The Rolling Stone magazine reports that Tony Iommi is about to remix Black Sabbath’s iconic and controversial Born Again—the only album they recorded with Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan on vocals.
Rolling Stone: Tony Iommi recently said he plans to remix Born Again (1983), the only Black Sabbath album with you, and re-release it with new sound. You’ve always criticized the mix. Do you think a remix could improve the songs? And what do you think of the songs themselves?
Ian Gillan: I think the songs are great. I just thought the mix was ridiculous. It was absurd. One day, the engineer disappeared from the studio. And someone took over. I won’t say who, because the bassist must remain anonymous. But I think it got remixed and all you could hear was the bass. If you’ve seen the movie This Is Spinal Tap (1984), that’s the story of Born Again. Someone from the label or PR told the manager: ‘This can’t be played.’ And that’s exactly what happened. The bass level was so high you couldn’t play it on the radio. This was just after digital music arrived, but people still used needles. And it was impossible. I have a cassette tape of a mix from the monitor that sounds ten times better than the album. If they’re remixing it now, it’s a bit late. But yeah, maybe for fans, collectors… I don’t know. There are songs there I really like. It was always a joy writing with Tony and we definitely had fun making the record. There’s one song, ‘Trashed,’ that we wrote the day after whatever story inspired it. It was a fantastic time. I enjoyed the tour. It was the longest party I’ve ever been to—it lasted a year. I think the album’s great. It’s never too late. We always recognize that Ozzy is Black Sabbath’s singer, and people identified with that. So it was a hybrid, weird situation. But overall—thank God they’re remixing it.
