FAITH NO MORE | 12.12.1992 | Kerrang!

Black Sabbath's eight studio albums, cut by the classic Ozzy-led line up, have influenced countless musicians, includin one particularly big and sick individual, Faith No More's JIM MARTIN. Here Jim highlights to Steffan Chirazi the effect Sabbath had on his young life.


Kerrang Issue 422 | 12.12.1992
Ozzy : Black Days Revisted 
Steffan Chirazi

ONE LOOK at James Blanco Martin will reveal the beautiful, ugly truth of a man possessed by Black Sabbath since his early childhood.
That wild catweasel  hair, the perverse glasses and the prongs of death an his chin are all testimony to a man moved towards a lifestyle by the crunching, immortal Sabbath sound.
Big Sick Ugly James Blanco Martin recounts how it all happened and remembers the albums that made him the jackhammer crazy, mad bastard he is. 
"The first album, 'Black Sabbath' was a bit of a later delving for me, as I didn't know about it for many years. "My first album was, of course, 'Paranoid' and this was the one that really got me going. 
"It was in the old 'shack' days. We built a shack in the back af Paddy McCaul's house, and we were all too young to drive so we'd go there to drink beers, plenty of liquor, smoke plenty of weed and fuck girls." 
"The music was great, especially whilst drinking large quantities of booze - 'Iron Man' was a big stand-out song, as I'd spent a while hating the radio and having to listen to The Beatles. This vicious music was just what I'd been waiting for. 
"My next record was 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath', and it took me a while to like it because I was so into the 'Paranoid' album - I guess my mind was too small to like more than one album from one band.
"Of course, as time went on I learnt to love it and the big stand-out was, of course, 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'. 
"I was somewhat shocked by the album sleeve because of the Satanic sex party that was going on there; it was frightening and diabolical."

"I THEN grew to love 'Black Sabbath', 'Master Of Reality' and 'Vol 4'  by going to my friends' houses and hearing them on their stereos.
"There was no doubt that there were Sabbath albums l had not heard, and eventually I acquired all the records.
"I very seldom listened to 'Technical Ecstasy', and 'Sabotage' was really just a conglomeration of Sabbath songs already recorded, right? Never listened to 'Never Say Die' much, either. It became different music then, in my opinion."

"THE STAND-OUT elements of Black Sabbath are that they seem to make people who are greasy, sweaty and have stubble on their chins drink large quantities of liquor".

"Of course, Black Sabbath were not the same without Ozzy as far as l am concerned. When he went, it was the end of Black Sabbath for me. He meant everything to me. There was this wild chemistry between Ozzy and the band, which made things what they were. 
"My adolescence was moulded by Sabbath. My playing was too. I am moulded by them right now - as you can see by my scruffy appearance, grouchy demeanour and gluttonous alcohol consumption!
"There has never been a band who has done it like them. For me. Black Sabbath have always It...."