"The Minotaur has the face of his father. He has to decide whether or not to kill it." The true story behind Minotaur, the mythical Tom Jones/Black Sabbath concept album that shook the world of rock

Issue 181 of British heavy metal magazine Kerrang!, published in April 1988, featured Alice Cooper on the cover, interviews with Dokken and Heart, reviews of Ace Frehley and Ted Nugent gigs in London, and a report on the rumour that Led Zeppelin could reform to play a one-off show to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of Atlantic Records. But that wasn't the story that got the rock world reverberating with shock when the issue hit newsagents across the UK.

The big talking point of the week, splashed across pages 6 and 7 of the magazine, was the surprise revelation that Black Sabbath had recruited legendary Welsh singer Tom 'The Voice' Jones as their new frontman.

Furthermore, the new-look group revealed exclusively to writer Johnnie Smith, they were already working upon an ambitious new concept album, Minotaur, which would weave "fragments of Greek mythology, segments of Spanish bullfighting (a project partially developed by Jones pre-Sabbath) and parts of coal-mining and Jones' native Welsh culture." Jones and Sabbath mainman Tony Iommi were also apparently collaborating on "a quite stunning stage production that will be one of the most spectacular attempted in the realms of Heavy Metal."

Exciting stuff.

"Let me say to Sabbath fans everywhere, and to all your readers, Tony, Bill [Ward] and myself are committed to the idea of me singing in the band, with the ultimate aim of resurrecting the glory days of Black Sabbath," Jones was quoted as saying.

"Believe me," guitarist Iommi added, "you just have to hear us in action with this guy on vocals to know that he is the greatest singer that Sabbath have ever had... I've always been a great admirer of Tom's work. Take a tune like Delilah for instance, it's got superb lyrics about Samson murdering Delilah, a powerful vocal melody - very, very Metal."

Jones and Iommi explained to Kerrang! that the seeds for the story of Minotaur lay in Jones' 1987 single A Boy From Nowhere, which peaked at number 2 in the UK charts in April '87. Jones' hit single was written for a proposed musical, Matador, loosely based on the life of Spanish bullfighter El Cordobés (Manuel Benítez Pérez), but after conversations with Iommi, the singer saw scope to extrapolate the story, bring in mythological elements, and link it to his homeland.

"Basically the plot opens with Cordobés and the bull Metoma Elpelo having their final battle," Iommi shared. "In the bullring they slaughter each other, and as they die their spirits join, and they become half bull, half man - the Minotaur."

"For Side Two of the album," Jones explained, "the story moves on to a Welsh mine, in which miners keep failing to return from their shifts... Towards the end, Cordobés' son travels to Wales to help the village who've lost seven young men down the mine. He descends into the mine and discovers it is inhabited by a Minotaur... but the beast has the face of his father. He has to decide whether or not to kill it."

Songs slated for the album included Death In The Afternoon, Fifteen Down, Fourteen Back, My God, My Father, and a reworking of A Boy From Nowhere.

The two musicians went on to explain the lavish stage that they were conceiving for the Minotaur/Miner-Tour. The first half of the set would be staged in a recreation of a Spanish bullring, the second half in a replica of a Welsh mine, with 60 roadies playing the parts of miners, each wearing a miner's helmet with a Davy lamp attached, roaming the stage like a mobile human lighting rig.

An audacious and ambitious concept, we're sure you'll agree.

"You'd be a fool to dismiss this out of hand," Kerrang! promised.

The only disappointment here was, if by now you haven't twigged, that the new Black Sabbath chapter was pure BS, the invention of the Kerrang! team, as an April Fools joke for the world.

Back in 1988 though, you had to wait one week for the next issue of Kerrang! to learn that you'd been spoofed, which meant that the story spread far and wide among the gullible.

LOL, as no-one ever said in 1988.

Rather brilliantly, however, the joke did spark a real-life conversation between Tony Iommi and Tom Jones, who both took the joke with good humour.

"I’ve met Tom a few times and we were talking one day and he said, 'Did you ever see that thing in the press about me joining you guys?'" Iommi told Classic Rock magazine in 2014. "I said, Yes, I did, and he said 'It’s not a bad idea, is it?'"

"I like Tom, he’s good," Iommi added. "I’d actually like to do something with him. It could work."

Tony Iommi's new solo album is due this year. As yet, guest musicians participating in the project have not been revealed. Just saying...