Black Sabbath or Moto ̈ rhead Who is the definitive Heavy Metal band?

1. Black Sabbath or Motörhead Who is the definitive Heavy Metal band? Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

2. There is a lot of debate in heavy metal and rock circles about who is the real Godfather of heavy metal. Ozzy Osbourne or Lemmy Kilmister? Black Sabbath or Motörhead? And while it is true that Black Sabbath came first chronologically, creating the ‘heavy metal’ genre, Motörhead brought their own influences Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project I’ll be comparing the formation of both bands and their influences on the rock and heavy metal scene. Both bands have a rich and colourful history with band members coming and going, tragedies, drugs, alcohol etc, too much to cover in detail here so I will be focussing on their formation, sound and influence.

3. Black Sabbath were an English rock band, formed in Birmingham in 1968, by guitarist and main songwriter Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist and main lyricist Geezer Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne. Black Sabbath are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal music. The band had multiple line-up changes, with Iommi being the only constant member throughout its history.Ozzy Osbourne was born John Michael Osbourne, in Aston, Birmingham in 1948. He had a difficult childhood, including bullying at school from quite a young age. His Father used to say that he had a feeling that he would do something great one day or go to prison. The latter became true when in 1966, he went to Winson Green Prison for burglary after he was caught stealing using a pair of gloves with the thumb missing, thereby leaving thumbprints everywhere. After he was released in the Winter of 1966, he decided to put an advert in a local music shop “looking for a gig” and that became the turning point in his life. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

4. They were known instead as Polka Tulk Blues and included two extra members (the brass section). A short while later they decided to change their name to Earth but they were accidentally booked for a show instead of a different band with the same name. They took the name Black Sabbath after watching the film of the same name, they also noticed how people seemed to enjoy being frightened. This inspired a darker, more occult lead band with more of a heavy blues style, laced with gloomy sounds and lyrics, they sacked the brass section and thus the Black Sabbath original and classic line-up as we know it was born. Geezer Butler saw that advert and having recently lost the singer in his own band, Rare Breed. He turned up at Ozzy’s house wearing “velvet trousers” and after a short period of name calling and exchanging petty remarks about each other, Geezer gave Ozzy the job. After just two gigs Geezer and Ozzy realised that Rare Breed weren’t going anywhere and broke up. By coincidence the music shop where Ozzy had originally advertised his singing services had forgotten to remove the ad. This caught the attention of guitarist Tony Iommi, who had been in the year above Ozzy at school and drummer Bill Ward whose band had also just broken up. And although reticent at first (Tony had some very strong views about what he thought of Ozzy) they both eventually decided to work with Ozzy and Geezer. The blueprint of Black Sabbath was now set, although they weren’t aware of this yet and the name Black Sabbath wouldn’t appear for another two years. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

5. Black Sabbath have influenced many acts, including Iron Maiden, Slayer, Metallica, Nirvana, Korn, Mayhem, Venom, Judas Priest, Guns n Roses, Soundgarden, Body Count, Alice in Chains, Anthrax, Disturbed, Death, Opeth, Pantera, Megadeth, The Smashing Pumpkins, Slipknot, Foo Fighters, Fear Factory, Candlemass, Godsmack and Van Halen to name but a few. Tony Iommi has also been influential in the lighter gauge guitar string industry. He lost the tips of his fingers when he was very young working in a steel factory. He fashioned himself fingertips using thimbles and leather straps but found that standard guitar strings were too difficult to bend and play. Nowadays he uses custom made strings and tips. Despite the well documented alcohol and drug abuse, the tragedies and the many, many line-up changes within the band (Tony Iommi being the only consistent band member) none of which I’m going to cover here, Black Sabbath have sold over 70 million records worldwide and are one of the most influential bands of all time. They helped to create the “heavy metal” sound with Rolling Stone magazine saying that they “changed music forever” and Time magazine calling their hit single Paranoid “the birthplace of Heavy Metal”. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

