During a recent appearance on “The OG Mike Show,” Body Count guitarist Ernie C opened up about working with Black Sabbath on their 1995 album “Forbidden.” As Ernie recalls, the band was not thrilled about the record label’s decision to have him produce the LP.
“In retrospect, I’ve learned something from that. First of all, they didn’t want me to produce the record; that wasn’t their choice. Miles Copeland [III] who ran the record label wanted me to do it. First I come in as the record company guy [laughs], which I don’t see how I could be. Tony [Iommi] was very nice to me, a perfect English gentleman,” he said.
Earnie then went on to explain that while producing “Forbidden” he took some inspiration from Nirvana’s sound.
“I had this thing, I was trying to dry up the band. They had this big echo, the ’80s big sound. I was going to dry it out, make it sound more like Nirvana — not try to make them sound like Nirvana, but just take less echo,” he revealed.
But, according to Ernie, Sabbath was committed to their established sound and style.
Remembering working with drummer Cozy Powell, Ernie said:
“Cozy’s one of the best double bass drummers ever… When I first met Cozy, he had four drum sets set up, complete double bass. He said, ‘I want to play on each drum set for 30 minutes. After the two hours that I’m gonna take to play them, I want you to let me know what pieces you like, and we can put together a drum set.’ I’m like, ‘What the hell is he talking about!?’ [laughs] I’m going, ‘This dude is badass!’ And I’m going [around], picking drum parts.”
“We took two days to get his drum sound right. At the end, he listens to it, and he’s nodding his head, ‘Yeah, that sounds good.’ At the end of it, he says, ‘Hey, Ern’ — and he hands me a tape, ‘I’m Cozy Powell. And I want my drums to sound like Cozy Powell.’ So I just told the engineer, ‘Turn it [the drums] back up!’ [laughs]”
He continued: “They didn’t want change… It would be eight o’clock, and I’m like, ‘We could do another take.’ And Tony’s like, ‘Oh, no. It’s eight o’clock, I’m gonna go to dinner. I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven.’ One thing I learned from him, he said, ‘Anything I’m gonna play tonight, I can play tomorrow. I’d rather get some sleep and play tomorrow.’”
Ernie also recalled Jeff Beck and Brian May popping in during one of the recording sessions and how Ozzy Osbourne’s wife Sharon Osbourne sent him a cease and desist letter:
“Tony’s doing guitar solos, and in walk Jeff Beck and Brian May, together. Tony says, ‘Ernie, what do you think of that [solo]?’ And I say, ‘What do *I* think of that? You should ask Jeff Beck and Brian May!’ [laughs]”
“While I was doing the record, I got some paperwork. It’s a cease and desist. It was from Sharon [Osbourne, Ozzy’s wife and manager]. And Tony said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. She does that to everyone; she’s just trying to scare you. I’m like, ‘Well, she’s doing a damn good job!’ [laughs]”
“I met her later on in life, we played at Ozzfest and she just said, ‘Oh, baby, that’s business.’”
Tony Iommi re-released a remixed version of ”Forbidden” last year, and revealed that he wasn’t a fan of how Ernie produced the album.
“With the remix… We didn’t like what Ernie had done. Ernie does what he does with Ice T, which is great, and we respect him, but it didn’t work for us,” Iommi said.
“Bringing it up and listening to it, it just sounds not right. There’s bits on there that weren’t actually on the record… But you can only do so much; you can’t re-record the whole bloody thing. So, we had to keep to how it was, but try and improve the sound.”
