Found the interview I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, with Cozy Powell (R.I.P….) and Tony Martin of Black Sabbath.
I chose the part of the interview with the “stupid questions” because it’s a little bit different and the guys enjoyed it.
I was looking for something and came across this old letter that was once included with a cassette that Tony Martin sent me back when I was building his very first webpage back in the day… Wow. Memories.
When I first heard Black Sabbath with Tony Martin, I was absolutely blown away. That guy had a voice that was beyond anything I had ever heard.
People said that he was trying to copy Ronnie James Dio, but I don’t think that Dio and Tony had much in common, except for the BIG voices. The biggest difference was that Dio never did any high-pitch singing, he might have had the range but he didn’t use his voice that way. Tony could do more. To this day I think he is one of the most underrated heavy metal vocalists.
The first time I met Tony was at a Black Sabbath press-conference in Copenhagen 1990. They were playing at KB-Hallen and the press conference was a few hours before they went onstage.
The whole band was there – Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray and Tony Martin. I even remember kind of how they were sitting cause it wasn’t a regular press conference where the band would sit behind a table in front of the press. This was two tables pushed together with the band and us journalists sitting around it.
Cozy was on the short end, to my left, Tony Martin was on the opposite short end and Tony Iommi and Neil Murray were sitting right in front of me. I think we were about 5 or 6 reporters and if I recall it correctly, it was in some sort of restaurant or bar or something, cause there was a lot of noise and activity going on around us. I’ve got the whole thing recorded (I recorded every interview I ever did, so there’s….a lot of stuff laying around the house…!) – I’ll post it here when and if I find it.
At that particular press conference I remember thinking that Tony Martin was kind of a “know-it-all” sort of guy, wasn’t too impressed by him as a person. On the other hand, I was a big admirer of Cozy Powell, I could not believe he was sitting that close to me. He was a legend!
But the show that evening….. Oh. My. God.
To this day, that is one of the best concerts I have ever seen. Tony Martin sang like a GOD! He blew the roof off that arena, it was an experience I will never forget. Tony Iommi was this cool guitar hero, there is just no one like him. He’s the master of riffs, the inventor of heavy metal, you can’t get closer to being immortal than that.
I felt like I was floating on clouds when I went home that night. I can’t even explain that feeling, it was all just a big, fat “WOW….”.
Fast forward to 1995. Karlshamn Hotel, Sweden. Black Sabbath headlining Sweden Rock Festival. Had an interview scheduled with Cozy and Tony.
Cozy and I were down in the restaurant, chatting, Tony was late. When he arrived he went: “Oh, it’s YOU!” when he saw me. I think I had written him a letter or two telling him what a fantastic singer I thought he was, so he recognized me.
Cozy Powell & I, 1995 (of course I had to BLINK on the ONLY photo I’ve got of him and me! Pfff… :( )
It was a great interview and I got along really well with both gentlemen. Cozy was a funny guy, I liked him instantly . Tony was more the serious type but I enjoyed talking to him cause this time he gave me the impression of being an intelligent guy. Guess it was mutual because we decided to get together after their show, down in the hotel bar.
Tony ordered something to eat from the bar menu, I just had a drink. It was great just talking about everything and anything, he was very easy to talk to.
Our conversation was interrupted by fans who wanted him to sign stuff, which he did, others just wanted to talk – and being as drunk as people get at festivals, most of them were pretty rude.Tony just politely told them: “I’m sorry, but I’m kind of in the middle of a conversation here…” and nodded in my direction. One guy went: “Ooooh! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here with your girlfriend!” I told him I wasn’t his girlfriend.
That’s the thing. Being a girl talking to a musician always seems to confuse people. Either they think you’re a groupie or they think that you must be a girlfriend. To this day it’s as if a lot of guys don’t understand that there are female fans out there too.
The difference between those guys and me being that I don’t get stoned out of my mind and then throw my whole record-collection in the artists face while telling him how fabulous he is. I am interested in TALKING to somebody whose music inspires me, I want to get to know that person. And that’s how it went with Tony. We got along great.
So we decided to hang out in Copenhagen when Black Sabbath came back in the fall that year on the “Forbidden”-tour. :-)
[to be continued….]
My favorite Black Sabbath-lineup, with Cozy & Neil.
Got an e-mail from a dear friend today. Rig, the Italian drum-tech who is part of the Jon Oliva’s Pain (JOP)-family. Haven’t seen him or talked to him in a long time, I was so happy to hear from him. 
He just wanted to touch base and see what was going on in my corner of the world.
I said that I was trying to decide which TSO (Trans-Siberian Orchestra) gigs I would go to. He mentioned that he was going to Zurich (Switzerland) to get together with Jon Oliva.
I miss Jon, haven’t seen him since the Zwarte Cross festival in Holland last summer. He is a quite unusual man. Fans call him “The Mountain King” – I think that Ronnie Dio and his crew gave him that name years ago when Savatage was out on the road opening for Dio. And he is like a king.
People respect him. He is cool, always smiling, also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.
He has been extremely good to me, I love him dearly. I remember once after their gig at the Z7-venue in Pratteln, Switzerland, I drove him back to the hotel and I don’t know exactly how the conversation went, but I guess I just wanted to know if he was okay with me being around them as much as I was, given I wasn’t part of the band or the crew – I was there just as a friend basically.
He said, in his cool Oliva-sort of way: “Daniela, you’re part of the family now...You are always welcome to join us anywhere“.
