"WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE A LEGEND?"

On December 4 and 5, 1997, Black Sabbath's original lineup reunited for a pair of hometown shows at Birmingham's NEC Arena. There had been a handful of fleeting reunions in the 18 years since Ozzy Osbourne had been booted out of the band, including a sluggish appearance at the US leg of Live Aid in which they had the air of a band who had drunk their hotel bar dry the night before (it turned out they had), and a four-song set in Costa Mesa, California in 1992 to mark Ozzy's farewell show (we all know how that turned out).

- Words: Dave Everley

But those two nights in Birmingham were the first proper shows Aston's own Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse had played together since 1979. To this day they're hands-down the two most joyous gigs I've ever seen - hometown heroes bringing it, well, back to the beginning.

So when the magazine I was working for at the time asked if I wanted to travel to the remote Monnow Valley studio in Wales to interview the whole band ahead of their appearance at the inaugural UK Ozzfest the following summer, the answer was clearly “Yes”. All four members would be there, and I'd be interviewing them in pairs: Tony and Bill, Geezer and Ozzy.

Full disclosure: I was slightly nervous. Not of the Double O, but of Tony Iommi and his air of glowering, moustachio'd malevolence. But then, as now, the guitarist turned out to be the model of friendliness. If only the same could be said of the singer.