Black Sabbath Wrote ‘A Whole Load’ of Riffs for Abandoned LP

Photo: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has revealed that the group had a particularly fruitful writing session before deciding not to make a follow-up to 13. “I’ve got so many riffs,” he told Q (via Blabbermouth). “I wrote a whole load of stuff for another album, and we met up in L.A. but the others … well, Geezer [Butler] didn’t particularly want to do another album.” News broke last month that the band opted out of recording a new studio record for Universal.

In the new interview, the guitarist explained the ensemble’s rationale. “After you’ve just had a Number One album, where do you go from there?” he said. “For the last LP, we did record 16 songs [but released only 12], so we may still put something out from that. We don’t know yet.”

Asked if he intended to stop playing, Iommi said no. “It’s the touring, really [that’s hard],” he said. “I’d love to do something with the guys. But, whatever happens, I will do something.”

Last September, Ozzy Osbourne told Metal Hammer that the band intended to head back into the studio. At the time, he said he’d prefer to do it “sooner rather than later” and that they would be writing it around Iommi’s treatments for lymphoma. “I don’t know if we’ll be writing in England or Los Angeles, but I’ll fly to the fucking moon for it if I have to,” he said.

Rather than make a new album, Black Sabbath are focusing on what they’ve proclaimed to be their final tour, dubbed “The End.” The first leg kicks off in Omaha on January 20th and wraps in late February in New York City. They will return to North America in August and tour through late September for a second leg.