TONY IOMMI: 'With BLACK SABBATH You Never Know What's Going To Happen'

November 5, 2005

Hugh Ochoa of Modern Guitars magazine recently conducted an interview with BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Modern Guitars: What motivated you to record your new solo album, "Fused"?

Tony Iommi: "Well, I just wanted to do another solo album. And basically, under SABBATH, we never seem to get anything rolling. I'm just fed up with waiting around. Basically, I thought I was due for another one. And I wanted to do an album with just one singer on it because on my last album back in 2000 I had 10 different singers. So, I wanted to do an album with a proper band, you know. Just a drummer and a bass player and a singer that I can tune with."

Modern Guitars: After all these years, does your signature tone come naturally to you or do you still work hard at getting good tones?

Tony Iommi: "I took a long time working on it. Years and years. I've never been totally satisfied with it. I always keep trying. Even now, on stage, some nights it doesn't sound quite right — it's the building or the stage or whatever. But 90% of the time I'm happy with it."

Modern Guitars: With Ozzy's rumored health problems and the lack of interest in headlining the Ozzfest shows, what do you think is the future of BLACK SABBATH?

Tony Iommi: "Well, you know it's a question that's always asked and it's a question that's difficult to answer because with BLACK SABBATH you never know what's going to happen. We never know if we're going to tour, we never know if we're going to make an album. We never seem to know much. We weren't intending to tour this year to be honest. I intended to tour with my own project as we speak. I was going to be out there. But then the SABBATH tour came up with Ozzfest and you know, obviously, that's my main band. We decided to do that. But it was very quick. It was like, 'Are we gonna do it? Should we do it? Yes. OK.' So we did it. But this time last year, I never knew we were going to be doing it, if you know what I mean. So, there's never a plan with SABBATH. We sort of take things on the there-and-then."

Read the entire interview at ModernGuitars.com.

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