Black Sabbath Discuss ’13’ With Jack Osbourne
With the release of '13,' the first Ozzy Osbourne-fronted album by Black Sabbath since 1978 only a couple of months away, the band recently took time to discuss the new work. The interview was conducted by Jack Osbourne, Ozzy's son and filed from the listening party they threw on Wednesday (April 10) in Los Angeles.
The video, which you can see right here, comes from Fuse. However, through Brave Words, we have an account of what was said. Ozzy spoke of the difficulties in going back into the studio with them after such a lengthy absence.
“The pressure was on us, because it had been so long since we’d worked together," he told his offspring. "It’s like now or never. This album, for me, was probably the most important of my career.”
Tony Iommi talked about the process of writing the songs. “I had a bunch of riffs on CDs and played it to everybody," he said. "And then everybody decided, ‘We like this one’ or ‘We don’t like that,’ and the ones we liked, we started work on them — built them up.”
However, Iommi was a bit bemused by the less-than-hands-on approach taken at the early stages by producer Rick Rubin. “It was funny at first," he continued. "Because coming to rehearsals, when we were actually writing the songs, he’d come down for like, five or ten minutes and then go. Then he’d go, ‘Call me when you’ve got another one.’ So it was really strange, we’d never worked with anybody like that before.”
'13' will be released on June 11.