BLACK SABBATH's TONY IOMMI Says New Music Is 'In The Pipeline'

In a recent interview with Guitar World, BLACK SABBATH's Tony Iommi once again spoke about his plans to record and release new music. The 72-year-old guitar legend, who has kept a relatively low profile since the completion of SABBATH's "The End" tour in February 2017, said that he is constantly coming up with new ideas.

"I want to start putting some stuff down," he said. "I was putting ideas down last year, but I haven't done anything with them as yet. I've been working on and off with Mike Exeter, who has been my engineer for years now, remixing [BLACK SABBATH's 1995 effort] 'Forbidden', the old Tony Martin/Cozy Powell/Neil Murray record, and we've really taken our time with that. But I said to Mike, 'Once we've got this out of the way, we need to start putting these riffs down.' So it's in the pipeline."

Asked if he has an idea of how he would like to present this new music, Iommi said: "I might do some stuff for films or for a TV series or something. I'd like to just get everything down and then decide if I'm going to have a singer or what else. But I've got hundreds of riffs. Brian May [QUEEN] came over a few months ago and we sat outside and I was playing him some of them. And he said, 'You've got to do something with these — we've got to do something with these.' Because we've talked about putting some stuff down. So I gave him three or four CDs full of riffs and he took off with them. And you know, he's busy with QUEEN stuff all the time. But when the time is right, I suppose we will do something."

Iommi said that he and May have discussed doing something together for years. "Every time we get together, we go, 'We must do that,'" he said. "But it's about getting the time to do it. So it's just a matter of making a plan."

"The End" was SABBATH's last tour because Iommi, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and is currently in remission, can no longer travel for extended amounts of time.

SABBATH wrote and recorded its 2013 reunion album, "13", and toured it all over the world while Iommi was going through treatment for his illness, with the guitarist having to fly back to England every six weeks.

The original lineup of SABBATH came together in 1969 with Iommi, singer Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. That lineup recorded and toured through 1978, and periodically reformed through the '90s and 2000s for live work.

They regrouped again in late 2011 for a new album and tour, although Ward dropped out after a few months over financial issues. SABBATH has used Ozzy's regular touring drummer Tommy Clufetos since then for live work. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's Brad Wilk laid down the drum tracks on "13", which came out in June 2013.