In 1978 Black Sabbath was already one of the biggest bands in the planet and they were touring to promote the album “Never Say Die”. That year, a new American band called Van Halen was out on the road promoting their self-titled debut album and they had the chance to become Sabbath’s opening act.
That was when, for example, Eddie Van Halen’s and Tony Iommi‘s friendship started. According to Ozzy Osbourne, as he said on his radio show “Ozzy Speaks“, Van Halen blew Black Sabbath off stage.
Ozzy says Van Halen blew Black Sabbath off the stage
“I just couldn’t believe it. Eddie Van Halen] made it look so fucking easy. They outshone us. They blew us off the stage.”
“Eddie was a great guy. He was always nice with me. He was a lovely man to be around, and Alex (Van Halen). I took all of them down to my local pub… That was fucking great,” Ozzy Osbourne said.
Eddie Van Halen was a huge Black Sabbath fan and in the early days of his band they used to cover many songs of the British Heavy Metal band. On many occasions, Eddie would even be the main vocalist in those tracks. In an interview with Billboard a few years before he passed away, the musician revealed which were some of his favorite guitar riffs of all time and he mentioned the Sabbath track “Into The Void”, originally released on their 1971 album “Master of Reality”.
He would have the chance a few decades later, in 1994, to help to compose a Black Sabbath song. At the time the band had only two original members: Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, who were accompanied by the vocalist Tony Martin and the drummer Bobby Rondinelli. Eddie was in England and went to visit Iommi in the studio and he ended up helping them to compose the track “Evil Eye”.