Carmine Appice says that Black Sabbath is not a Heavy Metal band

Well, the story goes that Black Sabbath was the band that created Heavy Metal music with the release of their groundbreaking self-titled debut album in 1970. But for the legendary drummer Carmine Appice, who worked with Vanilla Fudge, Ozzy Osbourne, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and more, they are actually a “Heavy Hard Rock” band.

He said that in an interview with W4CY radio (Transcribed by Blabbermouth)

Carmine Appice explains why he believes that Black Sabbath is not a Heavy Metal band

“Even Slayer. They weren’t that buzzsaw guitar back in the day. All those bands. Biohazard. I mean, all those bands — they were hard rock. And then as the, per se, metal movement moved on and everybody started having that buzzsaw, Metallica kind of buzzsaw guitars and fast bass drums like Lars [Ulrich]. And I think that’s where it all started. All that stuff that’s going on today started with Metallica — in my eyes.”

“ I mean, I [could] be wrong. But for me, and all the stuff before that, including Black Sabbath, was hard rock. I mean, Black Sabbath was just, to me, like another Led Zeppelin coming out of Birmingham. I mean, we played gigs with Black Sabbath back in the day when they first came out with Cactus. We were rock blues and so was Black Sabbath.”

“ I mean, ‘Paranoid’, to me, back in the day was like a ‘Communication Breakdown’ kind of thing. And then as it went along and went along, I mean, their sound got thicker, but it still didn’t have that buzzsaw sound. That’s my own opinion. Everybody says Sabbath is heavy — they’re heavy hard rock,” Carmine Appice said.