Ian Gillan tells stories about being in Black Sabbath
. . .
Black Sabbath’s Born Again is an underappreciated classic, but everything else about the band at the time was a disaster. There was a tasteless album cover with a devil baby some claimed was a jab at Sharon Osbourne’s pregnancy, a Stonehenge stage set that inspired the film This Is Spinal Tap, and dwarves on stage with fake yellow fingernails. Sabbath hadn’t lost their musical footing, but they seemingly lost their grasp on sanity.
Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan describes his tenure in Black Sabbath in a typically understated manner: “It was a peculiar year for Sabbath. We made the best of it”. Gillian chronicles his adventures with Sabbath in the interview above, including how he needed cue cards for lyrics and the Dethklok-sized amount of dry ice at shows.
. . .
Perhaps the strangest component of the Purple Sabbath era was the music videos. They’re so nonsensical, they almost defy description. Videos were shot for two songs, “Trashed” and “Zero the Hero”. The videos did their best to undermine the songs.
“Trashed” is about a night Gillan went drinking in the English countryside and ended up in an automobile accident. Drinking plays a role in the video, but it’s like Bachelor Party with a few Dukes of Hazzard moments. A teenager straddles up to a bar, grabs a bottle from a bug-eyed bartender, and swigs enough liquor to topple a rhino. Strippers wearing hoods like Guantanamo prisoners are later revealed to be deformed. People are assaulted with bottles. Chaos ensues. Is the moral that if you get wasted, you’ll be abducted by zombie strippers and survive a car wreck? Was this video directed by Troma Studios? Sign me up!
The video for “Zero the Hero” makes “Trashed” seem downright sensible. It’s like The Hunchback of Notre Dame meets Eli Roth’s Hostel. I always thought “Zero the Hero” was a cautionary tale about apathy, but apparently it’s a bad horror movie. A Quasimodo figure walks around carrying a body mummified in what appears to be plastic sandwich wrap. Quasimodo and a bunch of other deformed creatures act like doctors. The body morphs into a Buddy Holly clone and shoves ketchup and food in his mouth. It must be seen to be believed.
Both videos appear to use the same concert footage of Gillan-era Sab. If that’s not enough, freeze at 0:54 in “Zero”, where a chicken takes over the entire screen. See if you can spot the chicken a second time and a Bathory-style goat.
. . .
BLACK SABBATH’S ‘BORN AGAIN’: THE VIDEOS
. . .
“Trashed”
. . .
“Zero the Hero”
. . .
The band talks to MTV about the videos
This may be the worst interview ever
. . .
The priest revealing himself right as Tony Iommi is launching into his solo in “Trashed” gets me every time. Thanks for posting these, Born Again doesn’t get talked about enough.
I have always enjoyed the “trashed” video , just because it’s so nonsensical.
This is eerily creepy and pertinent… I’ve been listening to “Born Again” and “The Eternal Idol” non-stop for the past week! I’ve always been in the camp that loved Deep Sabbath; I got the album when it was released and it, along with “Holy Diver,” “Heaven and Hell” and “Sabotage” were the detailed soundtrack to my Fall of 1983, prior to my discovering the “underground.”
I’ll have to check these videos out more closely. I don’t particularly remember them. Given their production era, I don’t expect much other than rambling insanity. Heavy metal videos from 1983 were notoriously bad. Most new wave and pop videos from the early era of MTV were generally just as bonkers. No one knew quite what they were doing with the form yet.
All I know is that “Born Again” is total genius. Ian Gillan uses the word, “ginormous” in the lyrics almost 20 years before it emerges into the pop culture vocabulary mainstream. It’s even printed in the lyric sheet that way. He calls his girlfriend Rat in “Keep It Warm.: There are all these subtle, wacky, ploinks, whirs, bells, ca-chings, scrappings, whispers, etc. buried throughout the notoriously infamous mix. The title track sounds like “Eternal” by Joy Division. And “Disturbing the Priest” sounds like it may or may not be the influence for R.E.M.’s, “Feeling Gravity’s Pull.”
I absolutely love it with all my heart.
Born Again contains my favorite riffs and moments of the post Ozzy Osbourne Sabbath. The next couple of albums of post Ian Gillan were pretty good. Heresy, I know.
