TONY IOMMI Reveals He Turned Down Producer ANDREW WATT's Offer To Make Final BLACK SABBATH Album With Original Lineup

Tony Iommi has revealed to Classic Rock magazine that he turned down the opportunity to record a final BLACK SABBATH album with the band's original lineup as a follow-up to 2013's "13" LP.

"13" didn't feature original BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward due to a breakdown in contractual negotiations. While he was initially on board for the 2011 reunion of SABBATH's original lineup, Ward stepped away in early 2012, calling the offered agreement an "unsignable contract" that did not reflect his contributions to the band.

Speaking to Classic Rock, Iommi said that Andrew Watt, who produced SABBATH singer Ozzy Osbourne's final two solo albums, 2020's "Ordinary Man" and 2022's "Patient Number 9", had approached him in the early 2020s about making a SABBATH album with the original lineup.

"I'd met Andrew Watt when he was producing Ozzy," the SABBATH guitarist said. "He was very keen and a bit too excited. He also didn't know what it was like working with the original SABBATH, working with Bill. Also, we'd done '13', and I didn't like the idea of: 'Now here’s another album.'"

"13", the first SABBATH album in 35 years to feature original SABBATH members Ozzy, Tony and bassist Geezer Butler, topped the Billboard album chart when it arrived in June 2013 — giving the band their first U.S. No. 1 album ever.

SABBATH used Ozzy's regular touring drummer Tommy Clufetos for live work in support of "13". RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's Brad Wilk laid down the drum tracks on "13", which entered the official U.K. chart at position No. 1. Prior to 2013, the last time SABBATH topped the chart in the U.K. was 43 years earlier — in October 1970 — with the band's second LP, "Paranoid".

Although BLACK SABBATH initially announced it would record a follow-up to "13" — and even hinted at having songs ready — that talk faded while the band instead unveiled its farewell tour, which launched in early 2016. Ozzy later confirmed to The Pulse Of Radio that the album plans had been scrapped. "We were gonna do one before the tour, but it would take three or four years to write and record an album," he said. "And so we decided just to do a farewell tour. If we did an album and it went to No. 2, people would go, 'It's over.' There's only one more place you can go after No. 1 and that's No. 2, you know."

In 2015, Ozzy told NOLA.com about the chances of a new studio effort: "I don't want to say there's going to be another album, because I don't want you to ask me in another year, 'What happened when you said you were going to do another record?'"

Back in May 2014, Ozzy told Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates' The National about the possibility of SABBATH making a follow-up album to "13": "You know what? If we have another album in us, I would do it. To be honest with you, I haven't talked to the rest of the guys about whether they want to do another album with me. We didn't sit down and plan our next move. But I am up for it. If they say, 'Let's do another album,' then I don't mind. But at the same time, I have my own solo career, which is doing great, so I always want to work on that. Time is not on my side anymore, so I want to put all my irons in the fire and whatever comes out the hottest, then I will just go for it."

Around the same time, Butler also seemed open to the idea of the reunited band recording a follow-up to "13", saying that he, Iommi and Osbourne already had a head start on a new record. He explained: "We've still got four tracks left over from ['13']. So maybe we'll fill in the other four or five tracks and put out another album — if it's right. We wouldn't do it just for the sake of it, or the money or whatever. But yeah, maybe."

In a 2022 interview with Stereogum, Ozzy was asked if he still felt good about where "13" left things. He responded: "Not really, because, to be perfectly honest, I didn't really get a charge from the album. Although [producer] Rick Rubin is a good friend of mine, I wasn't really… I was just singing. It was like stepping back in time, but it wasn't a glorious period. Though Geezer did a lot of lyric writing for me, which he's very, very good at. It wasn't an earth-shattering experience for me."

He added: "The only thing I really regret, to be honest, is that Bill Ward didn't play on the ['13'] album. It wasn't really a BLACK SABBATH album. I'm not saying that one day we might not all go in a room and come up with the perfect BLACK SABBATH album. But I'll say, ['13'] wasn't recorded the way BLACK SABBATH recorded records. We'd gone right back past the point where we took charge, back to when someone else had full control of our recording. Which we never did from 'Vol. 4' onwards."

In April 2022, Geezer spoke about Rubin's involvement with "13" during an appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" show. He said: "Some of [the '13' album] I liked, some of it I didn't like particularly. It was a weird experience, especially with being told to forget that you're a heavy metal band. That was the first thing [Rick] said to us. He played us our very first album, and he said, 'Cast your mind back to then when there was no such thing as heavy metal or anything like that, and pretend it's the follow-up album to that,' which is a ridiculous thing to think."

