Primal grunters: Therapy? were more than happy to meet their heroes
“The first song I learned to play was N.I.B on piano, about aged 11. Next thing, it was: we have to get guitars! Me and my two brothers later formed a garage band called Evil Priest, the most blasphemous name we could think of. Growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland, all ex-altar boys, that’s just the stuffyou get into. I was born in 1971, so we were into 80s black and deathmetal, but soon worked our way backwards and Sabbathwere obviously so important in that. It was like a punkrock moment: we can do this. Something like early-80s Duran Duran, ornate pop music, we could never have done. A primal grunt from Birmingham seemed manageable!
“Therapy? got to play on the [1994] tribute album Nativity In Black. I heard that Ozzy’s management spoke to ours because apparently, he wanted to do it. I was also excited by the idea of the album, withthe new generation of bands like Sepultura and Machine Head paying tribute to Sabbath. We were busy back at that time, touring Troublegum… so scheduling was difficult. We rehearsed in Helsinki, flew back to London and recorded the track. Our drummer was not as well rehearsed as possible, there was a bit of bravado; ‘ahh, it’s only heavy metal!’ But it’s not. It’s Bill Ward! We did the backing OK, me and Andy Cairns, did some vocals, and we flew offback on tour.