Former Black Sabbath singer Tony Martin believes the band don’t have the guts to face up to internal disputes.
He’s revealed the first time he knew about Tony Iommi’s criticisms of his near ten-year stint with the metal pioneers was when he was told about comments the guitarist made in his book.
But he remains proud of his time as replacement for Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio – and remembers how his 1987 audition came as a surprise to him.In his biography Iron Man, Iommi slates Martin for being “unprofessional” and having “no stage presence.”
The singer tells Uber Rock: “They never said anything to me. We could have fixed it. I said to them endlessly that if there was anything they wanted changed, done differently, just to say – and we could fix it.
“They didn’t. They hadn’t got the guts to, obviously.
“Surely if you’ve got a problem, the first person you should say something to is the person in the band? You don’t wait ten years. To write it in a book afterwards seems a bit daft.
“It sounds like a really stupid thing to say as they didn’t say anything to my face. More fool them for not saying anything. We could have fixed it.”
Returned frontman Osbourne recently admitted that none of Black Sabbath had personally spoken to drummer Bill Ward about the contractual issues that led him to refuse a role in their reunion and new album. Martin has said he thinks the disagreement could be a publicity stunt.
Meanwhile, he isn’t bitter about his time with the band – and still remembers how he landed the role.
“My manager at the time was their tour manager during the seventies,” he recalls. “He gave me a call one day and said, ‘Oi, kid, I want you to meet me, we’re going to talk and drive.’
“We drove for a while and ended up at this big house. He rang the doorbell – and Iommi answered the door. I was like, ‘Bloody hell, you could have warned me!’
“But in I went, nervous as hell, played him a few things and next thing I had an audition in London. That was it. I was in.”
source: classicrockmagazine.com
