Did Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler put a curse on a thief who stole Tony Iommi’s guitar?

06.14.2019
07:55 am
Topics:
Amusing
Crime
Music
Tags:
Black Sabbath
1980s
Tony Iommi
Geezer Butler

Tony Iommi circa 1980 alongside his SG Custom guitar with crosses on the neck made by luthier John Birch.

Cocaine was the most popular party favor during the 1980s. In light of this, it’s reasonable to think that cocaine might have helped fuel a strange article edited by a journalist going by the name of Andrew Epstein, published in the December 1980 issue of Record Review magazine. In a feature called “Bits & Pieces,” Epstein relays a story regarding the alleged theft of Tony Iommi’s prized SG Custom guitar with a 24-fret neck with cross inlays made in 1975 by luthier John Birch who has also made instruments for Iommi’s bandmate, Geezer Butler. The guitar is significant for several reasons including the fact it was the primary guitar Iommi used on the albums Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules. Iommi used this SG heavily in live performances during this time period and fans would get to eyeball the machine, synonymous with the guitarist himself. Now that we have established the importance of this mighty axe, let’s get back to the maybe true story of how some lunkhead thought it would be cool to lift Iommi’s iconic guitar from Black Sabbath’s equipment van during, what I can only presume based on the “facts” in Epstein’s piece, the U.S. leg of the Heaven and Hell Tour.

In the article, it’s noted that the guitar was stolen while the band was in Chicago—this would mean (according to Sabbath’s tour schedule for 1980) this was when the band played the International Amphitheater on August 18th. This is also where the article starts to sound like Black Sabbath fanfiction.

Iommi and his John Birch 1975 SG Custom.

The story goes on to dramatically describe how Iommi mourned for his sweet SG until it was returned to him on a “cold, moonlit night” with a note attached. The note was not-so-shockingly from the “thief” who felt the need to return the guitar to Iommi after his life was turned upside down (and not in a good way) after he had lifted the instrument. The thief describes how his life has become one of “unending misery,” which culminated with a traffic accident which sent him to the hospital. Here are more alleged words from Iommi’s guitar grabber:

“Take it, take this cursed thing from my life so that I may never see it again.”

After reuniting with his SG, Tony’s guitar would be stolen again in Dallas—this would have been at the Convention Center Arena, though a quick review of Sabbath’s tour schedule, it would appear Epstein might have gotten his dates confused as Sabbath stopped in Dallas on July 5th, 1980, and then hit up Chicago on August 18th. The distinct possibility Epstein transposed locations does give this bit of magazine mythology some legs—until we get to the part where it reports that Geezer Butler put a “hex” on the second thief who likely only existed in Andrew Epstein’s imagination. Here’s the “warning” issued by Iommi to the thief:

“I know there are a lot of people who won’t believe this, but I’m very concerned about the person who has stolen the guitar. It’s bad luck for anyone other than me to have that axe, and I don’t want anything terrible to happen.”

After spending entirely too much time looking into this, I could find no reference anywhere to back any of this up except for other instances of guitars belonging to Iommi being stolen in the past—specifically his red Iommi SG at a Ronnie James Dio tribute in 2010. In addition, in an interview with Vintage Guitar in 2007, Iommi said some of his old original guitars were stolen “many years ago” including two white, left-handed three-pickup SG Customs with gold pickups and a special tremolo used to record the song “Paranoid.” Speaking of paranoia, Iommi became so anxious about his most-loved guitar “Old Boy” (built by luthier John Diggins) that he stopped bringing the fabled guitar on tour more than twelve years ago.

While there’s nothing not to like about the notion of Geezer Butler having the ability to put a hex on people who steal musical equipment—because gear thieves are the WORST, it sadly appears there is no way to back up Mr. Epstein’s tale of these Sabbath guitar snatchers. To make up for that, posted below is some sweet high-quality footage from 1980 of Iommi playing his mythical black John Birch-crafted SG Custom performing “Heaven and Hell” with Black Sabbath at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York 1980.

A ticket stub for Sabbath’s July 5th show in Dallas.

The Record Review piece from 1980.