Rock and Roll Garage

The Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson is one of the most influential Heavy Metal musicians of all time but his career could have been really different if the music genre was not created by Black Sabbath back in 1970 with the release of their self-titled debut album. The group's first era was with Ozzy Osbourne was from 1968 to 1979 until he was fired and he was successfully replaced by Ronnie James Dio for a few years. But the group continued over the decades and had many overlooked albums with other singers. Dickinson once said he loved one of those records. The Black Sabbath album without Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio that Bruce Dickinson loves Ronnie James Dio's first era with Sabbath was from 1979 until 1982 when he decided to leave the band. That same year, their original drummer Bill Ward returned to the group after two years. So almost the entire original line-up was reunited again but they needed a new singer. Their choice ended up being the legendary Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, who was a good friend of theirs. He was with the band for two years, from 1982 to 1984, and they only recorded one album "Born Again" in 1983. In an interview with 2024 with Qobuz (Transcribed Rock and Roll Garage), Bruce Dickinson “Oh yeah, I was a kid when I got this album and I was still a virgin. Which made me open it up and go ‘Oh my God, look at those women!’ But what a great record, what a great album. What a great comeback album. The first two (Sabbath) records are amazing, well no, ‘Vol. 4’ was incredible as well, you know.” He continued: “What a consistent band and it’s Geezer (Butler – Bass) and Tony (Iommi – guitar). If you look at all the people, all the different vocalists, not just Ozzy, but they’ve all been… ‘Born Again’ (With Ian Gillan on vocals), what a great album. Everybody goes ‘Oh, forget that album’. No, it’s a great album,” Bruce Dickinson said. Some of the famous songs of the album are "Trashed", "Disturbing the Priest", "Zero the Hero" and the title track. Dickinson has always been a huge fan of Gillan's work and followed his entire career. He praised him multiple times over the decades saying he was one of his main influences, Besides being the only album Black Sabbath recorded with Ian Gillan, "Born Again" was also the final studio album with the original drummer Bill Ward. Although he reunited with the band multiple times and was on their 90s reunion live album, he was not part of their final record. "13" was released in 2013 and who played the drums on the album was Rage Against The Machine's Brad Wilk. When they toured around the world it was Ozzy's drummer Tommy Clufetos who was behind the kit. Tony Iommi was not happy with the "Born Again" sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8TKU_5bius&pp=ygUKYm9ybiBhZ2Fpbg%3D%3D None of the members of the band liked the final result of the album. In an interview with Spain’s RockFM in 2022, he explained the reason why he hated “Born Again”. “I didn’t break it (the record); I threw it out of the window of my car (laughs). Look, I was disappointed, I didn’t have the mentality of all the guys in Black Sabbath. I loved it, I had a fantastic year. It was insane. But, when we finished the mixes – I still have a cassette of the monitor mixes, and it sounds fantastic. That’s the last thing I heard in the recording studio.” “When I heard the album, I went, ‘What is this?’ The bass rumble was a bit too much for me. There’s a famous line in a famous movie called ‘This is Spinal Tap’, that has two or three references to Black Sabbath in it.” He continued: “And I don’t know where these might have come from (laughs), but one of them was, ‘This album is unplayable on American radio’, because of the bass end. And so it was. Unplayable. I was disappointed in the final production mix. I don’t know what happened between the studio and the factory." "But something happened, so that was a disappointment. Having said that, I loved some of the songs on there. ‘Trashed’ is one of my favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs of all time. Even more so because it’s a completely true story [laughs],” Ian Gillan said.

Sabbath album without Ozzy and Dio that Bruce Dickinson loves

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