Time online recently conducted interview with Tony Iommi. The scripts are as followed:

Times Online : What was the turning point in your guitar career?

Iommi : Before BLACK SABBATH I used to work in a sheet metal factory. One day as I put my hand in this press, it slammed down and capped my fingers. I pulled my hand back, which pulled the ends off. I didn't think I'd play again. I was so upset. Later, a manager bought me a record by Django Reinhardt [three-fingered jazz icon] and that's what really got me into playing again.

Times Online : How did the accident affect your playing?

Iommi : It absolutely changed my style. I had to find different ways of playing chords and making them sound big. The hospital advised me to stop playing but I wouldn't accept that, so I had to devise a way of playing comfortably. I made these thimbles out of a Fairy Liquid bottle I'd melted down and shaped around my fingers. It was a bit of a crude method but it worked for me.

Times Online : You were also briefly in JETHRO TULL . What did that teach you?

Iommi : What I learnt was to have a bit more authority and discipline. So after that I laid this regime down with SABBATH , to start rehearsals at 10 in the morning. Ozzy and the others were like "Eh?!"

Times Online : Was there much competition in those days between bands?

Iommi : There was a lot of competing in those days. I remember making a point of going to see Clapton , and Ian Anderson [ JETHRO TULL lead singer] saying to me: "Well, what do you think of your hero now, then?" So obviously Clapton didn't impress him very much!

Times Online : Didn't the increasing excess break down the discipline?

Iommi : As the albums went on we were going to exotic places to record and, or course, the drug influence came in. After the release of "Vol. IV" , we went to L.A. to record the next. That was when I had writer's block and we were around all the drug dealers under the sun. It was just disastrous.

Times Online : So the setting affected the recording?

Iommi : After the L.A. experience, we packed up, went to a castle in Wales and set up all the gear in the dungeons. Everything started happening again.

Times Online : Do you have many riffs that you never used?

Iommi : I've got bloody cupboards full. It's only in the past year that I've given the guy who works for me the horrible job of transferring the ones on cassette from years ago on to CD. He was absolutely thrilled about that.

Times Online : Any advice for an aspiring heavy-rock guitarist?

Iommi : Get a lawyer! Seriously, though, don't follow trends. Believe in what you're doing and stick to it.

German legendary thrash metal band, Destruction announced their exclusive plans offering local bands a chance to open on every night of their upcoming " Thrash Till Death Over North America" tour with SADUS and MUNICIPAL WASTE .

The following are tour dates and schedule:

Jan. 20 - Seattle, WA @ The Showbox *
Jan. 26 - Denver, CO @ Hubba's House of rock
Jan. 28 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
Jan. 30 - Sauget, Il @ Pop's
Feb. 01 - Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
Feb. 02 - Montreal, QC @ Foufounes Electriques
Feb. 03 - Quebec City, QC @ L' Imperial
Feb. 04 - Boston, MA @ The Middle East Club
Feb. 06 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Uniterian Church
Feb. 07 - Springfield, WV @ Jaxx
Feb. 15 - San Antonio, TX @ White Rabbitt

* Seattle Metalfest ( DESTRUCTION only)

Destruction also was scheduled to record their new album "Best of Classix" last month which will due in early next year.

The band also mentioned about their new album that " As it's really difficult to get the old records those days and to avoid a 'best of album' with only old recordings in rather poor quality, we've have chosen the solution to re-record many of the '80s classix, including one or two tunes of the 'Crack Brained' album (where Schmier wasn't singing!!!). It's great fun to pick and rehearse the old songs at the moment. With a powerful sound and the brutal energy that the band delivers nowadays, there is no doubt that this will fuckin' shred!".

Source Destruction

Natalie Nichols of Los Angeles CityBeat recently conducted an interview with AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry . Some scripts are

Los Angeles CityBeat : AEROSMITH began in the classic rock era, but you have also found popularity in more recent years. Do those audiences mix easily?

Perry : Not too many fistfights. Clearly, drinking is one of the things they have in common. There is a commonality all through it. We noticed this a lot in the '90s, but back then it wasn't hip to like bands like ours that were big in the '80s. When alternative came in, it was hip to not like those MTV bands, and that gave them a place to move away from. That happens every two or three years: out with the old, in with the new.

Los Angeles CityBeat : The blues seemed to be at the core of the classic rock generation.

Perry : There is the famous quote from MUDDY WATERS : "The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll." The birthing was right around the '50s, with CHUCK BERRY and LITTLE RICHARD . The list is pretty long, but those few people just played blues faster, and the vernacular just expanded from there. All of the pop music that we hear now has its roots in the blues — it's just farther from the birth, that's all. Even hip-hop is an absolute direct descendent of the blues. It's urban street-corner, tell-it-like-it-is, "I'm a man" kind of music. And it's danceable. That's what blues was.

Los Angeles CityBeat : Aside from the music itself, classic rock continues to influence the fashion and attitude of a lot of contemporary musicians.

Perry : People get into rock and roll for different reasons. There are some bands that just like the trappings of being in a rock band. And those are the ones that come and go, because they don't have real depth. For me, the big part of it was playing music. I just love the way it makes me feel. On top of that, there is the camaraderie of having a band around you, guys you can rely on. It's your small gang. Our primary cause was to make music as well as we could, but also we wanted some adventure. So along with that is being able to dress how you want and emulate some of the people that have gone before us and then gather your own thing. It's all part of that rock and roll tradition to make yourself stand out a little bit.

Los Angeles CityBeat : People used compare AEROSMITH a lot to THE ROLLING STONES . Was that fair?

Perry : It used to annoy us because we really didn't sound much like the STONES . We certainly admired and were inspired by the STONES , no doubt about it. After that, I felt it was a shallow comparison because that whole guitar player/lead singer stereotype was really starting to form. But I was prouder when people said we reminded them of THE YARDBIRDS . Their music was lot more like where we were coming from.

Read the whole interview here.