Born Again is my favorite, tied with Sabotage I guess. I wrote a pretty long article about the mytho-poetic implications of “Hot Line”. I wanna cover “Keep It Warm” and make a video for it!
Chris Dalton rules!
I’ll have to take a look at these videos later. You make them sound irresistible.
That said, Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! (oh, how I wish exclamation marks were not allowed in titles) are the worst Sabbath albums. The Eternal Idol is next, and Born Again isn’t much better. I wrote a review of it a while back, which can be found by clicking here. Basically, I think “Disturbing the Priest” and “Zero the Hero” are the only tracks that make the cut, although the title track would have been really great with different vocals.
Wait, an Indy Car?
Tasteless cover art? I think the cover of Born Again is pretty rad. It’s grimy, cheap, and evil-looking. I love Sabbath enough to cut them slack in numerous ways, but I think Born Again’s cover rises far above some of their other albums.
@Cryzthormagnusian: I read in an interview years ago that “Trashed” is actually about an afternoon’s escapades at a go-cart track. No real cars…Rolls Royce or Indy. Just a bunch of drunk English rock royalty, driving go-carts about like a bunch of lunatics.
If I’m not mistaken, This Is Spinal Tap was also inspired by Rick Wakeman’s ill-fated and hilarious attempt to bring his version of the Knights of the Round Table to stages across the US with about a dozen tractor trailers. It proved so cumbersome and logistically impossible they canceled the tour after one (maybe two) dates. The best part is barely any tickets were sold. I think they played to just a few hundred people in super sized arenas on the first date. The ego can be a real bitch…
I did not know about the Sabbath inspiration and the details you describe. That is fucking amazing.
The story behind the Born Again cover as told by the designer can be found on Black Sabbath’s website. The page it’s on isn’t loading for some reason, so I’ll just post the text from Google’s cache here. Enjoy…
OK let’s put this baby to rest once and for all. The Black Sabbath ‘Born Again’ album sleeve was designed under extraordinary circumstances; basically what had happened was that Sharon and Ozzy had split very acrimoniously from her fathers (Don Arden) management and record label. He subsequently decided that he would wreak his revenge by making Black Sabbath (whom he managed) the best heavy metal band in the world, which, of course they are but back then in the early ’80’s they weren’t quite the International megastars that they had been in the ’70’s. His plans included recruiting Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, getting Bill Ward back in on drums and stealing as many of Sharon and Ozzy’s team as possible and as I was designing Ozzys sleeves at the time I of course got asked to submit some rough designs. As I didn’t want to lose my gig with the Osbourne’s I thought the best thing to do would be to put some ridiculous and obvious designs down on paper, submit them and then get the beers in with the rejection fee, but oh no, life ain’t that easy. In all I think there were four rough ideas that were given to the management and band to peruse (unfortunately I no longer have the roughs as I would love to see just how bad the other three were as sadly my booze and drug addled brain no longer remembers that far back), anyway one of the ideas was of course the baby and the first image of a baby that I found was from the front cover of a 1968 magazine called ‘Mind Alive’ that my parents has bought me as a child in order to further my education, so in reality I say blame my parents for the whole sorry mess. I then took some black and white photocopies of the image (the picture is credited to ‘Rizzoli Press’) that I overexposed, stuck the horns, nails, fangs into the equation, used the most outrageous colour combination that acid could buy, bastardised a bit of the Olde English typeface and sat back, shook my head and chuckled. The story goes that at the meeting Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were present but no Ian Gillan or Bill Ward. Tony loved it and Geezer, so I’m reliably informed, looked at it and in his best Brummie accent said, “It’s shit. but it’s fucking great!” Don not only loved it but had already decided that a Born Again baby costume was to be made for a suitable midget who was going to wear it and be part of the now infamous ‘Born Again Tour’. So suddenly I find myself having to do the bloody thing. I was also offered a ridiculous amount of money (about twice as much as I was being paid for an Ozzy sleeve design) if I could deliver finished artwork for front, back and inner sleeve by a certain date. As the dreaded day drew nearer and nearer I kept putting off doing it again and again until finally the day before I sprang into action with the help of a neighbour, (Steve ‘Fingers’ Barrett) a bottle of Jack Daniels and the filthiest speed that money could buy on the streets of South East London and we bashed the whole thing out in a night, including hand lettering all the lyrics, delivered it the next day where upon I received my financial reward. But that wasn’t the end of it oh no, when Gillan finally got to see a finished sleeve he hated it with a vengeance and hence the now famous quote “I looked at the cover and puked!” Not wanting to sound bitchy but over the years I’ve said the same thing about most of Gillan’s album sleeves. He also allegedly threw a box of 25 copies of the album out of his window. Gillan might have hated it but Max Cavelera (Sepultura, Soulfly) and Glen Benton (Deicide) have both gone on record saying that it is their favourite album sleeve.
