Adam Jones of Tool shares his feelings about Black Sabbath’s legacy

The opportunity to assist in sending off Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne this coming weekend was initially turned down by well-known progressive metal band Tool, but they were eventually able to rearrange their schedules to agree to play at the “Back To The Beginning” show. The fact that guitarist Adam Jones and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello have been friends for a long time is partly the reason for the booking. At the upcoming concert, the latter guitar legend will be in charge of an all-star jam session that pays homage to Sabbath‘s and Ozzy‘s solo work. At first, Jones was supposed to go onstage with Morello and Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins to do a cover, but as a lifetime Sabbath listener, Jones was grateful when the other band members joined him. Jones praised the British heavy metal pioneers in a recently released digital feature with Guitar World.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. I pinch myself every day. You go, ‘When I was 16, did you ever think you’d meet these guys? Did you ever think you’d open for these guys? Did you ever think you’d have your own guitar line with Gibson? Did you ever think you’d have four Grammys?’ My life’s good, man. It’s good, and on that day, it’ll be even better.

His old friend backed him up.

It came through Tom Morello. The four of us were on the phone, or texting – I can’t remember – and someone went, ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ Someone else went, ‘Okay, yeah, I think I’m gonna do this other thing.’ I think I even went, ‘Yeah, let’s not do it.’ But it was really an honor that they asked us. Months later, Tom contacted me and said, ‘Would you be down to play something with me?’ I was like, ‘Hmmm, that could be fun. Yeah!’ He goes, ‘It’ll just be me, you and Billy Corgan.’ He was thinking we could play a tune, so I said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine. But if plans change, I won’t feel bad if you decide that you don’t want me to do it – but let’s do it.’

And this is how they were involved.

I was again talking to Tom, and I went, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry we all couldn’t do it.’ He goes, ‘Well, you know Dan is playing with these guys, and Maynard is playing with these people…’ I went, ‘I didn’t know that…’ It hit me, and I said, ‘If the three of us are there – and I know Justin will want to do it…’ I went back to our people and went, ‘Why don’t we just do it? We’re all going to be there.’ That’s how it happened – and why it was announced later.

His passion for Sabbath began in a weird way.

I always wanted to do a compilation of music that scared the shit out of me when I heard it for the first time, Black Sabbath was like that for me. I loved horror movies, and [Sabbath] had the same temperature to me. There’s just something romantic about it. I feel lucky that there are so many songs I’m obsessed with. I still put that music on today, and I get the same thing I was getting out of it when I first heard it. I can’t say that about a lot of bands.

Tony Iommi had a huge influence on him.

It’s why I’m obsessed with drop D. The stuff he did – the tone, the playing the notes and then pulling off, you know, the open D, or whatever tuning they had that’s comparable – it was just haunting, and the riffs were so good. I could play them, but there’s a vibe, and it’s wonderful. And if you don’t hear it in Tool, you probably aren’t really into Black Sabbath.