Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi praises Metallica in an interview

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi was under the spotlight again, this time praising Metallica while claiming rock is not dead yet.

Tony Iommi claiming that Metallica is not going to go away soon, he said good music will forever be there. To give some context, those remarks of Iommi are in response to KISS bassist Gene Simmons, who said the rock was dead. The bassist has defended that idea for a pretty long time, and he has remarked it again in a recent interview.

However, Tony Iommi does not seem to agree with KISS’s bassist.

Tony Iommi has recently talked to Consequence of Sound about the future of rock music.

Gene Simmons says “rock is dead”, which is then responded to by Tony Iommi:

“The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered…

That kid living in his mom’s basement, decided one day that he didn’t want to pay for music. He wanted to download and file share.

And that’s what killed the chances for the next generation of great bands. The fact that the music was for free. So nowadays new bands don’t have a chance.”

After that, Simmons went on to imply we haven’t seen a new rock sensation ever since The Beatles’ time.

“The point is, yeah, rock is dead because if we play the game from 1958 until 1988, which is 30 years, you had Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, Pink Floyd, and on and on and on. And you can go to the heavy part of it, which is Metallica, Maiden, if you want to put KISS in there, that’s fine.  AC/DC, on and on and on. Even U2, Prince, Bowie, Eagles.

And then you get to disco stuff, and Madonna, and that stuff, and Motown, of course. And then from 1988 until today, who’s the new Beatles?”

Tony Iommi says rock is not dead, praising Metallica and good music

The guitarist of Black Sabbath disagreed with Gene Simmons and revealed his thoughts in a kind and sensible manner. Iommi highlighted that the phrase “Rock is dead” was said for years, and that did not turn out to be the case.

“I don’t think rock is going to die. That’s been said for years. I mean, how many times I’ve heard that statement over the past 50-odd years? It’s quite a lot, really.

I think good music is not going to go. There’s always going to be a market for it. There are going to be a number of bands that fall by the wayside – as there always is, there always will be.”

After laying the ground for his argument, Tony Iommi praised legendary Metallica, who he claimed is “not going to go away.”

“But there are certain bands that are going to stick out and going to be there. You’ve got Metallica up there – they’re not going to go away. They’ve got a lot of fans and they’ve got a great fanbase. There are a lot of bands out there. No, the music is not going to go away.”