An interview with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, in which he explains how a gruesome machinery accident led him toward the sound that would become the foundation of heavy metal, has been animated by VH1. The clip, The Complete History of Heavy Metal: Fingers Bloody Fingers, shows how the Birmingham, England native made the most of a bad situation.
In the clip, Iommi explains how had been welding, but grew infatuated with making music, playing guitar and accordion. When a band he was playing in wanted to tour Europe, he decided he’d take the rest of the day off from welding, but his mother sent him back to finish off the day. “They put me on a huge machine, a massive thing, and I didn’t know how to work it,” he said. “As I was pushing the metal into the machine, it came down with such a force and bang, it just chopped my fingers. There was blood going all over the place.”
