BLACK SABBATH guitar legend Tony Iommi (HEAVEN & HELL) spoke with Andy Coleman from Birminghampost.net recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On singer Ronnie James Dio (who has been diagnosed with the early stages of stomach cancer): "Ronnie’s doing better, he’s been responding well to treatment. He’s very positive and has been in the studio in LA this week doing a bit of singing. He has to fly to Dallas (from his Los Angeles home) for chemotherapy every two weeks and has injections daily in his stomach.’’

On stem-cell treatment on Iommi's hand: "The cartilage between the thumb joints of my right hand, my fret hand, was rubbing, bone to bone. They’ve cured that but the bone’s been pushed back and I’ve been told I may need another operation to pull the bone up. I don’t particularly want to go there because I have a friend, also a guitar player, who had that operation and it all went pear shaped which put me off a bit.’’

On drummer Vinny Appice (who had surgery on his right shoulder in late November): "He’s doing alright, he’s doing all his exercises. I don’t know if he’s started playing yet but he soon will be. I had the same operation on my arm four or five years ago.’’

Future releases: "‘We’re mixing a live DVD of one of our shows from the last tour and Ronnie’s been going into the studio to sing along with it just to loosen his voice up. He’s not been able to do that for a while and he was worried. But he’s sounding really good now and he’s a lot happier.’’

On his autobiography, Iron Man: "I’ve been working on it for a long time. We’ve been so busy for the last couple of years it’s been difficult finding the time to do it. But it’s coming on and hopefully it will be out at the end of the year. I’m not going out to blast at everybody, that’s for sure. That’s for the next book!’’

On Ozzy: "‘‘Ozzy’s still a great friend and I don’t think we’ll ever fall out. Whether we’ll work together again is another thing. There are no plans but it’s in the lap of the gods.’’

Read the entire interview here.