Source: Bravewords.com

BLACK SABBATH’s Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler are featured in a new interview with Matt Munday at The Independent. An excerpt from the story is available below:

Iommi, as his iron handshake testifies, is in robust health again. I do not raise the subject of his treatment for lymphoma directly with him, for fear of appearing glib, and he accepts my compliment that he is looking well without further comment. However, speaking on the phone the following day, Butler raises the subject and says that “we all thought he was on his way out at one point. He’d lost tons of weight and his hair was gone. I think the album took his mind off all the radiation and chemo. And then, as we were recording, he seemed to bloom.”

Butler believes that Iommi was the main difference between this album and Sabbath’s last (aborted) attempt in 2001, which yielded only six songs that were “just not good enough.”

“I didn’t think we’d ever do an album together after that,” Butler says. “Which is why we took so long. But this time Tony had got his own studio at home, and he had all these incredible riffs. The hardest part is to take an average riff and form it into a song. As soon as we heard these riffs, we knew Tony was back on form. We knew straight away it was going to work.”

Will 13 be their last album? It ends with the sound of thunder and a tolling bell, which is how their very first LP began, though this was Rick Rubin’s idea. “We’re very pleased with the album,” Iommi equivocates. “Though if it does turn out to be our last, then it’s a great way to go.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Black Sabbath Live… Gathered In Their Masses has entered the Top Music Videos chart in the US at #2, selling approximately 9,000 copies in it’s first week of release. In Canada, the title lands at #4 on the SoundScan DVD chart.

Black Sabbath’s triumphant 2013 tour – which kicked off earlier this year in Australia – can now be seen by fans around the world via Black Sabbath: Live… Gathered In Their Masses (Vertigo/Republic).

Black Sabbath: Live… Gathered In Their Masses tracklistings:

DVD / Blu-Ray:

‘War Pigs’
‘Into The Void’
‘Loner’
‘Snowblind’
‘Black Sabbath’
‘Behind The Wall Of Sleep’
‘N.I.B.’
‘Methademic’
‘Fairies Wear Boots’
‘Symptom Of The Universe’
‘Iron Man’
‘End Of The Beginning’
‘Children Of The Grave’
‘God Is Dead?’
‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ (Intro)/’Paranoid’

CD:

‘War Pigs’
‘Loner’
‘Black Sabbath’
‘Methademic’
‘N.I.B’
‘Iron Man’
‘End Of The Beginning’
‘Fairies Wear Boots’
‘God Is Dead?’
‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ (Intro)/’Paranoid’

Clips for ‘War Pigs, ‘End Of The Beginning’ and ‘Loner’ can be seen below: