LISTEN HEAR
In your mind did you ever think boy, it has
to be as good as my heroes – whether your
hero’s were Alvin Lee or whoever?
Geezer We knew we were up against bands that
were just starting out like Ten Years After –Jethro
Tull, Zeppelin had just started. And we all knew
we had to be as good as them to make a go of
it. And we all wanted to make a go of it. So we
knew we had to practice every day and rehearse
every day to get as good as that.
Tony We had to be good but different. In them
days it was like every band was different. You
had Ten Years After, Traffic, Tull – all playing
different sorts of music.
It seems to me that is a healthier attitude.
Tony It is.
Geezer Whereas now, you’ve got a lot of bands
doing heavy metal and that’s it. Back then you
had to be totally different from anybody else
to get recognized. It still happens now but it
seemed more adventurous then.
Tony You could put the radio on and tell who
the different bands were. Nowadays it’s difficult
to tell who’s who.
When business figured out they could
make money on it, they could try and
repeat a band.
Tony Oh yeah, absolutely.
But In the 60s and early 70s exactly as you
said, Jethro Tull sounded like Tull, Sabbath
sounded like Sabbath, ELP sounded like
ELP. We talk about Hendrix and Cream and
Zeppelin or any of these bands. All you
guys – you didn’t sound like each other at
52
DIGITAL EDITION
all. Would you consciously try and do that?
Would you know that bit sounds like so and
so, so we won’t do it?
Tony Maybe we did. I don’t know.
Geezer Yeah, if you did something that
sounded like the Beatles or something, which
we never did, that’s just an example, then you
would immediately drop it because there were
so few bands around then. Then you’d know
what everybody else was doing. The last thing
in the world you wanted to do is sound like
anybody else. So if you ever did that then you’d
immediately drop it and go on to something else.
Tony You couldn’t remotely be like anybody. In
fact, we done one track where I played flute and
immediately it was like Jethro Tull and it was
nothing like Jethro Tull.
Geezer But because somebody else had used
the flute and obviously you were like Jethro Tull.
In some wonderful way that idea
established Sabbath and all of th