Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has released “Scent Of Dark,” his first musical composition since writing a classical piece for the Birmingham Cathedral in 2017 and his first rock song since Sabbath’s 13 album in 2013.
To coincide with “Scent Of Dark”‘s arrival, Iommi has announced that he will also release a fragrance, designed in collaboration with luxury Italian perfume house Xerjoff and Sergio Momo.
Written by Iommi, “Scent Of Dark” features Tony alongside Momo on guitar, Jimmy Crutchley on bass, Ash Sheehan on drums, Rebecca Rose on cello and Julianne Bourne on the violin.
“I’ve had the riff for quite a while and I’d never done anything with it,” Iommi commented, “but it gave us a base to start from. We built up the track with programmed drums at first and then Mike Exeter demoed bass and keyboards on it, and I added my guitar solos, just to give us an idea of how it was going to sound. Then we added the strings. I’d worked with string sections on Sabbath albums before, but this was a whole new experience.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Iommi spoke in more detail about how “Scent Of Dark” came together. “I’ve recorded a lot of riffs and tracks [in recent years] with Mike Exeter,” he said. “And with this one, I couldn’t imagine who would sing on it; it just seemed ideal to put it down as an instrumental. I’ve had the main part for a while, and I just added some new parts to it. Then I added these other gloomier riffs to make it blend in with this perfume idea. I really liked the idea of using some violins and cellos and stuff, and so we did on this track.”
As for Iommi’s involvement in the aforementioned fragrance, he said that it was the result of his friendship with Momo. “It’s something I’ve always been interested in, ever since the early days of products like Brut and Old Spice, which I’d always get given for Christmas,” Iommi said. “Once I started touring the world with Sabbath though, I started discovering different sorts of fragrances from other countries and began collecting them. I met Sergio through another friend of mine, and Sergio kindly sent me a box of his fragrances and asked if I’d be interested in creating my own, which I certainly wasn’t expecting. Sergio suggested I come up with a list of things I like the smell of. He developed some different samples made up from my suggestions and I picked the one I like.”
Iommi’s signature scent will be available from November 29 from selected retailers or the official Xerjoff web site.
This post first appeared on Rock Confidential.
Tony Iommi Releases New Song, “Scent Of Dark”
