Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi Says Hard Rock Cafe Won’t Give His Cherished Guitar Back

In a new interview with Guitar World, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi voiced his frustration with the Hard Rock Cafe because the company won’t return his 1964 Gibson “Monkey” SG Special guitar to him. Iommi used that guitar on the early Black Sabbath albums, and the metal legend claims that the original deal gave him the option to buy it back at any time. “I’d retired the Monkey SG because it was too valuable to me; I didn’t want to take it on the road and risk it getting damaged,” Iommi recalls. Hard Rock offered to buy it from Iommi, which “seemed like a good idea because the guitar could be displayed for people to see and kept safe, instead of sitting in a case somewhere in my storage.” The arrangement has been complicated because the man Iommi made the original deal with has passed away. “We tried to get in touch with Hard Rock to get it back and they knew nothing about the deal,” Iommi says. (Consequence of Sound)