Tony Iommi told Eddie Van Halen: 'You're doing it wrong'

Tony Iommi: Hard Rock Cafe didn’t return his guitar

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Tony Iommiguitarist of Black Sabbathrevealed that he had sold a Custom Gibson “Monkey” SG al franchising of the restaurant Hard Rockon whose walls are collected memorabilia from rock artists.

When the guitar was sold, the option of being able to buy it back at the same price if the old owner wanted was introduced. In the end, however, the agreement was not respected due to unseemly “ignorance” (intended in the sense of lack of knowledge).

“The guy who bought Hard Rock memorabilia came to England to visit me,” recalls Iommi (also in the interview with Guitar.com). “He wanted to buy some of my stuff and I told him it was fine. I had put the Monkey SG aside because it was too precious to me; I didn’t want to carry it around and risk it getting damaged.” The guitarist says he wanted to part with the instrument because it would be more appreciated in a museum-like display than if it had been gathering dust in a case.

“The deal was that if I wanted it back, I could let him know and buy the instrument back for the same price,” he adds. “It seemed pretty fair to me, a good deal.”

A few years ago, Iommi attempted to invoke the buyback clause in the Hard Rock deal and have the SG returned to him. Unfortunately, however, the person who had purchased the guitar had passed away and the other people contacted by the musician had no idea of ​​the original terms.

“Anyway, he passed away, and that was it,” says the former Black Sabbath man. “We tried to contact Hard Rock to get it back, but they didn’t know anything about the deal.” The instrument was never formally returned to Iommi but, in 2020, Hard Rock allowed the guitarist to take it back for a short time so that Gibson could make a new signature model.

But even today the guitar that Iommi played on the first “four or five” Black Sabbath albums (as he declared in 2020 to “Guitarist” is still in the possession of the restaurant franchise.