Who might be Tony Iommi’s own rock god? The guitarist reveals

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is a respected guitarist and rock icon for good reason. But the heavy metal pioneer himself also has his own rock god, as Iommi revealed in a recent episode of BBC’s The Rock Show With Johnnie Walker.

Iommi names Queen guitarist Brian May as his rock hero.

“His sort of sound and style really stood out to me when I heard the first Queen album, really. When I heard that album, [I thought], ‘This is a really good band.’ And a guitar player is always into other guitar players, and he [had] a sort of unique sound and the way that he played, I just liked it. It was appealing. He’s just got a certain character that you didn’t really hear from anybody else; he’s got something very ‘him.’ And as soon as you hear Brian now, anybody can pick him out”, Iommi says.

Iommi says he got to know May in the 70s.

“We’ve jammed a few times. He’s come up on stage and played with me and we’ve done some album stuff together on different people’s albums. He played on my solo album a couple of times. We had a jam session once. He came down to one of our rehearsals, when we were rehearsing in London, and we started playing with the band and the band gradually left, and Brian and myself were were just left playing there. All the gear had gone except for our gear, and we were still playing.”

“Yeah, so we’ve had a great friendship over the years. But the thing is with him, he loves his guitar — he’s always got his guitar with him and he’s playing. And when he comes to my house, I’ve always got a guitar there for him so we can have a little play.”