ON HIS LAST DAY AT THE FACTORY, TONY IOMMI LOST 2 FINGERTIPS — AND ACCIDENTALLY INVENTED HEAVY METAL. Birmingham, 1965. Tony Iommi was 17, working his last shift at a sheet metal factory before leaving to tour with a band. His mom told him to go back and finish the day properly. The regular machine operator didn’t show up. They put Tony on a guillotine press he’d never used before. In seconds, the machine took the tips of his middle and ring fingers — his fretting hand. Doctors said he’d never play again. Then his factory foreman showed up with a Django Reinhardt record. What Tony didn’t know yet — Reinhardt only played with two working fingers after a fire nearly destroyed his hand. Something shifted. Tony melted down a Fairy Liquid soap bottle, shaped the plastic into thimbles with a soldering iron, covered them with leather from an old jacket. He switched to lighter banjo strings. Tuned his guitar lower to ease the pressure on his damaged fingers. That lower, darker, heavier sound — no one had heard anything like it before. It became Black Sabbath. It became heavy metal.
Tony Iommi and the Day a Factory Accident Changed Music Forever In Birmingham in 1965, Tony Iommi was just 17…