Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi and Metallica's James Hetfield met up with Guitar World for an interview that appeared in the August 1992 issue.

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What can we expect from the new Sabbath album, Dehumanizer

IOMMI: It's a cross between the first album and Heaven And Hell. It's got more guts
than a lot of our recent stuff had. I really felt I lost it for the last few years as we went into a slightly different field. But having Geezer and Ronnie back has brought it all back again. It feels good.

What are you recording with now?

IOMMI: A small Marshall -- a little 50-watt combo Jubilee series pumped through a 4xl2 cabinet. It sounds great.

And what guitar are you using?

IOMMI: The Birch SG.

Why do you think Black Sabbath became a punching bag for the critics? Millions of people loved you.

IOMMI: Millions of people hated us as well. Probably more hated us. A lot of journalists literally hated the sight of us. And it was pretty unusual, really. I think we were the band to pick on from day one, because we'd gone against all the things we were supposed to be. Everybody picked on us because we were "Satanic." The Church went against us in a big way.

HETFIELD: Did you ever have to cancel any gigs because of protesters?

IOMMI: Well, the Church stopped a few gigs from happening. One case was quite funny, I thought. A church ran a thing in the papers for weeks before a scheduled performance saying, if you let these lads into town you're committing a sin. Anyway, they managed to stop us from playing. And the next day the church, for some reason, burned down. [laughs] And guess who got the blame? The uproar was ridiculous!

We get it from the other side too. One night, after finishing a show, we returned to the hotel and found the corridor leading to our rooms completely filled with people wearing black cloaks, sitting on the floor with candles in their hands, chanting, "Ahhhh." So we climbed over them to get to our rooms, but could still hear them chanting. We called security, but that didn't work. So we synchronized our watches, opened our doors at the same time, blew the candles out and sang "Happy Birthday" to them. Pissed 'em off. They freaked -- they were expecting us to help them conduct a Satanic mass and they got "Happy Birthday" instead.

A worse incident happened in California. When we arrived at the gig, there was a red cross painted on our dressing room door, so we figured, "This must be the room!" [laughs] When we were playing, my amp started crackling and I got so pissed off that I walked off the stage. As I was walking off, some guy with a dagger lunged at me and tried to stab me. As it turned out, the cross on the door was written in his blood -- he had cut up his hands. As they dragged him away he called us "Satanists!"

Do you ever worry that your music may affect people in a negative way?

IOMMI: There have been bad ones. I think the Son of Sam murders were associated with us, because he recited words from our songs when he killed people. So, of course, we got dragged into that court case. In England, a nurse committed suicide, and they found Paranoid on her turntable. They took that into court, and played it to see if there was any possibility that the music drove her to kill herself. But, you know, we're used to that. It's been that way since we started.

You wouldn't believe some of the letters we've received, and some of the people that have turned up. Admittedly, we were involved with the head witch in England, in the early days of the band. He used to come to shows and try to get us to attend his meetings. We checked into some of it out of natural curiosity, but none of us were ever seriously involved with witchcraft or the occult.

James, are you aware of being a role model?

HETFIELD: Yeah. Interviewers always ask for your opinion about this or that, but I'm just an artist doing what I like to do. If anything, we've been telling the kids to think for themselves. People say, "You're a role model for these kids so you'd better tell them what to do." Hell, no one told me what to do. I hate people telling me what to do!

Both of you have had to deal with personnel changes in your band. Is that kind of change usually positive or negative?

HETFIELD: It depends on the circumstance, of course. Trying to find someone new when Cliff Burton died was like, "Man, this guy better be good." We chose Jason because he can write, he's really energetic, and he can down-pick as fast as me. [laughs] You never know whether you're making the right choice, but getting new blood sure peps you up.

Did Jason get any shit in the beginning?

HETFIELD: He still does. He's been in the band longer than Cliff was, yet he's still the new guy -- and it won't change until there's another new guy.

What do you think, Tony? Sabbath has been through many changes.

IOMMI: When Ronnie replaced Ozzy, he definitely injected a lot of positive energy. Ozzy had become predictable. Ronnie had a completely different approach and I think we worked well as a writing team. I never sat down to write with Ozzy, which is a shame.

James, has it been difficult for Metallica to grow together?

HETFIELD: [with an intimidating voice] What are you trying to say? Are you trying to get me to fire people?

[turning pale] No, no, no -- not at all.

HETFIELD: Don't worry, I know what you're getting at. [laughs]

IOMMI: My role in the band was to play big brother. If there was a party happening, I wasn't able to go because I had to set an example. I never wanted that role, but somehow I got it. It's a nasty job, but somebody's got to do it.

HETFIELD: No doubt. We' re pretty open as a band, and we tell each other straight up, "That's tucked up." We're pretty sarcastic also. We know each other really well -- I mean, shit, we basically grew up together.

IOMMI: We never, ever, had that. We couldn't even exchange riffs. It's only now that Geezer will come to me with riffs and say, "What do you think of this?" "Bloody hell, that's great." And it's good. With our current lineup, we're more at the stage you're at now. We can talk about things, where in the past we weren't able to do that. All the years we've been together, we were never able to say, "You're playing crap," or, "Do this instead of that." It's gotten much better.

HETFIELD: It's got to be honest and open. You're working for the same team. We ain't playing games here. If something's wrong, speak up. And we do yell at each other. We expect a lot from each other. We all know each other's shit. Kirk plays great lead solos, and he's kind of a quiet guy, so he doesn't raise a big stink. Jason's nuts on stage, he shines there. Lars talks 100 miles an hour during interviews and likes the business part. I yell at people and buy 'em beers. [laughs] That's what I fucking do!

Tony, do you ever listen to your old stuff? Do you listen to your albums?

IOMMI: Sure. Occasionally we'll get drunk and think, "What did we used to sound like?" And we'll put an old album on.

HETFIELD: I like listening to our old stuff. The other guys in the band will say things like, "Oh, I can't listen to this song because of such and such note I played." Especially Kirk. I don't do that. I've completely forgotten about things. Either I was drunk or I didn't give a shit.

You've remarked that Ride The Lightning was your favorite Metallica record. Has Metallica surpassed it?

HETFIELD: Yeah, no doubt. I liked Lightning because of the muscular sound. The other ones were a little thinner -- the songs were good, but the production could've been better.

IOMMI: With every album there are certain bits you like and certain parts you don't like. I think most of our records were good for the time, but you're never satisfied.

HETFIELD: That's the cool thing, though. If you are satisfied, it's over. You gotta keep going. A guitar sound -- it's never perfect.

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