Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi To Receive Honorary Degree from UK University

"Riff Lord" and "Godfather of Metal" are two nicknames that have been ascribed to guitar legend Tony Iommi, but now he has a more professional one: Doctor. That's right, the Black Sabbath founder and mainstay will have the prestigious honorary doctorate bestowed upon him by Coventry University in England.

Coventry University reports that on Nov. 19, Tony Iommi will receive an Honorary Doctorate of Arts at the university in celebration of his widespread musical influence on the world as the guitarist of Black Sabbath. Alongside Iommi, the Jordanian Princess, Her Royal Highness Princess Rym Ali, and artist George Shaw will also be awarded honorary doctorates at the ceremony for their respective contributions.

Soon-to-be Dr. Iommi commented on this recognition, stating, "It's a great honour to receive the doctorate, which comes towards the end of a challenging but amazingly successful year for me. I'd like to thank everyone at Coventry University for my nomination and look forward to meeting them at the ceremony."

Following the ceremony, Iommi will fly straight to Helsinki, Finland to start Black Sabbath's European tour, which starts the following day. Dates for the tour can be found here.

Tony Iommi is not the first metal or rock musician to be awarded an honorary doctorate, and now joins contemporaries like Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson and Brian May of Queen. Dickinson was awarded an Honrorary Doctorate of Music from Queen Mary University in 2011 and May received an Honorory Doctorate of Science in 2002 from Hertfordshire University. May has also earned his Ph. D in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007.