Published: May 21, 2025
"Born Again" was the only album SABBATH recorded with Gillan
In a new interview with Igor Miranda of Rolling Stone Brasil, Ian Gillan spoke about Tony Iommi's plans to remix BLACK SABBATH's "Born Again" album for future release.
Issued in August 1983, "Born Again" was the only album SABBATH recorded with Gillan, best known for his work as the singer with DEEP PURPLE. It was also the last of SABBATH's studio albums to feature drummer Bill Ward.
Ian told Rolling Stone Brasil: "I think the songs [on 'Born Again'] are great. I just thought it was ridiculous — the mix was outrageous… All you could hear — if you ever saw the movie '[This Is] Spinal Tap', then that's the story of 'Born Again'. The bass level was so high, they couldn't play it on the radio. So they're gonna remix it. It's a bit late, but, yeah, probably for aficionados or collectors or whatever — I don't know. But there are some songs on there that I really, really think are great.
"It's always a joy to write with Tony," Ian continued. "And we certainly had some fun making the record… It was quite a fantastic time, and I enjoyed the tour. It was the longest party I've ever been to. It lasted one year.
"I think the album is actually great," Gillan added. "I always thought, we always recognized the fact that Ozzy's [Osbourne] the singer with BLACK SABBATH, and people identify with that. So it was a kind of a weird hybrid kind of situation. But all in all, thank God they're gonna remix it."
Gillan went on to describe the making of "Born Again" as "a challenge for me. It was a bit like doing [Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera] 'Jesus Christ Superstar' or singing with [opera singer Luciano] Pavarotti; it's just something completely different," he explained. "But Tony is such a great writer. You know what to expect with Tony. There's no multidirectional approach. He is the father of everything that came out of Seattle, I believe. He's just very direct, and that's how he evolved from the early days.
"I found it very easy to sing and write songs with [Tony]," Ian continued. "And we had a couple of good ones. There was always a narrative. My favorite song from that album is 'Trashed', which was a true story about a racetrack and too much drink and spinning a car and crashing it and going upside down. It was exciting times."
The second track on "Born Again" was a brief instrumental called "Stonehenge", and on SABBATH's 1983 tour, the band hilariously had to shelve a Stonehenge stage concept because the scenery was much too big to use.
"We had a production company called Light And Sound Design; they were in Birmingham, where the band was based," Gillan recalled. "And after rehearsal one day, we had a kind of meeting to go the office, and as we were walking through these corridors, one of the guys said, 'By the way, anyone got any idea of a concept for a stage set or anything?' And Geezer Butler said, 'Yeah. Stonehenge.' And the guy said, 'Wow! That's great.' He said, 'How do you visualize it?' And Geezer said, 'Well, lifesize, of course.' We didn't quite go lifesize, but it was about two-thirds. And we could never get it all up on a stage. We played some huge arenas, and places, stadiums, and you couldn't get it [up there]. So there are parts of it, there are monoliths that are all lying around in docklands somewhere and are spotted around the world, as far as I know."
A longtime treasure among hardcore SABBATH fans, "Born Again" was re-released in the spring of 2011 as a special two-CD set featuring a 1983 live performance from the Reading Festival.
At the time of its initial release, "Born Again" was a commercial success. It was the highest-charting BLACK SABBATH album in the United Kingdom since "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and became an American Top 40 hit. Despite this, it became the first BLACK SABBATH album to not have any RIAA certification (gold or platinum) in the U.S.
