As we reported just a few days ago, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has launched his second cologne, called Deified, with an Italian fragrance company called Xerjoff, which happens to be an anagram of Jerxoff, so that’s what I’m going to be calling them. This is the second cologne that Iommi put out with the Jerxoff company, the first one being Scent of Dark, which was accompanied by the release of a Tony Iommi solo track of the same name. This meant that there was a good chance that Deified would be accompanied by some new music, and apparently the official “Deified” soundtrack and video is due out on Friday at 4 p.m. BST.
Jerxoff released a video (which was transcribed by Blabbermouth) in which Iommi and Sergio Momo, Jerxoff’s CEO and co-founder, sat down with Julian Marszalek and Suzy Nightingale—in a studio that looks like a public access TV show for goths and BDSM enthusiasts—to talk about the new song, video, and fragrance. Here’s what Iommi had to say about writing the song “Deified”:
In 2020, when the world was on Covid lockdown, Iommi befriended Sergio Momo, the founder and creative manager of Xerjoff, after Momo asked the guitarist to play on a charity track. Unfortunately, Iommi couldn’t do it at the time, but Momo nevertheless sent him a box of perfumes as a thank you for considering it. Iommi phoned him up to say thanks and eventually Momo asked, “Would you be interested in doing your own perfume?” “I went, ‘Oh, that’s amazing,’ ” Iommi says. “I had to write down all the different smells that I like, and then he built perfume from that.” Within a few months, Iommi had both a new scent and a new song.
“Sergio also loves music, and he plays guitar,” Iommi says. “He said, ‘What about doing a tune for the scent?’ And we thought it best to do an instrumental as opposed a having a vocalist and going through all that. So I had this idea and I played it to him, and he liked it, and then I just added more parts to it to make it what it was.”
The pair wound up recording “Scent Of Dark,” the first musical composition Iommi has released since writing a classical piece for the Birmingham Cathedral in 2017 and first rock song since Black Sabbath’s 2013 album 13. The track bears all the hallmarks of Iommi’s signature style – a murky, mystical intro; heavy, swaggering riffs; and, of course, a bluesy, lyrical guitar solo – though with a little more drama than usual, thanks to accents from some orchestral string players. Momo, who plays an Iommi signature model guitar, takes the first solo on the song, while Jimmy Crutchley (who introduced Iommi to Momo) plays bass, Ash Sheehan handles the drums, and Iommi’s longtime producer Mike Exeter plays keyboards; Rebecca Rose and Julianne Bourne play cello and violin, respectively. The musicians filmed the song’s clip, which features copious cologne imagery, at Sudeley Castle near Gloucestershire, England.
“The only trouble is, when I was outside filming, I had an audience,” Iommi says during an interview in which he also discussed his future music plans. “All the people that go around viewing the castle were standing there watching me, looking like, ‘What’s he doing? Oh, dear.’”
An official “Deified” soundtrack and video will be unveiled this Friday, July 26 at 5 PM, CET / 11, AM, EST. In the new video below, Tony Iommi and Sergio Momo chat in an exclusive interview about “Deified” – the new track, perfume and music video, with Julian Marszalek and Suzy Nightingale.
