“If you don’t have a sense of humour when you’re in a band, you end up like f**king Emerson, Lake and Palmer, making eight-disc LPs so you can all have your own three-hour f**king solos.And who wants to listen to that bollocks?”

“Mind you, no one who lives in the real world spends the whole time going around saying, ‘Oh yes,darling, I understand, let’s talk about our “feelings”, lah-dee-f**king-dah.’ People who say they’ve never had a cross word are living on another f**king planet.”

“Taking five or ten or fifteen years to make an album, like Guns N’ Roses did, is just f**king ridiculous, end of story. By that time, your career’s died, been resurrected, and then died again.”

“Mind you, it’s all bullshit with wine, isn’t it? It’s just f**king vinegar with a fizz, no matter what the tasters say.”

“‘And what about a [band] name?’ said Tony [Iommi]. The three of us looked at each other.‘We should all take a couple of days to think about it,’ I said. ‘I dunno about you two, but I’ve got a special place where I go to get ideas for important stuff like this. It’s never failed me yet.’Forty-eight hours later I blurted out: ‘I’ve got it!’‘Must have been that dodgy bird you poked the other night,’ said Geezer. ‘Has your whelk turned green yet?’ Tony and Bill snickered into their plates of egg and chips. We were sitting in a greasy spoon caff in Aston. So far, everyone was getting along famously.‘Very funny, Geezer,’ I said, waving an eggy fork at him. ‘I mean the name for our band.’The snickering died down.‘Go on then,’ said Tony [Iommi].‘Well, I was on the shitter last night, and...'‘That’s your special place?’ spluttered Bill, blobs of mushed-up egg and HP sauce flying out of his mouth.‘Where the f**k did you think it was, Bill?’ I said. ‘The hanging gardens of f**king Babylon?”

“The music business is like any other business, y’know? When sales are going well, everything’s hunky-f**king-dory. But the second something goes wrong, it’s all blood and law-suits.”

“Never in a million years did I think I’d end up making a career out of singing. I didn’t think it was possible. As far as I knew, the only way I could make any dough was to go and work in a factory, like everyone else in Aston.Or rob a f**king bank.”