Ozzy Osbourne says that he has no interest in playing any more BLACK SABBATH shows.
Ever since SABBATH finished “The End” tour in Birmingham, England in February 2017, closing out the quartet’s groundbreaking 49-year career, there has been talk of a possible one-off reunion, either for a festival appearance or another special event.
“The End” was SABBATH‘s last tour because guitarist Tony Iommi, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and is currently in remission, can no longer travel for extended amounts of time.
Asked in a new interview with Rolling Stone about Iommi‘s comment that he would still like for BLACK SABBATH to play live again sometime, Ozzy said: “Not for me. It’s done. The only thing I do regret is not doing the last farewell show in Birmingham with [drummer] Bill Ward. I felt really bad about that. It would have been so nice. I don’t know what the circumstances behind it were, but it would have been nice.
“I’ve talked to [Tony] a few times, but I don’t have any of the slightest interest in [doing another gig],” Ozzy continued. “Maybe Tony‘s getting bored now.”
This past May, Iommi told SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he would open to the possibility of playing a one-off gig with SABBATH at some point in the not-too-distant future. “I think that it would be good, if we could do that,” he said. “The hard thing is, certainly with SABBATH, because it’s such a big thing, you can’t just do an occasional show, because of the crew, and you have the whole setup. It would have to be a year or an 18-month tour… I’m not opposed to doing anything; I just would do it in a different way.”
Asked if he was happy with how SABBATH‘s farewell tour went, Iommi said: “It was great to be able to go out and do a final tour. To be honest, I felt a bit bad [about] it, because it was basically my choice, my fault, because touring, for me, at that extent wasn’t a good thing physically. I mean, to get in at four c’clock in the morning from doing a gig, after you’ve done the gig, and fly back to the hotel — it was a lot late nights. You’re living a life like I used to when I was 20. Even though we were traveling [under] the best [conditions] — we had our own plane, we had fabulous hotels, and we’d base ourselves in New York or Los Angeles for 10 days, or somewhere else, and do it like that. Go out, fly out, do the gig, come back, but by the time you’ve done that, you got back into the hotel, it’s three or four c’clock by the time you get to bed. And for me, now, it was just difficult, and my doctor said to me to try and calm it down a bit. And it just seemed like the right thing to do at that time.”
He continued: “Especially after the Ronnie [James Dio] thing, I really loved that period [with HEAVEN & HELL], [being] back with Dio, we were really cracking on with that band, and it was a great band. And then we’d done the SABBATH [reunion] thing with Ozz, which was great, to finish up. But I should think if Ronnie was alive, I’d probably be doing something with him now.”
More than a year ago, Geezer Butler told Classic Rock magazine that he wouldn’t ruling out a one-off SABBATH reunion. “If it came up, I wouldn’t say never,” the bassist said. “I can’t imagine it ever happening, but then I said that about the SABBATH tour, and it happened, so who am I to know?”
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, Osbourne, Butler and 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.
