10 Albums With Creepy Recording Stories
2. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath
From the time they started with their debut album, Black Sabbath seemed to be an unprecedented hard rock machine. With each passing record, it seemed like nothing could stop Tony Iommi from coming up with some of the scariest riffs ever conceived. That is...until this record.
Finally coming up empty, the band decided they needed to go off to write and set up shop in the famous Clearwell Castle, where bands like Deep Purple and Genesis had rehearsed. The initial start began in earnest as the Gothic architecture complimented Sabbath's sound to a tee.
When Iommi was scoping out the facilities with Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler, the band found a cloaked figure walking the grounds only to find that he'd disappeared into thin air. Upon consulting the grounds manager, the band was informed that it was just simply the Castle's ghost.
Clearly spooked by their mysterious visitor, the band quickly vacated the premises, but not before Iommi came up with the title track for their next record, whose riff revitalized Sabbath's heaviness instantaneously. At a time where they could have fallen into obscurity, Sabbath sauntered into the darkest realms of the English countryside and found their groove as heavy metal fore bearers once again.