Iron Man by Tony Iommi

we
played jazzy blues. He liked that, so he approached us for management. We didn’t have anybody else, he had his Blues House where we could play, so we thought, if we don’t sign with him we won’t have the gig.
    Jim Simpson started managing us around the end of 1968, beginning of ’69. So here we were, in possession of PAs, a huge wreck of a Commer van, a set list filled with jazzy twelve-bar blues and a manager. All dressed down and no particular place to go but up.
    The first thing Jim Simpson did was put us on the Big Bear Folly, a UK tour with four bands playing, and the night always ended in a jam with everybody back on stage. In January 1969 we played the Marquee club, but we didn’t go down very well with John Gee, the manager of the place. The guy was into big bands and, when Bill claimed he was also into jazz, John Gee played him some of that music and said: ‘Who’s this then, who is this?’
    Bill gave him a totally wrong name and John Gee really got the hump.
    Ozzy had a pyjama top on and a tap around his neck. John didn’t like that either. He probably thought we were really scruffy. Well, we were. We didn’t have the money to look good. Ozzy actually used to walk around in bare feet. Geezer was the fashion guru who’d get the latest trend. He had these lime-green trousers. They were his only pair and he washed them all the time and wore them over and over again. One day he dried them by the heater and one of the legs caught fire. Because he loved this pair of trousers so much, his mum sewed another leg on and from then on he walked around with one green leg and one black leg. Mad!
    Bill actually won an award for the worst dressed rock star once, ‘The Scruffiest Rock Star Out There’ or something like that. He was really proud of it as well. And there was me in my buckskin jacket. What with the clothes and lots of hair, we certainly looked heavy. We all grew handlebar moustaches and Bill grew a beard as
well. There was no conscious thought behind that. If you’re in a band you develop a similar look.
    â€˜Oh, your hair has got a little longer, looks good, leave it like that.’
    The downside of it was that we didn’t have any women coming to the gigs. Scruffy long hair, only blokes sitting there . . .
    Come to think of it, you did see some. But they looked like blokes!

13
    A flirt with Tull in a Rock ’n’ Roll Circus
    Earth had gigged for just a couple of weeks when we opened for Jethro Tull, who were already getting very popular. I thought they were really good, but obviously there was something going on, because during that gig their guitar player, Mick Abrahams, passed this note to Ian Anderson. It said something like: ‘I’m leaving’, or: ‘This is my last night’. After the gig they asked me if I’d be interested in joining.
    I went: ‘Oh, bloody hell. I don’t know.’
    And I didn’t. I was shocked by it all.
    On the way home in the van I said to the others: ‘I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve been asked to join Jethro Tull. And I don’t know what to say.’
    They were really supportive and said: ‘You should go for it.’
    Tull got in touch and I said: ‘Well, yeah, I’ll give it a go.’
    But it wasn’t as simple as that. They said: ‘You’ve got to come for an audition.’
    I protested, but they said: ‘Come down to London. You’ll be all right.’

    I went down there and I walked into this room and there were so many guitar players from known bands there that I panicked . . . and walked out again. I knew John, one of their crew, from his time with Ten Years After. He rushed after me and said: ‘Look here, don’t worry, just go and sit in the caf across the road and I’ll come and fetch you when it’s your turn.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t feel comfortable with this.’
    But he insisted: