Guess who was wrong? The fact that it became such a big hit for us – and is now probably our best known song
Ozzy Osbourne: I remember going home and I said to my then-wife, “I think we’ve written a single.” She said, “But you don’t write singles.” I said, “I know, but this has been driving me nuts on the train all the way back.”
Bill Ward: It was about 1:30 in the afternoon and Tony had the riffs. By 2:00 we had Paranoid exactly as you hear it on the record.
Recorded atRegent Sound Studios and Island Studios in, London
Black Sabbath have announced a four-disc super deluxe edition of their 1970 second album Paranoid.
It’ll launch on November 11th and is being released to coincide with the band’s final run of live dates on their The End tour, which is scheduled to wrap up in February with two dates in their hometown of Birmingham.
The Paranoid package will include the 2012 remaster of the original album, along with a rare 1974 stereo quad mix. In addition, the set will include two live performances from 1970 in Montreux and Brussels.
It’ll also feature a hardbound book with extensive liner notes, photos, memorabilia, a poster and a replica of the tour book sold during the Paranoid run of shows that year.
It’ll also include new interviews with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.
Initially released in 1970, Paranoid featured classic Black Sabbath tracks War Pigs, Iron Man, Electric Funeral,Fairies Wear Boots and the title track, which reached no.4 in the UK singles charts and no.61 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.
The Paranoid Super Deluxe Edition is available for pre-order via Amazon.
So how loud was it inside the Record Plant — then located near the corner of 3rd Street and La Cienega Boulevard as Black Sabbath recorded basic tracks, all in the same room, for “Vol. 4″, the only album the band’s original lineup ever recorded in Los Angeles?
“I think that question might be a little difficult for me because I’m on cans, on headphones, while we’re tracking. But I’m sure we played pretty fucking loud,” says drummer Bill Ward with a laugh. “I would walk into the studio when Tony was doing his [guitar] overdubs and man, it’s just like holy fucking shit, really loud. And that’s just doing overdubs. Or Geezer. The [speaker] cabs are flying, man, there’s no doubt about it.”
After recording their first three brilliant, heavy-metal-pioneering albums in England, in spring 1972 Black SabbathWard, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne were living in a rented Bel-Air mansion while working on the follow-up to their 1971 disc, “Master of Reality”.
This was the band’s most experimental music yet. The piano balladry of “Changes.” An orchestra on the haunting coke paean “Snowblind.” Cuban rhythmic influences on “Supernaut,” a track with such an infectious, powerful groove it “was one of John Bonham’s favorite songs, actually,” Ward says. And of course Sabbath’s hallmark mix of savage guitars, jazz-gone-wild rhythmic counterpoint and Osbourne’s eerie, melodic vocals.
“We had been working literally non-stop,” says Ward, a total English gentleman who now lives in Seal Beach. “At that point we’d been on the road I think for probably about four years and we hadn’t stopped. We’d visited L.A. when we played concerts here and all of us liked Los Angeles. We felt it was pretty laid-back here, so we probably were attracted to the fact it was a much slower pace here and we could actually relax.”
“Relax” might not be the best word for Sabbath’s activities at the mansion, which Ward recalls as being in a colonial style with a white exterior. The address of the mansion was 773 Stradella Road. The Du Pont family once lived there, and Charlie’s Angels sexpot Jaclyn Smith would call it home several years later.
It’s no secret the band consumed Scarface-like piles of powder and other substances at the time, resulting in the kind of mirth ’70s rock bands specialized in. “There was one point where Ozzy had spray-painted my private parts,” Ward remembers. “And then I read on the spray paint it was poisonous and do not apply to the skin, so in fear of my private parts, I panicked and went kind of crazy.” (Osbourne, in his 2010 memoir I Am Ozzy, wrote that it was Iommi who spray-painted Ward’s junk.)
“We’d play all kinds of stupid pranks and things like that. That’s when the band was great,” Ward continues. “I’m not saying the band’s not great now, but there was truly a lot of camaraderie and a lot of really, really good stuff at that time period.”
The contrast of SUV-squashing riffs and intricate rhythms makes some of Vol. 4’s most enduring cuts, like “Wheelsof Confusion” and “Tomorrow’s Dream,” particularly powerful. Ward’s groove on “Snowblind” is strikingly panther-like and patient, particularly on a song about cocaine. For the Vol. 4 sessions, the drummer used a mix-and-match kit made up of specifically selected Slingerland, Ludwig and Hayman drums, including double 26-inch bass drums.
“Tony Iommi once told me that in order to be truly heavy, you also need to lighten it up because when you get heavy again, it makes it all the more impactful,” says That Metal Show and Sirius/XM radio host, author and renowned heavy metal expert Eddie Trunk. “I think with Vol. 4 you start to see some signs of the variety and dynamics. No place further than with a song like ‘Changes,’ which was a tremendous turn for the band and still holds up incredibly well. It’s really a dynamic record that shows a lot more was going on with Black Sabbath than just these brutally heavy riffs.”
Released in September 1972, Vol. 4 also features one of Black Sabbath’s most iconic album covers: a yellow-monochrome image of Ozzy, wearing one of the fringed shirts he favored for years, his arms extended in a peace sign. Says Trunk, “I got to say, it’s always a flag to me when a band that I love more prominently features one member on the cover than anyone else. You’re saying to yourself, ‘Wow is this just one guy’s band?’”
