Producer Andrew Watt has revealed why a final Black Sabbath album with the original four members rumored to be helmed by him didn’t come to pass.
Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi had earlier said that he found Watt to be “too excited,” while also explaining that he was happy with ending the legendary metal band’s recording career with 2013’s 13.
In an interview with Rolling Stone (watch below), Watt reacted to Iommi’s comments, and gave further insight into why the album never came to be:
“That I think was taken out of context. You know me. I’m definitely an excited musician, person. That would be a true statement. But that’s not why it didn’t happen. Ozzy wanted to continue to work and make stuff and we were making music and he had the idea, we were talking about, ‘Let’s try to do something a little different than the two albums that we made.’ Ordinary Man and Patient Number 9 were different albums but they were of the same DNA. So we were like, what could we do that’s different? Do you want to make something with Tony? Should we make an Osbourne/Iommi album? And then [Ozzy] was like, ‘Let’s make a Sabbath album. We didn’t do an album with Bill Ward.’
I think looking back at all the stuff he wanted to do, making an album with Bill was really important to him. And this was before ‘Back to the Beginning’ was happening. I think the idea of doing something with Bill was very, very important. So one of the first incarnations of that was a potential album. As Ozzy does, he gave me the marching orders: ‘Call Tony, then you call Geezer [Butler, Black Sabbath bassist], then you call Bill.’
Bill Ward, who famously was left out of the Black Sabbath reunion that produced their final album 13, as well their farewell tour, was clearly an important aspect of the band they all felt strongly about. However, it was Ward’s inability to do the album due to personal reasons that inevitably sank the project.
So, I called Tony. ‘Would you want to do it?’ ‘That sounds cool. If Bill would do it, yes.’ Geezer, ‘If Bill would do it, yes.’ It was all about if Bill would do it, yes. So, then I had to have a conversation with Bill. And that was one of the strangest and funniest and coolest — because it’s Bill Ward — conversations. It was a long conversation. He was speaking in tongues which now knowing him, being friends with him, makes sense. Long story short, without going into it too deeply, he was unable to do the album for personal reasons. There was a nice, beautiful, long email sent to all of us — and I was on an email with the original members of Black Sabbath which is pretty cool — then it was like, ‘Bill can’t do it, there’s no reason to do it.’
I’m sure Tony didn’t feel like going into all of that. Tony’s awesome. He’s a great friend to me, a great mentor. We have a couple songs together on Ozzy’s album and had an amazing time working together. I was definitely excited that it was going but that wasn’t the reason why we didn’t make the album. I think he’s just taking the piss.
In the same interview, Watt revealed there are unreleased Ozzy tracks, perhaps the ones intended for the proposed Black Sabbath album.
Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning, the concert film documenting Ozzy and Sabbath’s final concert, had its world premiere hosted by the Osbourne family on October 14th with its wide release coming on October 28th. Tickets to the global release are available here.
Watch the full interview between Rolling Stone and Andrew Watt below.