Tony Iommi recalled how a stunt staged to surprise Black Sabbath’s new producer went dangerously wrong, leaving Bill Ward with serious burns. It wasn’t the first time the guitarist had set fire to the drummer — but it certainly was the last.
The incident took place as the band worked on their 1980 album, Heaven and Hell. It was their first record to feature Ronnie James Dio, and the band also had a new producer, Martin Birch.
Practical jokes were nothing new in Sabbath’s world, Iommi told Ultimate Classic Rock, adding that Ward expected to be the target of most of them.
“Bill, if you didn’t do anything to him, he’d always come up and go, ‘Is everything all right?’” Iommi explained. “And you go, ‘Yeah. Why?’ ‘Well, nobody’s done anything to me today!’”
There was one particular “party piece” the pair often enacted.
“We’d get the rubbing alcohol in the studio. You could put it on you and light it, and it would just burn off. You know, you wouldn’t feel it.”
They decided it was the perfect way to confuse their new producer.
“The first time he was in the studio, Bill and I planned to do this trick — I’d put the liquid on Bill and light him, and it should have burnt off.”
Iommi — who recently revealed that he tried to talk Ozzy Osbourne out of Sabbath’s final show in 2025 — went on to admit that the stunt didn’t go to plan.
“I put too much on him! I poured it on him, and lit him, and he went woof, like that, like a bomb! He’s rolling on the floor and I’m still pouring this liquid on him, thinking it was part of the joke.
“Of course, Martin Birch is freaking out; Bill’s shouting and screaming, and I thought, ‘Oh, it’s part of the joke’ — and God, it wasn’t!
“I found out afterwards that he got third-degree burns on his legs and he had to go to hospital.”
The end of the tale is no surprise: “We never did it again after that.”
