Tony, Ozzy and Geezer interviewed by USA Today: dark past, colorful reunion, hazy future

Edna Gundersen of USA Today recently sat down with Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, and bassist Geezer Butler to discuss their first album of original music together since 1978, titled 13, and their tour to support it.
"I thought we'd have to keep Ozzy on track, but he was there all the time," Iommi says. "He's been really good." Osbourne explains, "For the first time, I felt people were listening to me."
Tony Iommi arrived at the studio with loads of ideas and CDs full of guitar riffs, the cornerstone of Sabbath classics.

"We had plenty of ammunition," says Iommi, reached by phone in London. "Rick brought us back to our roots and the vibe of the early stuff. He said, 'Treat this like the second album and wipe out the last 40 years. Rick wanted 30 songs. I told him, 'No chance of that.' He said, 'Can you get 25?' No. I said he'd be lucky to get 10."

Sabbath crafted 16 without unearthing six shelved in 2001. Recording was a democratic, collaborative joy, in contrast to past stints when Osbourne was AWOL until late in the process.

"I thought we'd have to keep Ozzy on track, but he was there all the time," Tony says. "I haven't seen him like that. He's been really good."

Osbourne explains, "For the first time, I felt people were listening to me."

It wasn't all smooth wailing. Diagnosed with lymphoma in 2011, Iommi is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment that will continue for the next year. Cancer didn't stand in the way of Sabbath's return.

"Making an album, going on tour took my mind away from it and gave me something to aim for," he says.

Iommi's resolve inspired his bandmates, Butler says. And once Osbourne was assured Iommi could manage the task, he was keen to finish.

"It was now or never," he said.

Misconceptions didn't dissuade fans who bought 75 million albums the past 43 years.

"We wanted to make scary music," Osbourne says. "We weren't created by some business guy and we didn't read a book. We did this naturally. We had a dream and it became fantastically true. People called us The Beatles of hard rock. It's hard to get your head around that."

Iommi, too, was stunned by Sabbath's profound influence on bands from Metallica and Judas Priest to Guns N' Roses, Nirvana and Van Halen.

"When you're creating it, you don't realize what you've done," he says. "Years later, some of the biggest names in the music world would say, 'Without you, we would have never done this.' We did something to stir them along. You couldn't wish for better than that."

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Edna Gundersen for  Usa Today,  11 June 2013