Eric Blair of "The Blairing Out With Eric Blair Show" conducted an interview with legendary BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi at the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund's second awards gala, which was held last night (Wednesday, October 31) at the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood, California. You can watch video footage of the chat below.

On the work that Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund — a charity organization dedicated to cancer prevention, research and education — is doing, especially considering that he is a cancer survivor himself (Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma late last year):

Iommi: "Well, I'm a survivor up until now. I'm still very new to it. It's great that there's somebody doing something about it and trying to get rid of this awful disease. You can't praise it enough. Things like this is what 'is needed] to make people aware of what is going on."

On reports that he has laid down guitar tracks on 15 new BLACK SABBATH songs in the studio:

Iommi: "That's wrong. When Ozzy [Osbourne, BLACK SABBATH singer] said it [in a recent interview], I think he meant what we've done. We've written 15 songs and we've played them all. But now, at the moment, we're recording them. We recorded them at my house first, in England, just as demos, but now we're doing them for real. So we're about six tracks in now, at the moment."

On Rick Rubin's approach to producing:

Iommi: "Well, he's just a vibe merchant, really. He vibes you up. He's not one that gets involved hands on. He leaves it to you to do it, and he sort of says, 'I like it,' or 'I don't like it.'"

On whether he would like to see original drummer Bill Ward back in BLACK SABBATH:

Iommi: "We'll always have a heart for Bill, but I think it's gone past that now, because it's gone on so long that I don't see that happening at the moment. Maybe at some point we might [play together again]."

On his fondest memory of his late BLACK SABBATH and HEAVEN & HELL bandmate Ronnie James Dio:

Iommi: "Oh, I've got a lot of memories of Ronnie. We had some great times. Particularly when we'd done the last album with Ronnie [HEAVEN & HELL's 'The Devil You Know'] and the last tours, it was a whole new world. We had such a great time and we were looking forward to doing another album. So there's a lot of great memories of Ronnie."

BLACK SABBATH's new album is tentatively scheduled for release in April 2013 via Vertigo/Universal Republic in the U.S. and Vertigo in all other territories.

Iommi received the "King Of Rock 'N Roll Award" at last night's event.