Black Sabbath (1983: Doomsday)

Black Sabbath, also known simply as Sabbath are an English hard rock band, formed in Birmingham, UK in 1968. Along with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath defined hard rock, which eventually evolved into heavy metal, and are considered heavy metal pioneers. The band became popular after the release of their second album Paranoid, with the titular song written at the last minute. While the album was almost universally panned by critics, it went on to become one of the greatest hard rock albums of all time, similar to fellow British rock band, Queen's album, A Night at the Opera.

Black Sabbath survived Doomsday simply by being at the right place at the right time. Directly after a gig in Geneva, news that nuclear war had erupted had reached the band. Switzerland was not nuked, due to the neutrality of the nation, leaving Sabbath stranded in Switzerland, in the midst of a global crisis. The band immediately cancelled the rest of the Born Again tour that they were on, as their next event was directly to the north of Nuremberg, a nuked city.

Early History
After Tony Iommi and Bill Ward's old blues-based rock band, Mythology, broke up, they formed the Polka Tulk Blues Band with Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler, who were previously in a  band called Rare Breed, in 1968. The band was renamed Earth in 1969, but was mistaken for another regional band of the same name, and so decided to pick the name Black Sabbath, which stuck. The band recorded their first studio album, Black Sabbath (1970), which peaked at 8 in the UK and 23 in the US.

Paranoid
The real breakthrough into the mainstream of rock and roll came with Paranoid, Black Sabbath's sophomore album. With singles Paranoid/The Wizard and Iron Man/Electric Funeral, Paranoid reached number 1 in the UK and 12 in the US. Black Sabbath toured the US following the release of Paranoid.

Continued Successes
The third album by Black Sabbath, Master of Reality, was not as popular, charting at 8 in the US and 5 in the UK. It still contained classic hard rock music, however, with hits like Children of the Grave and Sweet Leaf. The fourth album, named Vol. 4, was even less popular in the mainstream charts (peaking at 8 in the UK and 13 in the US). The only single released off of Vol. 4, Tomorrow's Dreams, was a flop, failing to even chart.

Fearing obsolescence, Black Sabbath returned with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in 1973. This album peaked at 4 in the UK, but only reached 11 in the US. This was the first time that the band gained media affection, with Rolling Stone saying that the album was "an extraordinarily gripping affair", and "nothing less than a complete success."

Decline
During this time, a "New Wave" of British heavy metal began to emerge, though it was obscure at this time with bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden eventually coming to dominate in this genre by the early 1980s challenging the "Old Wave" of bands such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple with faster and harder approaches to their music, and stripped-down playing styles without blues or folk influences. Following Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band, led by Tony Iommi, decided to move away from mainstream rock and focus on the harder aspects of the genre. Their next album, Sabotage, received mixed reviews. Drugs and alcohol greatly reduced the chemistry of the band. Technical Ecstasy, Black Sabbath's seventh studio album continued to go downhill, failing to even break into the Top 50 in the US.

Never Say Die!, the last studio album to feature popular singer Ozzy Osbourne was recorded during seriously deteriorating relations between Iommi and Butler against Osbourne, who was highly addicted to both drugs and alcohol. This album marked the lowest point for Black Sabbath, which failed to reform to the emerging "New Wave of Heavy Metal."

Ronnie James Dio Years
When Ozzy Osbourne was kicked out of Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath manager Don Arden suggested Rainbow's vocalist Ronnie James Dio to replace Ozzy. Dio joined in June of 1979, changing the sound of Black Sabbath to align more with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, with fantasy-inspired lyrics changing much of the band's sound and later defining Dio's solo career.

The first album to feature Ronnie James Dio, Heaven and Hell, was a smashing success, with singles "Die Young" and "Neon Knights" leading the band onto a tour of the US. 1981's Mob Rules was also popular, gaining international recognition.

In 1982, however, Iommi and Butler had a falling out with Dio, while recording the live album Live Evil, and he eventually left to start his own band in November with drummer Vinnie Appice. Live Evil, however was released.

Born Again
Following Dio and Appice leaving, Iommi and Butler began to audition new singers for the band's next release. Eventually, ex-Deep Purple vocalist, Ian Gillan was hired to replace Dio at the end of 1982. Bill Ward, the original drummer returned for the new album, Born Again. After Born Again's release, it was panned by critics despite reaching number four on the UK charts and number 39 in the US. A tour was however planned, but Ward sat out on the tour due to health issues. Ward was replaced for the tour by Bev Bevan, former drummer for Electric Light Orchestra.



Doomsday
The Born Again Tour, which was slated to run from August 7th, 1983 to March 4th, 1984 in order to advertise the newest Black Sabbath Album, brought Black Sabbath to Switzerland in late September of 1983.

