Queen’s Brian May joins Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi for ‘Paranoid’ performance

Queen‘s Brian May has joined Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi for a performance of ‘Paranoid’.

• READ MORE: Queen days – Brian May reflects on his rock ‘n’ roll journey

The guitarists reunited to discuss the Black Sabbath classic for a segment in the new guitar-themed Sky Arts documentary, Greatest Guitar Riffs. “I’m sitting down with my mate, Brian, to talk riffs,” narrated Iommi at the head of the clip. “We first met in the early ’70s and we’ve been best friends ever since.”

May and Iommi then reminisced over a Black Sabbath rehearsal which May had joined, in which they continued to jam long after the band were finished. “We were jamming away, and gradually as we were playing, all the gear’s getting taken away apart from our two amps,” recounted Iommi. “Everyone got bored and left,” quipped May.

Later, May asked Iommi “where” he gets his riffs from. “I don’t know, I think it’s within,” replied Iommi. “Normally, we jam around and play something, and then Ozzy [Osbourne] will go, ‘What the fuck’s that?’ It just feels right.” The pair then discussed the origins of the signature riff behind ‘Paranoid’, which Iommi recalled was a last-minute addition to the Black Sabbath album of the same name.

“We didn’t have enough songs to fill the album, so the producer said, ‘We need another song’,” he said. “[He said], ‘It can’t be any more than two and a half minutes.’ We’ve never written anything less than bloody five minutes!” He then explained that he came up with the riff while the rest of the band had left for dinner.

The clip ended with the pair jamming to ‘Paranoid’. “I’m gonna commit sacrilege by joining in,” May said as Iommi plays its main riff, before improvising over it. At the end of the jam, May humorously called the riff “good”, commenting that it “will go far”.

Most recently, Iommi released a collaborative track with System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian for Gibson Guitars’ record label. ‘Deconstruction’ was co-written with Gibson Guitars CEO Caesar Gueikian, and credited to The Gibson Band. The charitable single was released to benefit the Artsakh Refugee Initiative in Tankian’s native Armenia.

On New Year’s Day 2023, Iommi also expressed interest in recording and releasing a new solo album. “I’ve been writing and recording. I’m having a new studio built, which I’m really pleased about,” he said in a vlog posted to YouTube at the time. “Well, actually, the studio is built, and it’s almost ready to go; I’m just waiting for some equipment.”

Meanwhile, May has been commenting on a variety of topics, from the use of AI in music, to a recent auction of Freddie Mercury’s belongings, working with John Lennon, and Queen’s record label taking down fan-published videos of the band’s live performances.