When host Eddie Trunk noted that many other artists who have worked with Rubin walked away from the experience feeling a bit underwhelmed, Butler said: "I still don't know what he did. It's, like, 'Yeah, that's good.' 'No, don't do that.' And you go, 'Why?' [And he'd say], 'Just don't do it.' I think Ozzy one day went nuts 'cause he'd done, like, 10 different vocals, and Rick kept saying, 'Yeah, that's great, but do another one.' And Ozzy was, like, 'If it's great, why am I doing another one?' He just lost it. And that's the way it was. Tony wasn't happy with some of the stuff he was trying to make him play. He was making Tony get 1968 amps — as if that's gonna make it sound like back in 1968. It's mad. But it's good for publicity and it's good for the record company. If you've got Rick Rubin involved, then it must be good, kind of thing."

In an official documentary chronicling the making of the "13" album, Geezer was more complimentary about collaborating with Rubin, saying: "It's great with Rick Rubin in charge. He's got a great track record and he comes up with some great ideas. Some work, some don't, but it's worth trying."

When Iommi was asked about working with Rubin in a 2013 interview with Guitar Player magazine, he said: "It was fine once we got used to him. We didn't know how he was going to work, because through the writing period, we didn't see a lot of him. He'd say, 'Phone me up when you've got an idea and I'll come down.' So we'd have a track together and phone him up or e-mail him, and then he'd come down and say, 'Yeah, I like this part, but I don't like that part' or 'I like everything,' whatever it may be, and then he'd go. He was only there perhaps ten or 15 minutes at the most. We didn't know how he was going to approach recording. It was all a bit of a mystery to us… It's sort of left to the last minute, and then he throws it at you. He just pushes that much more, and that's difficult for a band like us. We've been around so long, it's hard to accept criticism from somebody we've never worked with. But we did, and it was good. It was really good. We might be working on a track, and he'd go, 'Oh no, it doesn't feel right. Try it again and try extending that part.' So we'd do it and then we'd be thinking to ourselves that it may be too long, but we'd do it anyway. And then he'd go, 'That doesn't feel right. Let's try another one.' And then he'd say, 'Okay I think we've got it, but do you want to just try another one?' So we would try another one, and he'd say, 'Okay, let's leave it now.' So we never knew exactly which one he was going to pick."

Asked in a 2021 interview with SPIN if he had learned anything from working with Rubin, Iommi quipped: "Yeah, I learned how to lie on the couch with a mic in my hand and say 'Next!' ... It was just different, the way he works. He wanted to find the original SABBATH sound. He said, 'Have you got your original amps?' I said, 'Rick, that was 50 years ago. Do you have any amps from 50 years ago? … I don't have them, they've blown up. They're gone long ago. I've got my own amps now.' He said, 'No, we need the old stuff.'

"So, I get to the studio, and there are 20 different bloody amps there. He goes, 'They're vintage amps.' I said, 'That doesn't mean they sound good; they're just old.' He went, 'Well, let's try them.' I tried them, and I didn't like any of them.

"So it was a bit of a backwards and forwards till he got used to me, and I got used to him, really," Iommi added. "But we did it, and the album was very basic. I'd done a lot of the songs from the last album in my studio at home. I thought the sound was better, to be honest. But there was more stuff involved; I put more instruments on it. He just wanted it very bare and very basic, which you know, was good."

Ward in May 2012 announced that he was declining to join his SABBATH bandmates for their scheduled dates, as well as the recording of the new album, due to the aforementioned contractual dispute. After SABBATH shot down Rubin's suggestion to replace Ward with Ginger Baker (CREAM) ("I thought, 'Bloody hell?'" Iommi told Rolling Stone magazine. "I just couldn't see that."),Rick suggested Wilk.

The original lineup of BLACK SABBATH — Iommi, Osbourne, Ward and Butler — played its final concert more than a year ago. Dubbed "Back To The Beginning", the charity show was held at Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom on July 5, 2025.

Ozzy passed away on July 22, 2025. The BLACK SABBATH frontman died from a heart attack he suffered at his family home near Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire, England, People magazine confirmed at the time. Osbourne was transported via helicopter to Harefield Hospital in Uxbridge, where he was pronounced dead. He was 76.