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Black Sabbath totally serious about ‘The End’

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This is the end.

So says Black Sabbath, which kicks off its final world tour, appropriately titled “The End,” tonight in Omaha, Neb. The band makes a Chicago tour stop Jan. 22 at the United Center (tickets, $35-$159 are still available).

As a lovely parting gift, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers on January 22 are releasing deluxe 2-CD editions of its first three studio albums, “Black Sabbath” (1970), “Paranoid” (1970) and “Master of Reality” (1971) on Rhino Entertainment.

Lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and songwriter/bassist Geezer Butler —joined on the tour by original guitarist/songwriter Tony Iommi and reunion tour drummer Tommy Clufetos (sitting in for Bill Ward; see note below) — recently chatted with reporters about the legacy of Black Sabbath (formed nearly 50 years ago) and what comes next for the kings of heavy metal.

What follows are edited highlights of the teleconference.

Q. Why a farewell tour? Why does Black Sabbath have to go away?

Geezer Butler: We just all decided that we wanted to do one last tour. And we’re all getting up there in age, and while we’re still at the top of our profession, both musically and aesthetically, we wanted to go out on the top and we feel that this is the right time to do it.

Tony Iommi (from left), Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, winners of Best Metal Performance for 'God Is Dead?,' at the 56th Grammy Awards, January 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. | Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Tony Iommi (from left), Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, winners of Best Metal Performance for ‘God Is Dead?,’ at the 56th Grammy Awards, January 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. | Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Q: Is there a chance that somewhere during all of this, if it does go well and you are playing great that you might change your mind?

Ozzy Osbourne: No.

Geezer: It’s definitely the end.

Ozzy: We’re going to end it on a high note because — and one of the reasons we didn’t want to do an album was if it doesn’t go to number one again (or in the event number two), we felt it was a wrong thing to do. And ’13’ [from 2013) was our first number one ever in the United States. And we wanted to end it on a high note. There’s no intention of like this is really the end.

Q: You have no intention of running out of cash, right?

Ozzy: No. I hope not. Well it certainly will if my wife [Sharon Osbourne] won’t stop shopping. I’m not really retiring from the business. It’s just the end of, I think, it’s run its course. Black Sabbath is — it’s been up and down. And it’s good that we’ve come back together at the end, more or less, to finish on a high note. It’s a good way to do it.  … So now is really the end — we want to carry on.

Q. Is there any thought that because this is the last tour, are you thinking about digging a little bit deeper into the repertoire and catalogue for things to play?

Ozzy: Well we have. We decided not to do so many new songs after the last album “13” because what people really wanted is the old classics. It takes them back down memory lane for them, I suppose.

Q: You guys have had a number of classic songs that have been in your catalogue for more than 40 years. And Ozzy, a number of these songs have also stayed in your solo show over the years. When you’re playing a song like “Paranoid” or “Iron Man,” more than 40 years down the line, how do you, as a performer, stay engaged and connected with the song and really go back to the place, you were in when you created the song initially as a young man?

Ozzy: I don’t go back down memory lane. … It never gets tiring for me. I mean when I first went solo, I thought, “Well I’m not going to do any of that,” but then the audience was starting to say, “Well why don’t you play the Sabbath songs, it’s what you sang anyway?” So I did.  “Paranoid” never gets old. “Iron Man” never gets old. You would think after 40 years, I would be say saying, “Oh no, not ‘Iron Man’ again.” But it’s not —  so I play it like it’s a first time.

Q. The decision that this would be the end — did you all meet in a room or did someone bring it up first?

Ozzy: We’ve kind of made this whole decision, really. We really wanted to end it on a high note. With the album “13” going number one, which was our first number one album ever in the United States, both me solo and me Black Sabbath, we thought it would be a nice way to end this right now. We didn’t want to do another album because it would have taken three years to do that, which would have put it back even further. And, you see, the timing felt right to do that because we couldn’t wait another few years, enough, you know.

Geezer: I realized on the “13” tour that we couldn’t do it for much longer. So the natural thing to do, is to all agree on one last tour which we often would feel the same way. And once we agreed on one last tour, that was it. We just set it up. And we all agreed that there won’t be any more Sabbath after this. And we were all — it’s like a natural progression kind of thing; a natural end to the band.

Q: And what do you think you’re going to miss the most about being on tour?

Ozzy: I’m not going to stop entirely. I’m not going to sit with my slippers on and going, “I’m retired.” We’re just going to go in different directions, I suppose.

Q: Ozzy, as you’ve mentioned, you’ve had your ups and downs with Black Sabbath over the years. You’ve had a few times where you tried to get the reunion happening and it didn’t happen. And things went wrong and you’re finally here. You get together. You get the “13” album out. You were able to tour real successfully on that. And I just wondered if being able to do that, to finally have the reunion happen, have the new music happen, did that give you any certain sense of closure or any kind of feeling of you have said what you needed to say?

Ozzy: So I mean Black Sabbath has been through the mill over the years. To come back and be friends with my buddies who I started up with all those years ago, it’s a closure for me to have a chapter of my life which I can say, “Well we came, we saw, we had a good time, and now it’s over.”  And so it’s like any relationship. I’m glad we ended up having more or less whatever has gone on between us over the years. We’ve got rid of all that. And we are friends again. So it’s — I mean it’s good that, at the end of my days on this planet, I can say, “Well we ended okay,” you know.

