An Important Lesson Scott Holiday Of The Rival Sons Learned From Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi
During a recent conversation with guitarist Scott Holiday of the Rival Sons, he spoke about touring with Black Sabbath and being able to watch Tony Iommi each night. It’s always interesting to see what “younger guns” can learn from the legends, even if it’s not being told to them.
The band was lucky enough to tour with the metal icons for over a year, so Scott must’ve learned something from the great, right? Oh, he did!
Scott Holiday On Tony Iommi
“So Tony was really kind and a profound friendship to make and something to watch for 13 months regularly stand behind him, three feet behind him, and watch him play those sets. And I learned something really important from those shows and from him specifically about not phoning in gigs, which I don’t do. But I figured maybe you get older and you do, maybe that’s okay.” Scott went on to speak about how Tony played with passion each night. “I watched him night after night after night. Never, not one single time phoning a gig again and put every ounce of himself into it and play it with all of his. All of his shuck, the all of his energy that he could put into it. And frankly, man, for a guitar player and someone in this business, I found it completely moving night after night. It was something to behold and I just felt like that’s cool. It was not only moving because it’s Tony Iommi and those guitar parts, but this is an older guy, grandpa, that it didn’t go away for him and for me, that that’s my job. Similarly, watching it going, maybe it’ll never go away. Maybe I’ll be able to engage like that for the rest of my life. And for me, that’s a moving idea, a moving thought”
I relayed how I had seen Faster Pussycat this summer, and felt the same way. It looked like they were genuinely having a great time playing their music live. Scott “I like that. And that’s how it should be. And I think maybe as professional musicians or musician, it’s almost fearful because it’s so much you get so much joy from it and it brings people so much joy. I think maybe we, each of us, may have a subtle fear like, is that is that Wayne? Is that leave? Like, does the power of that leave the people or does the power of that leave me? And when I hear stories like that about a band, you know, like Faster Pussycat. Yes, man, that’s cool. That’s how it should be!”
Scott said he still loves taking the stage and playing live “Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I love the guys I play with. We have a lot of fun. We’re exploratory on stage every single night. We change things up every single night. Even if the set remains the same within the set, there’s always freedom and improvisation and there’s going to be something different about every single night. And the audiences are all very different, yet still the same. And being free. And it’s a great opportunity to make people feel good. It’s a great job, man. My job is to get on stage and I do the best I can, put light in people’s hearts, help them get free, help them forget about the things that separate us, help them remember about the things that connect us, that make us the same. And the people that are divided politically or religiously, or just on social issues or anything. We forget. We sing the same song together, we dance, we laugh together. Some of them will drink together. And that’s a bigger job than just playing a rock show, you know what I mean? Making money or whatever. And I see the real job. I see the real job that we’re doing out here. And this makes it great every night.”
That’s a lesson well learned, one that every performing artist should take in.
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