Tony Iommi Reacts To Unauthorized Release Of Dio-Era Black Sabbath Song ‘Slapback’

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi says that he is “not at all happy” about the unauthorized release of the band’s “Slapback” on YouTube.

“Slapback” was recently uploaded to YouTube by Gary Rees, the stepson and executor of the estate of Geoff Nicholls, Black Sabbath’s longtime keyboardist, who passed away in 2017.

The song was recorded during the 1979 songwriting sessions that produced Heaven and Hell, the band’s first album with singer Ronnie James Dio.

During an interview with SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” on Thursday, March 11, Iommi was asked about the unreleased tune.

Iommi said, “I’m not at all happy with [Nicholls’s estate releasing the song] – at all. And it’s left a really bad taste in my mouth. At that point, when we did that, Geoff wasn’t even involved in the band; I hadn’t even got Geoff over at that time. That is actually Ronnie playing bass on that. And that was just in the lounge recorded on a cassette.”

Iommi also explained why the song was not released, saying, “We had one or two things that we’d jam around on and play on and stuff, but it [wasn’t] right for the album, so we didn’t put it into shape; we didn’t record it [properly] or anything.”