Tony Iommi says Hard Rock Café refuses to return his guitar

The legendary Black Sabbath co-founder and guitarist Tony Iommi said that Hard Rock Café, which owns his famous red 1965 Gibson SG Special guitar, nicknamed ‘Monkey,’ refuses to sell the guitar back to him. The musician told Guitar World that, at the time, he thought the guitar was too valuable to continue playing and sold it to Hard Rock Café on the condition that he could buy it back if he wanted to. However, the person with whom he made the deal passed away, and now they don’t want to sell it back to him.

Tony Iommi says Hard Rock Café refuses to return his guitar

“The guy who used to buy memorabilia for the Hard Rock came to England and visited me. He wanted to buy some stuff and I said it should be fine. I’d retired the Monkey SG because it was too valuable to me. I didn’t want to take it on the road and risk it getting damaged.”

“​​The deal was if I ever wanted it back, I could let him know and buy it back for the same price. It seemed fair enough, a good deal.”

“Anyway, he passed away, so that was it. We tried to get in touch with Hard Rock to get it back and they knew nothing about the deal,” Tony Iommi said.

Although he can’t get his guitar back for the same price anymore, Iommi said that the replicas made by Gibson for him over the decades are practically the same guitar, as they use the same components.

That original guitar was used during the recording of classic Sabbath albums. They are “Black Sabbath” (1970), “Paranoid” (1970), “Master of Reality (1971), “Vol. 4” (1972) and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” (1973). Tony Iommi is the only member of Sabbath who was part of all the band’s line-ups and releases over the decades.