Another story that I’ve heard told about the sleeve, and this might just be evil, malicious gossip, but as soon as the first set of printers proofs were delivered to the Jet offices one was put on a bike and sent to Sharon to piss her off as she was in hospital having her and Ozzys first born Aimee and ever since the baby on the cover has been known as Aimee, fact or lie. you decide. And there you have it I can honestly put my hand on me old John Thomas and say that Depeche Mode played no part in it’s creation, infact the first time that I saw the Depeche sleeve was when a friend of mine emailed the black-sabbath.com address to me and I took a look. And that my friend is the story of the Black Sabbath ‘Born Again’ sleeve as told by Steve ‘Krusher’ Joule. Thank you and good night!
Born Again is my all time fave Black Sabbath album. Fucking great! You need to hear the unmixed demos for it.
I have a soft spot in my heart for both of these songs and “Disturbing The Priest”, and I agree with Comstock on the album cover. It’s raw, ugly, and looks like something designed on liquor and cheap speed. Not Black Sabbath’s finest moment by any means, and a terrible introduction to the band, but it still has some kind of sleazy, sinister appeal.
But Jesus, those videos have aged so badly as to have actually decomposed.
these videos are indeed hilarious relics, but i dont really see them as unusual beyond that. nonsensical and ridiculous videos were definitely the norm for metal bands… the big labels never really “got” metal and most of the bands certainly didn’t give enough of a shit to fight with them over exercising any (quality or otherwise) control.
Glad to see all the love for “Born Again.” I’m convinced there is enough of a backstory here to make a very entertaining 33 1-3 book.
@FullMetal — I disagree with you about the quality of the music — I adore the album — but I do think you’ll enjoy the videos.
@Cryz– The indy car crash is definitely one of the most random moments in the “Trashed” video. I’ve heard the go-kart story but I’d be amazed if there was a link to it; I’m convinced the band didn’t even see these videos until they were done. Also, with all of the legends about the “Born Again” era it’s often difficult to tell fact from fiction.
@Comstock/Cliff — A cover can be tasteless and rad. See also “Butchered at Birth” and especially Regurgitate’s “Carnivorous Erection.” I love the BA cover and think it’s tasteless.
@Ron — Nice to see Crucifist here. Agreed that there was little quality control on 80s metal videos.
Another funny moment is in the interview at the bottom when they cut away from talking to Sabbath to play a Spandau Ballet video.
Well, after the cover for “Paranoid”…all bets were pretty much off. These videos are fucking scary.
This is a great post /thread. Anyone here remember the video for “No Stranger to Love”? It’s a doozy of a video, in which we learn, among other things, that Tony Iommi is in fact a doberman pinscher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYU_E0rGNz4
anyone else notice that Born Against’s logo is in the exact same font as the Born Again title? I doubt it was an accident.
http://www.scarecrow.gr/_fpclass/skins/images/born_against_przod.jpg
@pseudonymous: Along with “Born Again” and “The Eternal Idol,” I’ve been listening to “Seventh Star” as well. Hmmm… Doesn’t hold a candle to the other two. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised in that department as well because it has been years since I listened to it. “Turn to Stone” is probably the greatest remake of Rainbow’s – “Kill the King” ever.
Glenn Hughes is good on the record, but somehow leaves me somewhat dissatisfied. Ever since discovering Purple’s – “Burn” a few years ago, I’ve been looking for more Glenn Hughes performances to devastate the brain of my soul. Solo stuff, Trapeze, etc., nothing else has quite done it for me.
Not a bad little excursion, though. Easy to see that Tony just wanted to release a solo record that allowed him to indulge his Blackmore/Coverdale fetishes.