6. "They were and still are a ground-breaking band. You can put on the first Black Sabbath album and it still sounds as fresh today as it did 30-odd years ago. And that's because great music has a timeless ability: To me, Sabbath are in the same league as the Beatles or Mozart. They're on the leading edge of something extraordinary." - Rob Halford, Judas Priest vocalist "The heaviest, scariest, coolest riffs and the apocalyptic Ozzy wail are without peer. You can hear the despair and menace of the working-class Birmingham streets they came from in every kick-ass, evil groove. Their arrival ground hippy, flower-power psychedelia to a pulp and set the standard for all heavy bands to come." - Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Black Sabbath are also credited for laying the foundations for several heavy metal subgenres such as stoner rock,sludge metal,thrash metal,black metal and doom metal as well as grunge. The band's sound "shows up in virtually all of grunge's most popular bands, including Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains" - Bob Gulla, Critic "Black Sabbath is and always will be synonymous with heavy metal” while his bandmate James Hetfield said "Sabbath got me started on all that evil-sounding shit, and it's stuck with me. Tony Iommi is the king of the heavy riff” - Lars Ulrich, Metallica drummer "There's just something about that whole record that, when you're a kid and you're turned onto it, it's like a whole different world. It just opens your mind to another dimension...Paranoid is the whole Sabbath experience; very indicative of what Sabbath meant at the time. Tony's playing style—doesn't matter whether it's off Paranoid or if it's off Heaven and Hell—it's very distinctive." - Slash, Guns N' Roses guitarist "I always get the question in every interview I do, 'What are your top five metal albums?' I make it easy for myself and always say the first five Sabbath albums." - Scott Ian, Anthrax guitarist "If anybody who plays heavy metal says that they weren't influenced by Black Sabbath's music, then I think that they're lying to you. I think all heavy metal music was, in some way, influenced by what Black Sabbath did." - Chris Adler, Lamb of God "Only a fool would leave out what Black Sabbath brought to the heavy metal genre" -Phil Anselmo, Pantera Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

7. Lemmy Kilmister was one of the most recognised voices in rock and heavy metal. He had a distinctive way of singing, rasping and gravelly, looking upwards towards his microphone. His bass playing style was also unique and recognisable as he used his Rickenbacker bass to create an "overpowered, distorted rhythmic rumble" – Lemmy’s obituary. The Daily Telegraph. Lemmy was born Ian Fraser Kilmister on Christmas Eve,1945 in Stoke-on-Trent, five weeks premature with “beautiful golden hair which, to the delight of my quirky mother, fell out five days later”. His father had been a padre in the RAF during World War 2, and left Lemmy and his mother three months after his birth. His mother then relocated to Newcastle-under-Lyme, where they lived until Lemmy was six months old. They then moved to Madeley. When his mother re-married, they moved to Anglesey, in North Wales, where at this point the nickname ‘Lemmy’ appeared. Lemmy struggled greatly in school, dropping out at aged 15. He quoted, “The teachers and I didn’t see eye-to-eye: they wanted me to learn, and I didn’t want to”. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

8. By the time Motörhead had started in 1975, Lemmy was already 30 years of age. He started his musical career in the early 1960’s, joining various local bands with minimal fame or much significance outside their local music scene, until in 1965, he joined his first professional rock ‘n roll band The Rockin’ Vickers who had recently signed a deal with CBS Records, releasing three singles and touring Europe. Lemmy, at this point in his career, played guitar, although later he switched to bass. When the band relocated to Manchester, they shared a flat together. Lemmy got involved with a woman named Tracy, who later became pregnant with Lemmy’s son, Paul Inder. Lemmy did not have any involvement with Paul until he was six years old. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project Lemmy then left The Rockin’ Vickers in 1967 when he moved to London where he shared a flat with the bassist of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and soon became a roadie for the band. After joining another band in 1968, Opal Butterfly, which again, failed to gain any major attention, he left the band shortly after as it disbanded and yet again, Lemmy was out looking for another band in the hopes that his musical career would finally take off.

