Black Sabbath is riding the wave of success as their album, 13 debuted at #1 in many countries, including US and UK and this week it's still in the top 5 on the US charts. The band is still in full promo mode, and bassist Geezer Bulter revealed an interesting tidbit recently. He wanted to name the band's first single, which eventually was christened "God Is Dead?," "American Jihad."
Ozzy: "I was in a doctor's office and there was a magazine in there with that line on the cover. I thought, 'Yeah — people flew planes into the World Trade Center because of God, there's all this f*cking sh*t going on in the world in the name of God.'"
Geezer: "Ozzy gave me that line, and I wrote the lyrics. I wanted to call the song 'American Jihad'."
Ozzy: "F*ck that. [laughs] I'm the guy at the front singing it; I would have had a f*cking army after me. 'And now we're gonna play… 'American Jihad' [makes gun sound, mimes slumping down dead]. I'm not worried about assassination, I just hope that if it happens, the bloke's a good shot and I don't feel any pain. [laughs] In the early days [of Black Sabbath], there was a lot of backlash from religious groups. I remember once in Memphis there was knock on my hotel room, and there were all these [Christian] kids outside with candles burning. I beckoned them towards me, and just went: [sings] 'Happy birthday to you!' I was sent letters written in blood. In my house I must have 25 f*cking Bibles, each with a marked-up passage that [the sender] wanted me to read."
I imagine there would be a lot of backlash against the band with calling their lead single "American Jihad" so perhaps it was the best choice.
Of course, other bands have had no problem using Jihad in their song titles, most famouly, Slayer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZUGa1R5LSs[/youtube]
[Shortlist via Blabbermouth]