Chris Dalton – That’s a good point about the production. “Zero the Hero” has all sorts of cool layering that must have been lost live with a one-guitar lineup.
Eric – Yes, the Born Again demos are fun to hear.
For everyone, here are download links and excellent commentary about the demos:
http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f90/black-sabbath-born-again-demos-exc-quality-a-57728.html
http://musictravellers.blogspot.com/2007/05/black-sabbath-1983-born-again-demos.html
@Chris Dalton: I hear you. Rewatching the video for “No Stranger to Love” just now, the song struck me as more than a little Whitesnake-y (hell, a little Michael Bolton-y, even). Still, I’ll confess that I have a soft spot for it and for _Evening Star_ as a whole.
And I couldn’t agree more with you about _Burn_. Holy shit, that album is awesome. As huge as they were and are, Deep Purple deserve more love(Although I could go the rest of my life without hearing “Smoke on the Water” again).
@pseudo — That video is pretty hilarious but at least it has some sort of cogent narrative thread. Guy and girl appear to be breaking it off; guy mournfully plays guitar as woman looks angry and despondent. The only incongruent part is the running dog.
I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that Ian actually wrecked a go-cart partying (and recording) at Richard Bransons’ estate.
To the guy who hates Never Say Die…take that back! That’s one of Sab most underrated albums, and when they remastered it on the last box set, it really shined. Poor production the first time around. Last time I heard Junior’s Eyes, I actually teared up.
“You’re coming home again tomorrow
I’m sorry it won’t be for long
With all the pain I’ve watched you live with
I’ll try my hardest not to cry
When it is time to say goodbye”
David
I liked the cover artwork. It was so bold and stood out of the racks perfectly. Some of the lyrics on most of those songs were truly bad, though. The stage show was also awful. I guess the band was truly looking to be born again and failed on a few issues.
Shit, I’ve always thought the album cover is cool in a very “less is more” kinda way. The song trashed is one of my all time favorite Sab tunes, but Zero The Hero is one of the best metal riffs of all time. I also like the cadence Gillan’s vocals in the verses. The videos are like those Andy Warhol flicks “Blood For Dracula” and “Flesh For Frankenstein”…so bad they are good and without a hint of irony.
Oh, and thanks for the Gillan video interview. To hear the masters describe their role in a clusterfuck is priceless.
I should clarify two things: all Sabbath albums have good moments on them. (I’ve also done a review for Technical Ecstasy which can be found here. I praised “You Won’t Change Me”, “Dirty Women”, and gave mixed praise to “Gypsy” and “She’s Gone”.)
Second, I don’t consider Seventh Star to be a Sabbath album, since it was never intended as one to begin with, and only bears the name due to label pressure. That’s borne out by the later release of Fused and the DEP Sessions. All of these have very good songs, although it’s not anything like Sabbath, really.
I’ve got to agree with Comstock–this album has great cover art
Born Again album cover tasteless??!?!?! shit??!?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??!?!? i was 13 in 83 and seeing this album cover- that was what METAL was about. that album cover is so badass,so Metal,so everything that an 80s Metal album cover should be. even on the back,the writing,all that shit. that album,at least the visual aesthetics,are perfect. the music,alotof it was great,alot of it weird,but it was a rad album
ragging on Black Sabbath “Born Again” album cover- whats the world come to????
I love this album as much as I hate it. It was, to me, the last effort by Iommi to keep in a dark/doom direction before going into something commercial and more power-metalish, by today’s standards. Luckily, he saved his good doom material for Dio on Dehumanizer, then went back to that former style and waited again until Dio and/or Ozzy.
It was obvious that there was a lot of weird stuff going on behind the scenes, and a lot of it was generated on the management to management level, regarding Ozzy. This perhaps destroyed Sabbath.
Regardless of hating or loving it, it was a hugely strange, yet lasting effort from Sabbath, and symbolizes everything great, everything bad, and all things wrong with music and should be heard for that, because even as a failure, it was a brilliant one.
man,these videos are RAD!! “trashed” has zombie stripper chicks with rad outfits that gave me an instant boner,booze,death by car crash,awesome riff dirty metal…thats so METAL. and that “zero the hero” cheap horror movie rules- whats more METAL than cheap horror?