9. Finally, in 1971 he joined the progressive, space-rock band Hawkwind, this is where his musical career finally took off. He was originally hoping for the guitar slot but ended up as the bass player by default because their bass player at the time didn’t turn up to a show. He stayed with Hawkwind until 1975, he’d had a reasonably successful tenure with them, releasing several albums and singles. The band struggled with Lemmy’s drug addiction and then in 1975 he was thrown out of the band “… when I got busted going over the Canadian border for cocaine possession, they took that as an opportunity to fire me”. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project Drug and alcohol abuse were a mainstay of Lemmy’s life. Before he died, he joked that he had switched from drinking whiskey to vodka for “health reasons.” However, despite this to date, Motörhead have released over 20 studio albums and achieved 30 million in sales worldwide. Their last record, Bad Magic, was released in August 2015. Lemmy had a simple way of introducing his band: “We are Motörhead, and we play rock’n’roll.”

10. Within 2 weeks, Lemmy was back In London and had already set the wheels in motion to form a band that would later go on to become Motörhead, famously quoting in Sounds music newspaper, “It’ll be the dirtiest rock ‘n roll band in the world. If we moved in next door your lawn would die!” Originally the band was named Bastard, and he had recruited guitarist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox. This was the earliest incarnation of Motörhead, which sounded like a combination of punk rock and Hawkwind in one. However, after jokingly being told by his manager that the name ‘Bastard’ would never get a slot on Top of the Pops, Lemmy changed the band’s name to ‘Motörhead’ named after the last song he wrote for Hawkwind. Motörhead ’s first show was on 20 July 1975. Soon after, both Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox were replaced with guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. This is considered the ‘classic’ and most successful line-up, and the band began to achieve success. Lemmy's guttural vocals were unique in rock at that time, and were copied when punk rock became popular. The band's sound appealed to Lemmy's original fans and, eventually, to fans of punk. Lemmy asserted that he generally felt more kinship with punks than with metalheads. The band's success peaked in 1980 and 1981 with several UK chart hits, including the single "Ace of Spades", which has remained a crowd favourite throughout the band's career, and the UK #1 live album No Sleep 'til Hammersmith. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

11. “I got introduced to Motorhead’s music in 1979, when Overkill came out. I’d never heard anything like that in my life. The subsequent ride that this music took me on was to a place I’d never been. So, when I say that Lemmy is the primary reason I’m in a band, and that Metallica exists because of him, it’s no cheap exaggeration.” – Lars Ulrich, drummer Metallica “Motörhead were the first extreme band. People can say it was Black Sabbath because of the heaviness and that grim, morose sound. But for me it was Motörhead, which is ironic, because Lemmy wasn’t particularly fond of heavy metal in its purest form. Thrash would never have happened without Motörhead – there’s no debate about that. And nor would that third wave of punk, with Crass, Discharge and GBH. If you listen to the bass sound on those punk records – a sound like a concrete mixer – that’s from Lemmy, nobody else.” – Barney Greenway, frontman Napalm Death “Motörhead had a unique sound. It wasn’t a typical heavy metal tone. It was distorted, with a punk rock edge. It inspired a lot of bands.” - Chuck Billy, frontman Testament “Motörhead represented the birth of that whole era of united punk and metal, they made it OK to like both things, and so they were really the pioneers of thrash. Without Motörhead there would be no Metallica, no Slayer, and, of course, no Sepultura, because the name of the band was my translation into Portuguese of a Motörhead song, Dancing on Your Grave!” - Max Cavalera, Sepultura original frontman Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project

12. In conclusion, who really was the most influential heavy metal band? It’s safe to say that both of them are equally as influential as the other. Black Sabbath paved the way for the genre, creating the dark, sombre, gloomy atmospheric sound, with Tony Iommi’s heavy blues style riffs and Ozzy’s howling vocals, combining melodic blues rock with the frightening image of horror to provoke human emotion. Whereas, Motörhead blurred the lines between metal and punk, combining speed and raw aggression in a deafening fury of noise, taking advantage of Lemmy’s unique rhythm guitar style bass playing with menacing power chords and the sheer speed of Phil Taylor’s drums. Where Black Sabbath paved the way for the genre, Motörhead re-energised it during the end of the decade. Both bands have left their mark and certainly without them, the rock and heavy metal scene would probably not exist in the form it does today. Owen Delo, Trimester 4 Final Project