Tony Iommi Discusses the Creative Process Behind His Upcoming Single “Deified”
As we reported just a few days ago, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has launched his second cologne, called Deified, with an Italian fragrance company called Xerjoff, which happens to be an anagram of Jerxoff, so that’s what I’m going to be calling them. This is the second cologne that Iommi put out with the Jerxoff company, the first one being Scent of Dark, which was accompanied by the release of a Tony Iommi solo track of the same name. This meant that there was a good chance that Deified would be accompanied by some new music, and apparently the official “Deified” soundtrack and video is due out on Friday at 4 p.m. BST.
Jerxoff released a video (which was transcribed by Blabbermouth) in which Iommi and Sergio Momo, Jerxoff’s CEO and co-founder, sat down with Julian Marszalek and Suzy Nightingale—in a studio that looks like a public access TV show for goths and BDSM enthusiasts—to talk about the new song, video, and fragrance. Here’s what Iommi had to say about writing the song “Deified”:
“Well, it’s the same way as I’ve done most stuff, really. I come up with a riff, and then [my engineer] Mike Exeter, I’d put the riff down, and he’d put a programmed-drum thing to it. And he’d play bass or keyboards or something, just to make it something to present, really. And then, in our case, then it would go to Sergio and see if he likes it, and then he’d do his part. And then we’d go in the studio with the drummer, and he’d put the drums on and bass. So we do it that sort of way, really.”
Nothing quite says artistic integrity like creating a song that you have to run past the CEO of an Italian perfume company for approval. Iommi continued on about the recording process:
“Doing the [recordings] live [in the studio], I haven’t done [anything] where we all played live for a good many years. Well, the last album, ’13’, when we’d done that with SABBATH, was all live. But you tend to sort of, especially in our state, where Sergio’s in Italy and we’re here in England. It works just to send the ideas and see what he thinks. Or when he’s come over, play him something. And he said, ‘Oh, I like that.’ As we did with [our first collaboration] ‘Scent Of Dark’. We played a few things. And that’s it. And he went away and came up with some bits.”
What does he mean that Momo “came up with some bits,” exactly? Is he saying that the CEO of Jerxoff plays an instrument in the song? The more I hear about this song, the more it sounds like the kind of corporate cash grab that even Tony Iommi’s involvement can’t save. But I guess we’ll see on Friday.
