This Is What Happened To Tony Iommi's Fingers

Back before Tony Iommi was of Black Sabbath fame, he was simply Tony Iommi, the regular guy who played some guitar and worked as an industrial welder. Not the most glamorous career, but a necessary one. In 2017, just before the Loudwire Music Awards, Iommi spoke to the Musician's Institute and described his previous working

Back before Tony Iommi was of Black Sabbath fame, he was simply Tony Iommi, the regular guy who played some guitar and worked as an industrial welder. Not the most glamorous career, but a necessary one. In 2017, just before the Loudwire Music Awards, Iommi spoke to the Musician's Institute and described his previous working life: "I'd be on a line and they'd pass stuff down to me and I'd weld it, and then it'd go on to somewhere else" (found via Loudwire).

With all industrial jobs, there's a risk of injury or, you know, dismemberment, especially when a worker is moved to fill in on equipment with which they aren't familiar. Such was the case with Iommi. "One day, the person that would be sending me the thing to weld never turned up, so they put me on this giant, huge press — a guillotine-type press. I don't know what happened, I must have pushed my hand in. Bang! It came down." And, with that fateful chop, the future metal guitar star lost the tips of his right-hand ring and middle fingers.

To sum it up: Iommi lost the tips of his fingers while working with metal before becoming famous for playing metal, which is in itself utterly metal. What's even more metal? Turning tragedy into victory by creating your own fingers — the ones Iommi used to become one of history's greatest guitar players.

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