Black Sabbath guitarist and co-founder, Tony Iommi recently released “World Alone”, the first single from his upcoming solo album From the Dark, which will arrive on October 23. His band on the record features Jorn Lande (vocals), Karl Brazil (drums) and Becky Baldwin (bass). In an interview with Rolling Stone, Iommi praised the British bassist, explaining that he had originally hoped Geezer Butler would play on the album. Since Butler was unavailable, he chose Baldwin because she is a huge fan of Geezer and has a similar playing style.
Tony Iommi explains why Geezer didn’t play on his solo album
“Becky lives in Birmingham, and she’s a really good player. She’s certainly a fan of Geezer, and she plays in Geezer’s style. That’s what I wanted. She’s really good. I wanted him to play on this album, but he couldn’t do it. He’s doing his own album, I think. Or at the time, something happened there, so he couldn’t come to England. I wanted to get it done and finally get it out, really. Because Becky’s, as I say, a fan of Geezer, and she plays in that style, I thought let’s give it a try. And she was good,” he said.
When asked whether the guitar riffs on the album were older ideas that had never been used on previous records, Iommi, widely regarded as one of the greatest riff writers in Rock history, replied: “No, they’ve all been new. The thing is, I’ve got loads of riffs on CDs, cassettes, and all sorts of stuff. But by the time I’ve gone back to try and find something on them, I’ve come up with something new.”
How he chose Jorn Lande for the vocals
“We’ve worked with him before. When we’d done the Dio tribute after Ronnie passed away, we had Jorn come and sing a couple of songs with us at the tribute, and I really liked his voice. So, I thought, ‘Well, I’d like to use him.’ I liked his voice. I mean, you could go and pick some named people, but I’ve done that.”
“(I didn’t give him lyrical ideas) With a singer, it’s good if they can do their own stuff because when they’ve got to sing it, they can put it over better. It’s like with Ronnie — when he used to write the lyrics, there’s certain words that he could really get powerful on. And I think it’s the same with Jorn.
How Iommi met the drummer Karl Brazil
“It’s strange, really. I’ve got a house by the beach, which we go down to now and again. I was walking along the perimeter of the beach, and this guy come up to me and said, ‘Oh, Tony, hello.’ And I thought he’s just a fan. And he said, ‘We’ve got a mutual friend. Mike Exeter is my engineer. I’m Robbie Williams’s drummer.'”
“Then Mike, my engineer, he said, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s a good drummer, Karl.’ I used him on one of my instrumental tracks with the perfume thing I did. And then I thought it’d be nice to use him on the album because he’s a good player. Also, he’s from Birmingham, which is really good because I wanted to try and keep it local,” he told Rolling Stone.
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