Guitar World magazine has posted an exclusive video on its YouTube channel of Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi jamming with his good friend Brian May of Queen on the classic 1970 Sabbath tune “Paranoid.” The clip comes from an episode of the three-part U.K. documentary series Greatest Guitar Riffs, which premiered in November on the Sky Arts network.
Videos by American Songwriter
In the segment, Iommi begins playing the famous “Paranoid” riff as he sits on a couch next to May. May then comments, “I’m going to commit sacrilege by joining in,” and proceeds to deliver some blazing solo lines as Iommi riffs away. After the two legendary guitarists finish the jam, May quips, “Hmm, it’s a good riff. It will go far,” drawing a chuckle from Iommi.
[RELATED: Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi Hypes New Solo Music Arriving: “It’s Sounding Really Good”]
Iommi and May Recall an Early Jam Session
The clip also features Iommi and May chatting about guitar riffs and reminiscing about the early days of their friendship. In a voice-over, Iommi comments that he and May first met in the early ’70s, and have been “best friends ever since.”
Iommi then recalls a time when May had come down to a Black Sabbath rehearsal, “and we were jamming away, and … gradually, as we’re playing, all the gear’s getting taken away apart from our two … amps.”
May adds, dryly, “Everyone got bored and left, and we’re still jamming.”
Iommi, laughing, notes, “They’d all gone to the pub.”
Iommi Discusses His Knack for Riffs
May then points out that Iommi is “hugely famous” for his riffs, and asks the heavy metal great, “Where did they come from?”
Iommi responds, “I don’t know. I think it’s [from] within,” before explaining how ideas would sometime emerge spontaneously while working on ideas with Black Sabbath.
“Normally, we’d jam around and play something,” he says. “And then [frontman] Ozzy [Osbourne] will go, ‘What the f**k’s that?! And it just feels right.”
Iommi on How “Paranoid” Was Written
Iommi also tells May the story of how “Paranoid” was written.
“We didn’t have enough songs to fill the album, so the producer said, ‘We need another song,’” he recalled. “We went, ‘Ugh, we don’t have another song!’”
Iommi remembered that the producer asked if the band members could come up with another tune, while telling them it couldn’t be longer than two-and-a-half minutes.
This was quite a challenge, Iommi noted, since they hadn’t written anything that was less than five minutes long.
“The others had gone out to have something to eat,” Iommi recalls. “I came up with this riff, so when they got back, I played them this idea of ‘Paranoid.’”
Iommi on Writing Basic Riffs
Meanwhile, in a separate interview segment, Iommi explains about the “Paranoid” riff, “It’s basic. It’s not technical by any means.”
He adds, “What I’ve always done is not try and play anything that’s flash. I play things that I think is right for the song.”
“Paranoid” was the title track of Black Sabbath’s second studio album. The song was the band’s highest-charting tune ever in the U.K., reaching No. 4 on the singles tally.