Black Sabbath (circa 1999)— Geezer Butler (from left), Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward. | FILE PHOTO

Black Sabbath (circa 1999)— Geezer Butler (from left), Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward. | FILE PHOTO

Q: Geezer, if you could go back in time and talk to yourself at the very beginning of the journey, what would you tell yourself?

Geezer: To get a lawyer.

Q:  It seems like you’ve conquered it all. Is there one thing in your career either solo or with Black Sabbath that you would like to accomplish before you call it quits?

Geezer: I’d like to accomplish the end of this tour.

Ozzy: I don’t know. I mean the thing is people are dying all around us doing this business. Well, are we next on the list, you know? Do we still see the fruits of our labor for all these years?

Q: So what would you like to be most remembered for?

Ozzy: Riding a bike when I was seven.

Geezer: I’d like to be remembered for the music that we wrote.

Q: Going back to the idea of another Sabbath album, you guys have very well explained why you’re not doing one. But is there any material around that we haven’t heard that you’d like to see come out? 

Ozzy: Well we’ve just got a CD, which you can only buy at the gig, which has got a bunch of songs that we never released off the “13” album. There’s a song called “Season of the Dead,” “Cry All Night,” “Take Me Home,” “Isolated Man.” And then there’s live versions of “God is Dead,” “Under the Sun,” “End of the Beginning” and “Age of Reason.” And it’s like a little thing we’re selling at the gigs. But we have like four live tracks on this CD.

Q:  Geezer, would you mind talking about that music a little bit and, what it’s like and why ultimately those songs didn’t make “13”?

Geezer: Well, because we went into the studio with an idea of 13 songs, which is why the album is called “13.” We thought that we put out an album of 13 songs. But then, when we were in the studio, we wrote another three songs; we just brought it up to 16 songs. And then we left off to re-group and to pick which songs would go on the album, and to give it some light and shade. So we picked the eight songs that went on the “13” album. And we still have these — we did a few songs on the limited-edition versions of the album. And then we had the four left over. And so what we’ve decided to do is a gig-only CD.

Q: Geezer, one of the first things that ever [leapt out at] me about Black Sabbath’s material was the lyrics, the way you guys discussed so many important topics from war to the environment. Did it ever frustrate you, as the primary lyricist to the band, that people, when discussing Sabbath, like to focus on the doom and gloom side of things, and don’t really give you guys the credit you deserve for the wide array of topics that you guys hit on in your songs?

Geezer: Yes, I’ll say that the fans of the band get what the lyrics are about. It’s just people that hear our name; hear the name Black Sabbath. They automatically assume that it’s about Satanism and all this kind of crap; that they don’t get the subtleties of the lyrics. Or, we were saying that the world is boring, vile and some pollution; all that kind of stuff. And its just people that just wanted to bring up stuff that they didn’t know anything about; that accuse us of Satanism or all that crap.

Q: When you go on tour now, I mean, you have this wild history, and sometimes you’re straightening up, sometimes you relapse. What is the social life right now on the tour? Do you guys get together in between gigs or is it basically you all [go] your separate ways and you’re not together until you’re on that stage?

Ozzy: We travel together. We sometimes grab meals together. But we don’t go and do bags of powder and f—— alcohol anymore and smoke our brains out. We’ve gotten better. I’ve gone past it, whatever everybody else says. I mean people, like my friend [Motorhead’s] Lemmy Kilmister with the lifestyle. I mean he died [in 2015]. You know, if you want to carry on, you’ve got to take care of yourself or you won’t. You know, it was great but it’s over for me now.

Geezer: We have nice cups of tea together now.

Ozzy: And cookies. Believe me, I never thought that they’d be calling me and say, “Let’s have tea.” That’s crazy, you know. What’s happened to rock and roll?

Q: After the end of Black Sabbath, what are you going to be up to? What kind of plans do you have?

Ozzy: Well I’m going to be doing another solo tour, I don’t know what sort of situations are coming up. But I don’t want to do extensive touring. I can’t do it anymore; a year out on the road. So, I’m done. I’ll do gigs. I’ll do watered-down tours and things. But I’m going to still be actively involved in music to a certain degree, I hope.

Q:  Geezer, what are you going to be up to?

Geezer: I haven’t thought about it. I’m just taking it one day at a time. First, we’ve get through this tour and then think about what to do.

NOTE: In an interview with Classic Rock Revisited, Geezer Butler explained the absence of Bill Ward on this final tour, noting it had nothing to do with the money:

“It’s beyond the money thing. It is not really anything to do with that. It is whether he’s capable of touring or not. On the “13” tour, he was not on that tour. About a week after we started he had to go into the hospital for major surgery. We would have had to cancel the tour if Bill was still with us. He hasn’t been well for a long time. He’s had a couple of heart attacks. You have to face facts when you get to our age and you’re not in great, great health [whether] you can go out on the road for two years, or whatever. It is a hard life to do. The easy part is when you’re on stage playing. It is all of the traveling and everything else that comes with it that is the hard part. I think Ozzy, in particular, didn’t think Bill would get through it. He certainly wouldn’t have got through the first part as he was in the hospital. We can’t keep cancelling tours just because the drummer can’t play.”

Bill Ward, in turn, took to Twitter today to respond to Geezer’s comments, calling them untrue.


The post Black Sabbath totally serious about ‘The End’ appeared first on Chicago Entertainment - Chicago Sun-Times.


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