On Friday the 13th of February, 1970, Black Sabbath went on sale.

I felt like I’d just been born. But the critics f***ing hated it.

Of all the bad reviews of Black Sabbath, the worst was probably written by Lester Bangs at Rolling Stone. But y’know what? Being trashed by Rolling Stone was kind of cool, because they were the Establishment. Those music magazines were all staffed by college kids who thought they were clever — which, to be fair, they probably were.

Meanwhile, we’d been kicked out of school at 15 and had worked in factories for a living, but then we’d made something of ourselves. So how upset could we be? The important thing was someone thought we were good, ’cos Black Sabbath went straight to No 8 in Britain and No 23 in America.

My old man wasn’t too impressed with our first album, either. I’ll always remember the day I took it home and said: “Look, dad! I got my voice on a record!”

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