Trunk places Vol. 4 within the top three of the classic lineup Sabbath LPs, up with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and of course Paranoid. Interestingly, he discovered the band through 1981’s Heaven and Hell, the group’s first disc with Ronnie James Dio as singer, and eventually worked his way backward into the Ozzy-era catalog, beginning with the compilation We Sold Our Soul for Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Calling from his New Jersey home office, Trunk notes that while Vol. 4 contains songs like “Supernaut” considered classics by connoisseurs, “You don’t really have … that across-the-board smash hit. ‘Snowblind’ may be my favorite track on the record because it’s just got that great groove and slams in with that killer riff, and they’re singing about something that, at the time, was very near and dear to their heart.”
During their Vol. 4 period, when not tracking at the Record Plant or getting debauched at the Stradella Road manse, Ward says Sabbath would “just hang out with some of the heads in the Valley and get high, and we went to Laguna [Beach] to get high as well. Back then, for me there was nothing like dropping some windowpane [LSD] and just letting the surf roll in, you know? Just listening to everybody on the beach.” The influence of those blurry, bucolic beach trips can be heard on Iommi’s string-swathed instrumental “Laguna Sunrise.” “It’s a credit to Tony he was able to write this incredible melody and these incredible guitar parts which actually completely summarized Laguna,” Ward says.”It just couldn’t have fit it any better, man.”
Ward, who has been sober for years now, says Black Sabbath’s Los Angeles days were super-indulgent for everyone in the band. When it was time to cut tracks, he did so with a clear head, “but when the sessions were winding down, I used to wind up. We used to have a lot of people in the back getting high. A lot of naked people. It was just sex, drugs and rock & roll; that’s what it was like back then, so when I look back at it now it’s like, ‘Wow, fucking hell. Did we really do that?’” He laughs. “All the debauchery that actually brought me to my knees. It took a few more years, but it actually brought me to a place where I had to seriously, seriously look at changing my life.”
Black Sabbath originally wanted to title their fourth album Snowblind. But after the band’s U.S. label, WarnerBros., balked at naming not just a song but an entire LP after cocaine, Sabbath shifted on a whim to Vol. 4, possibly at the suggestion of road manager Spock Wall.
Ward says Wall also played a key role in getting drum and guitar sounds on the record, Sabbath’s first without producer Rodger Bain. Although the band’s then-manager Patrick Meehan was credited as co-producer on Vol.4, Ward recalls the band self-producing and that “I felt a lot of detachment from Patrick.”
Black Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut remains Ward’s favorite of the band’s LPs. But he listened to spiraling Vol.4 track “Cornucopia” less than 24 hours before this interview, and frequently plays the track on his monthly Internet radio show, Rock 50.
Alas, Ward is not behind the drum kit for the group’s (allegedly) final “The End Tour.” The band previously embarked on a farewell tour in 1999. Ward has said the split goes back to an unfavorable contract he was presented with before sessions for Sabbath’s 13 album, recorded in late 2012 and 2013. Osbourne has said Ward was out of shape. Tommy Clufetos, from Osbourne’s solo band, will be on drums when Sabbath performs at the Forum on Feb. 11th.
Some accounts say Sabbath made a stab at also recording their next album, 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, in Los Angeles, but Ward says no such recording sessions ever happened. “I’m sure we had plenty of riffs and ideas; that certainly wasn’t uncommon. But it was time for a change and that’s when we went and did Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in a castle in England. I think it might have been time to shake out the party that we’d been in and come back and really get into some focused, damp weather music.”
When Black Sabbath kick off The End world tour next week, fans at each stop will have the chance to buy an exclusive, limited-edition CD. The eight-track album will include previously unreleased material: four outtakes from the 2013 album 13, and four live cuts from the band’s tour in support of it.
You can see the track listing for the CD below.
The disc also features exclusive artwork by Shepard Fairey/Obey Giant, and each stop on the tour will include exclusive posters made especially for each market.
Black Sabbath’s final tour launches in Omaha, Neb., on Jan. 20. After a month of North American dates, the group will head to Australia and New Zealand in mid-April for two weeks of shows. They’ll then play Europe for six weeks starting in early June, before wrapping up the live dates with a month in North America, with a final show now scheduled for Sept. 21st in Phoenix.
The band has said that this will be its last tour, and there will probably be no more new music. SingerOzzy Osbournehas stated that he doesn’t want to make another Sabbath album, even though guitarist Tony Iommiisn’t against the idea. As Black Sabbath gear up for the big tour, they recently released a sneak peek in the form of a 15-second “Final Tour Rehearsal Teaser,”
Black Sabbath, ‘The End’ CD Track Listing
1. “Season of the Dead”
2. “Cry All Night”
3. “Take Me Home”
4. “Isolated Man”
5. “God is Dead?” (Live Sydney, Australia, 4/27/13)
6. “Under the Sun” (Live Auckland, New Zealand, 4/20/13)
7. “End of the Beginning” (Live Hamilton, ON, Canada, 4/11/14)
8. “Age of Reason” (Live Hamilton, ON, Canada, 4/11/14)
The Fat Angel Sings 