Tom Morello had the massive undertaking of curating the musical performances during Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning concert — essentially a day-long fest featuring the greatest heavy metal acts on the planet, including the final performances by Ozzy and Sabbath. In a new interview with Los Angeles’ KLOS-FM, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist discussed his year-long booking work as music director, which was a role assigned to him by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne themselves.
“Well, I suppose the biggest challenge was just doing it justice,” Morello told host Full Metal Jackie [as transcribed by Blabbermouth]. “Heavy metal is the music that made me love music, and Black Sabbath invented heavy metal. So when I was tapped by Ozzy and Sharon to be the musical director, I took it really, really seriously and used all of my love of the genre and curatorial abilities to try to make something that was… The goal was very, very simple from the beginning: to make it the greatest and most important day in the history of heavy metal, and all reports are that we did pretty well.”
When asked if he got to interact with Ozzy and Black Sabbath on that hectic day, Morello replied in the affirmative, though even Ozzy’s right-hand axeman Zakk Wylde couldn’t get a spare moment with the Prince of Darkness.
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“Yeah,” said Morello, “the good, nice news is throughout this process I’ve been able to be in communication with Ozzy and with Tony Iommi and those guys, and it’s really pretty mind-blowing. I’ve never stopped being a fan from day one … So, I got to be able to tell them and be able to really do my best and, over the course of the last year plus, give everything I had to try to make this show an important day for them in their hometown, but also an important day for all of the bands, all of the fans who have been touched by their music over the course of more than 50 years.”
As far as Morello’s favorite moments from the concert, the guitarist said Steven Tyler and Ronnie Wood’s medley of “The Train Kept-A-Rollin” into “Walk This Way” and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” was “pretty excellent,” and he called Yungblud’s version of Sabbath’s “Changes” was a “real showstopper.” Morello also took the stage himself, playing with former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing and performing alongside Billy Corgan and Tool’s Adam Jones.
“One of the ideas I had early on was that each of the bands would play at least one Sabbath or Ozzy song, and it was basically like watching 14 of the greatest Sabbath and Ozzy tribute bands of all time play with some of my favorite singers and guitar players in them,” Morello explained. “While the day itself, honestly, was a little stressful for me, ’cause I was still working throughout the 10-hour day, it was really, really pretty fantastic.”
Stream the full interview with Morello below.