James Hetfield Crowns Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi the "Riff Lord"

Metallica ‘s James Hetfield praised Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi on the most recent episode of “James Hetfield’s Riff Life” on SiriusXM.

“James Hetfield’s Riff Life” is a show on SiriusXM’s Maximum Metallica channel where Hetfield discusses riffs, records, and artists that inspired him throughout his career.

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He said of the legendary guitar player, “Tony Iommi is the riff lord, in my mind, and he is the one that has inspired me the most out of any guitar player for my rhythm guitar playing and songwriting.”

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Hetfield continued by saying, “Yeah, the ‘Children of the Grave’ riff — obviously, Tony is the riff lord and everyone starts the song together on the one riff…. Basically, Tony plays off that riff, goes in to hit the big giant chords, which opens the song up. I really love the drum overdub that they did to help with that percussion of the riff and the real cool ghostly guitar sounds at the very, very end.”

This is far from the first time Hetfield has praised Iommi. He inducted Black Sabbath into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 where he nearly broke into tears at the podium discussing their impact on him. Metallica also performed a brief set at the Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath event “Back to the Beginning” honoring the band and Iommi’s classic riffs.

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Metallica will be performing a 24-night residency at the Las Vegas Sphere starting this October and running until March of 2027, only broken up by two special 25th anniversary shows for the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Metallica will also be hitting the road in North America for a new leg of their ongoing “M72 World Tour” beginning in May 2027. Get tickets here .

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_Originally reported by [Consequence](https://consequence.net/2026/09/metallica-james-hetfield-tony-iommi-riff-lord/)._