The “Family” being that unity band+crew+fans. In Jon Oliva’s case, it was all one and the same.
There has never been that feeling that he thought of himself being better than anyone else. The band and the crew were all equally important, everybody was hanging out – it wasn’t band and crew separately like with so many other bands. Everybody’s on the same bus, sharing the same experience. I’m extremely lucky, happy and grateful for having been invited to be a part of that. It’s something I’ll never forget, four of the best years of my life.
Fans weren’t treated as “fans”, you know, there has never been a “you are less worth than me because you’re standing there with a CD asking me for an autograph“-attitude. Jon has always taken time for that, I’ve seen him sign tons of albums, photos without complaining and some fans have become part of the unity and well, the biggest of them all has gone from fan to friend to employee. It’s just a very warm and welcoming atmosphere around Jon Oliva, I’ve never seen anything quite like it anywhere else.
So anyway…. Zürich is next on my “tour schedule”. Most of all I’m very glad that I’ll get to meet Rig. A few years ago, when JOP were playing ProgPower USA in Atlanta, Rig, Hanneke (light tech) and I flew in from Italy, Netherlands and Sweden at the same time. We hooked up at the airport and went straight to the hotel where the band arrived shortly thereafter. :)
The trip to Zürich is not so much about just music. It’s more about meeting people that I really love and have missed – Rig and Jon.
Curious to see the TSO-production too, it’s huge in the States and I was going to see it last year in Nashville but missed it, don’t remember the reason why.
Want to go to Japan too – saw the Firewind-dates and checked flights. It wasn’t THAT expensive, but I can’t go cause I don’t have more vacation days until May. Next time.
Maybe if they tour in the fall/winter. Or if Priest decide play there on their Epitath-tour. Unleashed in the East!!
I’m just so excited. I love this life. I simply do. :)
The year was 1990 and I had my own heavy metal radio-show at Radio MCB.
Yngwie Malmsteen was one of my absolute idols and I was still new in the game. I had only been working as a rock-journalist for about a year, maybe a little longer, when Yngwie called the radio station, live on the air, during my show.
It was a spontaneous, exclusive thing, cause he was only home on vacation and nobody even knew he was there. So how did that happen?
Connections. Isn’t that how everything happens usually?
I was working at this weekly called Hemmets Journal (FICK-Journalen) at the time and somehow, I don’t even remember how, I got to know the mother of the Johansson-brothers (Anders Johansson – drums, who is now with Hammerfall, but used to play with Yngwie back then, and Jens Johansson – keyboards, who is now with Stratovarius, who used to play with Dio and Yngwie).
Else Johansson was a tough and determined lady and I remember talking to her a few times when I called the house to set up an interview with Jens or Anders, which happened quite a lot back then because they had so much going on all the time.
She liked me. I think that was my luck, because she was more than happy to “pull some strings” even when I didn’t ask for it.
The Yngwie-thing was one of those things.
She asked if I knew that he was home and that he got engaged to his girlfriend Erika “yesterday”. She knew that I was a big fan of Yngwie and few journalists back then actually LIKED Yngwie.
He was constantly involved in bar fights and stuff, so he was great to follow if you wanted a scandal to write about. But very few actually cared about his music, it was always about what a stuck up diva he was. So Else thought he should be happy that he had someone in his corner, who actually liked his music.
She said she would have him call the radio station. It’s so long ago now that I don’t remember all the details anymore, but sure enough, Yngwie called!
As far as I know, that was the only thing he bothered to do on that short visit to Stockholm.
It’s all in Swedish but it’s still a cool thing to have, cause it’s as exclusive as it gets. :)
Apologies for the poor audio-quality, but this is from a worn out cassette that’s 21 years old. If we sound like Donald and Daisy Duck it’s for that same reason.
Still, it brings back nice memories. Yngwie RULED back in those days, I wish I could go back in time and re-live his absolutely fantastic gig at Olympen in Lund, Sweden, 1988. Those were the days..! 
I was out driving with my sister the other day and “Ain’t No Love In The Heart of The City” started playing in the car stereo. She said she loved that song, but was well aware that it wasn’t Whitesnake’s own tune. It’s an old R & B-song from the 70’s actually, but not too many people know that. Whitesnake have somehow made it their own.
Some songs just work better the second time. Maybe because the timing is better, or because everything can be perfected. Either way, it’s an interesting phenomenon. I went for years thinking that Diamonds and Rust and Green Manalishi were Judas Priest-originals. Probably because those were on the first Priest-album I ever bought, Unleashed In the East. I figured those were all their own songs.
I’m sure you can think of a bunch of great covers that were improved and modernized to fit a different (and often larger) audience – but here are a few that I could think of from the top of my head:
I LOVE ROCK’N’ROLL
(original by Arrows 1975 – covered by Joan Jett in 1981)
AIN’T NO LOVE IN THE HEART OF THE CITY
(original by Bobby Blue Bland 1974 – covered by Whitesnake in 1978)
DIAMONDS AND RUST
(original by Joan Baez 1975 – covered by Judas Priest in 1977)
GREEN MANALISHI
(original by Fleetwood Mac 1970 – covered by Judas Priest in 1979)
ACTION!
(original by The Sweet 1975 – covered by Def Leppard in 1993)
I DIDN’T KNOW I LOVED YOU (‘TIL I SAW YOU ROCK’N’ROLL)
(original by Gary Glitter 1972 – covered by Rock Goddess and more in 1983)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 