EAU DE ROCK STAR

Tony Iommi has a new career as a perfumer, he tells Will Hodgkinson.

You’re familiar with the sights and the sounds of rock’n’roll. How about the smells? Tony Iommi is the guitarist and founder of Birmingham’s heavy legends Black Sabbath the man who, a er an accident in a sheet metal factory in 6 that chopped o the tips of his ngers, loosened his guitar strings, learnt to play monster ri s and inadvertently invented heavy metal.

Combined with horror movie themes and the lead singer Ozzy Osbourne’s tormented yowls, Sabbath were the band that started it all, terrifying everyone from concerned parents to Christian youth groups in the process. Now Iommi, 73, has launched a new career: as a perfumier.

“I’ve always been interested in perfumes, really,” he says, with something about his thick Brummie accent making the statement all the more surprising. “I started out buying Old Spice and Brut, and then I used to collect various perfumes on tour. So when Sergio asked if I’d be interested in creating my own perfume I said, ‘Christ yes, but I wouldn’t know where to start.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do it together.’”

Iommi has teamed up with Sergio Momo, a longtime Black Sabbath fan and the founder of the luxury perfume brand er o , to create the ultimate rock fragrance: Scent of Dark. It is indeed dark: spicy and rich, with the all-natural ingredients combining to build an aroma that I can only describe, with my untrained nose, as imbued with ancient, musky mystery.

Surely, though, an authentic rock fragrance would be a combination of diesel fumes, body odour, stale beer and cigarette butts, which may not be what er o ’s well-heeled customers wish to radiate. “Don’t worry. e le the sweat out,” Iommi says. “Patchouli is the base smell, which goes back to the 60s, because people used to burn it to cover up the smell of dope smoke. It’s a mixture of the various things we like.”

In the name of creating an all-round olfactory

rock experience, there is even music to go with the perfume. Scent of Dark is also an instrumental piece, the rst from ommi since lack a ath s al um 13, featuring doom-laden ri s, ourishes of violin and cello, and a video with a spooky ghost woman wandering a out udeley astle in Gloucestershireallclassic a athmaterial. e decided to make some music to go with it too,

ecause ergio plays guitar, ommi says. f you watch the video to Scent of Dark, ergio is the one making all the mistakes.

ommi and omo met through a mutual friend, the ass guitarist immy rutchley, and planned the pro ect through lockdown. irst of all created the perfume ased on my idea of ony s personality, lifestyle, music, whatever, says omo, who was orn in urin, taly, and worked as a designer efore entering the world of high-end perfumes.

nd ony is a ig perfume lover, so he was easy to work with ecause his nose is very well trained.

hen said it would e nice if you made some music to go with it, ecause ve een listening to rock music and playing guitar since was a kid. e linked the two senses together.

ccording to omo, lack a ath is dark music, so a dark ingredient in the perfume would e a leather note, some am er. ach time met ony

had my little ag of mini- lends and his input was very important, so we came up with it together.

e did the same with the soundtrack. e swapped hats, if that makes sense in nglish.

hey have something else in common supernatural experiences. n ommi was recording the al um Sabbath Bloody Sabbath at

learwell astle in the orest of ean when a cloaked gure walked down the hallway, later revealed to e the resident ghost. omo has also

een tormented y the spirits of the dead. lived in iltshire in the late s and ended up in an old manor house, and a er two nights had to run away ecause saw something. cannot watch horror movies as a result.

orror has nonetheless always een at the heart of lack a ath s appeal. he and started in

, ut with their songs a out war, paranoia, supernatural forces and all-round gloom they really elonged to the leak, recession-hit s.

heir self-titled signature tune egins with the

ominous chime of church ells efore going into a ri ased on the evil s interval , a tritone. e started out as a lues and, ommi says. ut as soon as we came up with lack a ath that was it. loved the feeling you got from horror movies and thought, ouldn t it e great if you could get that vi e in music

ommi and lack a ath s drummer, ill ard, enlisted s ourne, al eit reluctantly, as a frontman. e were at school together and he was a it of a nuisance, really. e s never changed, to e honest, ommi says. ill and were looking for a singer when we saw a yer in a music shop y ig eeds Gig . thought t can t e him.

e go to the address of the house, his mum answers his door, see him walking down the hall and say to ill, orget it. ut a few days later he came round to my house with Gee er utler,

assist and it started. t was a total sham les ut somehow it came together.

hen the and hit it ig in the in the early s they were accused of eing a corrupting force polluting young minds. ou name it, we had it, ommi says of that period.

onetheless, lack a ath roke through to ecome one of the most important rock ands of the th century. ommi ecame idlands rock royalty, so much so that ed eppelin s drummer,

ohn onham, was the est man at his rst wedding, in .

n the night efore got married ohn and went out to a clu , he ought ottles of

hampagne and told me to drink them. told him there was no way could get through them all so he got glasses, went down the line and drank them all himself. had to get him ack home a er that and he didn t have his loody key, so pressed the

u er and his wife, at, said, e s not coming in like that.

n the end sat him up against the radiator in the hallway. ncredi ly the next day he turned up in his top hat and tails, ut he and the rest of the people on my side of the aisle kept popping round the ack of the church during the ceremony. urns out they were all doing coke and God knows what else. t was a disaster.

t the height of lack a ath s drug mania – captured in their classic song Snowblind – they even paid for a cocaine dealer to y to their latesttourstops yprivate et. gecatchesupwith all of us eventually, though, and the and s reunion was marred when ommi was diagnosed with lymphoma.

was told y my medical people that ying around all over the world is too much stress on the

ody, he says. d like to tour again. ut when you ve got a ig crew ehind you it means touring for a year and at the moment that would e too much for me. d like to do a couple of weeks in one place.

n the meantime, cent of ark rings together the worlds of heavy rock and perfume in a more managea le fashion.