During a fateful night in Geneva, Switzerland, Black Sabbath was playing at a sports complex, the Pavillon Des Sports Del Champel Geneve. During the song War Pigs, ironically, news reached the audience that nuclear war had begun. The band members, believing that it was a joke or one of Tony Iommi's famous pranks, continued to play on. The band made it into the next song, Born Again, but partway through it they were forced to cancel the concert due to the chaos in the crowd.

The band members then found out that nuclear war was happening, and they then locked themselves in a local fallout shelter, waiting for the worst to occur. When nothing happened, the band remembered after panicking, that Switzerland was a neutral country. As Geneva was on the French border, it recieved a high dosage of fallout compared to the rest of the nation, confining the Sabbath members to the shelter, as ordered by the government.

Interregnum
After the fallout levels in Geneva reduced to a safe level, the band members emerged from the shelter to a world, that literally overnight had been brought to its knees by the much-feared power of nuclear war, and the British band had survived by plain dumb luck, albeit in an alien land. Black Sabbath put the rest of the Born Again Tour on perpetual hold. The members of the band put much of their musical lives on hold due to the worldwide crisis that stranded them in Switzerland, with no apparent way of leaving for a long time. Martial law was tough on the band members, who had to work for their food rations, but they eventually got through. Several times, in fact, local authorities got the band together to play classic Black Sabbath and Deep Purple songs, along with a few jam tunes written in Iommi's with that becoming their informal job eventually. The sessions playing in Switzerland eventually heavily influenced the band in their later works.

Iommi, Butler, and Gillan, however, were ready to leave Switzerland for a more stable nation preferably in the Anglosphere, however due to Doomsday and the events in its wake, they were stranded in the Austro-Schweiz Union for the forseeable future. Geezer Butler, in particular voiced disdain for the the Union's policy of rejecting refugees, stating in a later interview, "It could've just as easily been us outside the borders. It's just wrong to kick people out to die".

Black Sabbath, however was left without its band manager, presumably dead somewhere in Britain, Don Arden. Iommi stated on this: "We were kind of devastated. Here we were, stranded in a neutral country by pure luck, the only Englishmen in sight. We couldn't record albums until we got signed and a new manager, and we had little more to do after we returned from our jobs, so we bought some cheap equipment and just recorded. Our anger and frustration kind of rubbed off on our music".

In November of 1984, after the last band member, Bev Bevan, was discharged from working jobs for the nation, Black Sabbath, inspired by the Beatles and Apple Records, founded their own independent record label in Geneva, known as Doomed Records. They then used some of their funds from pre-DD to purchase equipment for recording. The equipment, however, due to lack of imports from other nations due to Doomsday was described by Iommi as a "piece of $%^&". January 1st was the day Sabbath begun to record again, almost two years after that fateful night in Geneva.

Ian Gillan Years
During recording sessions in Geneva, Iommi and Butler clashed with Gillan, with Iommi and Butler wanting a classic-style Sabbath album, and Gillan wanting to include elements from his years in Deep Purple, and several times, it descended into something of a feud, with the only thing keeping the band together being friendship between some of the members, and knowledge that they are some of the few Englishmen in the nation and that they should stick together. The equipment, however was something that united the bandmates, as it frequently malfunctioned, and sometimes noises carried over onto recordings. In response to this, the band played slower and louder, and Gillan did similarly with his voice, singing rather slowly, yet loudly, frequently utilizing screaming. This would later come to define a genre that built up around Sabbath in Switzerland.

On October 31, 1985, Positively Negative was released as Black Sabbath's 12th studio album. The album was a surprising success, with the low ratings of the previous one making critics wonder if Gillan was a force for the better. Despite the lo-fi production, it was reviewed favorably by critics, with the new Sabbath sound as a highlight, as well as some throwback tracks to earlier Black Sabbath and Deep Purple tunes. Two singles were released, Yet We Remain, a depressing ballad-esque song that was dedicated to those who perished during Doomsday. While Black Sabbath was not known for sad mourn filled songs acknowledging specific past events, the loss of most of their family members back in England took its toll on everyone in the band.

Musical Style and Influences
Black Sabbath, being one of the original heavy metal bands, really placed influences upon a number of musical groups.

Discography

 * Black Sabbath - 1970
 * Paranoid - 1970
 * Master of Reality - 1971
 * Vol. 4 - 1972
 * Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - 1973
 * Sabotage - 1975
 * Technical Ecstasy - 1976
 * Never Say Die! - 1978
 * Heaven and Hell - 1980
 * Mob Rules - 1981
 * Born Again - 1983