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Producer Thom Panunzio Talks Reunion
Thom Panunzio is now an esteemed record exec, but he worked his way up engineering and producing an increasingly impressive and diverse roster of stars (and even cooler underground legends), including, at the hard ’n’ heavy end, Blue Öyster Cult, the Dictators, Iggy Pop, Deep Purple, and Motörhead. He’s also provided tambourine services to the Del-Lords, the greatest band to ever craft music in a magical genre known very specifically as “rock ’n’ roll.”
Here’s a li’l story which finds Thom at a major moment in Sabbath history (I was going to say pivotal, but it’s not like Reunion pivoted to much, other than a million live shows), smack in the middle of a concert maelstrom that threatened to break down without some timely intervention….
“Okay, let me try switch gears,” begins Thom, taking a deep breath after a bunch of cool stories on the making of Deep Purple’s The Battle Rages On… . “Reunion was ’97. I remember being adamant about it being the original members because I knew that it was important because of Sabbath’s legacy. But you know what it was? It was the other way around. I’d already been working with Ozzy, I had done all the Ozzfest records; at that point there were only a couple, but I did the ones after that. I was very close to Sharon, and, you know, I was their guy. And so when it came time for her to put Black Sabbath back together, she said to me, ‘I want you to be involved with this; there’s going to be a live concert in Birmingham, England, where Sabbath is from, and I want you to come over and produce it.’ And that’s what I did. But what happened was, I got there, and I walked into the arena where they were rehearsing, or getting ready, set up, whatever, and Sharon was there, greeting me, and she walked up to me, gave me a big hug and a kiss, and said, ‘How are you, how was your flight, would you like some…’ She treated me like gold; she was the greatest. She said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ So English and proper too. And I said, ‘Yeah, that would be great.’ ‘And we have a problem. Bill…I don’t think Bill is going to be on the record. Do you think you can overdub drums, somebody else later?’ And I said, ‘What?!’ [laughs]. We’re going to play…and this is a big arena, maybe twenty thousand kids or something, and you know, first of all, nobody plays like that guy. He’s got his own way of playing the drums. I go, ‘How can we possibly do that?!’ And she goes, ‘Well, I have Cozy Powell,’ who is passed away since, and Vinny Appice, who is a very good friend of mine. I started out with him; he was part of the Record Plant house band when I started there.
“So Vinny and Cozy were on their way. Vinny was on a plane from America, as we were speaking, riding in coach, because they couldn’t get him a first-class ticket—Sharon flew everybody first class—with the drum pad on his lap, with headphones on, learning the songs, because she didn’t think Bill was going to play. Bill was…he didn’t have any real management, and he had a girl who was one of the riggers helping him, managing, and I forget what his problem was, but he wasn’t going to…he wasn’t going to be on the record. Maybe he didn’t feel he was getting enough money or whatever it was, but he wasn’t going to be on the record. But he was going to do the show. So Sharon said, ‘Can you overdub…’ in case he didn’t do the show, or in case his health wasn’t good enough to do the show; which is why she had a few guys coming in. And I said, ‘You know, that’s going to be…you can’t do that. You’re going to have the drums and all the other mics, you’re going to have leakage, you’re going to hear it in the arena, in all the other mics.’ You can’t overdub somebody unless they played exactly what you played, and even then it would be impossible, and nobody plays the way he plays.
“And she says, ‘Oh, we have a problem.’ And I said, ‘Where is he?’ And she said, ‘He’s outside.’ So I went out and introduced myself to him, and he was a total gentleman, and basically, he was a little…like, you know, he hadn’t been in the business for years. He didn’t understand. But I said to him, ‘What are you doing these days?’ And he says, ‘Oh I’ve got a band and play with my son.’ And I said, ‘Where do you play?’ And he says he played in some club where they live. And I said, ‘And that’s the only place you play?’ And he said yeah. And I said, ‘And you’re going to walk away from doing this record?!’ I said, ‘Bill, you’re crazy, man. For your own self and your career, you have to be part of this. This is your band, you have to be the drummer, not only at the show…if you play the drums in the show, this has to be the record. You can’t overdub somebody. I would do that, that’s not right, and I’m not interested in doing Black Sabbath with anybody but the original members.’ Basically I convinced him to do it again.”
Crazy story. But this Cozy Powell angle was news to me.…“You know what? Maybe he didn’t come, but she had him in the wings, waiting. Or she mentioned his name. I know Vinny was on the plane, and Cozy was in England, so maybe he didn’t have to get on a plane. Or it was, ‘I can call Cozy.’ ‘He is on his way’ or ‘I can call Cozy.’ She had already…Sharon covers herself; she’s a businesswoman.”
But Vinny was definitely onboard as insurance (something Ozzy had told me directly, adding, “In case Bill breaks an arm or has a heart attack or something.”). “Yes, Vinny was there. And I’m not sure about this, but Bill had some trouble later on with his health, his heart or something, and maybe even Vinny played then; I don’t remember. Henry Rollins, was there, who was a big Sabbath fan, and Whit Crane from Ugly Kid Joe, who did the sound checks for me. Ozzy didn’t do the sound checks—it was Whitfield.”
But yes, Bill had indeed suffered a minor heart attack, later joking with me during a Reunion interview in Toronto about how he now had to “lay off the ice cream.”
Backstage passes, especially tour laminates (given to staff and other inside workers), are often miniature, intense works of art. This one isn’t.
“Well, I’m not sure he had any health problems beforehand,” ventures Thom. “Maybe Sharon knew that maybe he wasn’t in good health, but the only thing I was aware of was that he wasn’t going…he didn’t want to be on the record. And so maybe Sharon knew. I didn’t know Bill; I’d never met him before. I knew them from the album covers, but I could’ve walked out the door and walked right past him if she didn’t tell me he was the guy with the long coat on.
“Lovely guy, right?” says Thom of Bill. “Lovely guy. And he was so reasonable when I talked to him, but for whatever reason, I don’t think he understood. I had to get through to him the importance of it. I think when we he talked to me, I was an outsider, and I think the light went on. ‘What?! Am I crazy, not to do this?! What else am I going to do? Go back to Long Beach? Just play. I can make some real money, as well as have a real memory here.’
“It was really interesting, because I’d never met any of them except Ozzy,” chuckles Thom in closing. “So I remember walking up to Tony Iommi. All of a sudden Tony appears on the stage, and he’s checking his guitar and working on his guitar sounds and stuff. So I walked up on the stage and I walked up to him and said, ‘Hey Tony, I’m Thom Panunzio, your producer’ [laughs], and shook hands with him. And he says, ‘Oh, hey, Thom, great to meet you! Oh, have you heard about Vinny?’ And I go, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Didn’t you hear?!’ And this is the first time I’m meeting this guy. He says, ‘Didn’t you hear? He was in an accident and lost his arm.’ ‘Are you fucking kidding me?!’ He’s standing there with a straight face. I almost started crying. Total prankster. Total prankster. Incredible, incredible guitar player [laughs].”