Legendary Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi recently spoke with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. In the audio clips below, Tony discusses how Black Sabbath almost performed at Power Trip Festival in Endio, California this October. He also recalls Ronnie James Dio’s time in the band, reveals that there will be Black Sabbath reissues in the future, and talks about the Live Evil 40th Anniversary reissue.

Tony Iommi on Black Sabbath Almost Performing at Power Trip Festival

Tony Iommi: "Yes, there was. Yeah. But I didn't at that point. It's hard because Ozzy's been going through a lot of stuff lately, and you know, he's in hospital and out of hospital and he's really been fighting it. He really wants to get out there. But it's in my mind, it's very difficult to sort of say yes and think, I've gotta think of the people in the band as well. I've gotta think of Ozzy if he's gonna be all right to do a show and whatever. So I wasn't that comfortable with it. I didn't know Ozzy would be doing it on his own. But it's great. I hope he can do it, and that'll be really good. And he really wants to do it, and he's really trying to pull to get himself back. I mean, he's had to go through such a lot of hard stuff lately. Um, it's such a shame really. But he is still fighting there."

Eddie Trunk: So it was true that initially that was going to be a Sabbath date, but it sounds like you were just uneasy about the circumstances and about his condition and that he ended up just taking it as a solo show.

Tony Iommi: "Yeah, sort of. Yeah. I mean, we hadn't, we hadn't approached the others as far as doing it. I mean, they might have said no, you know, but it didn't get much further than me, really. If you're gonna go out, I want to do a good show. I want to go and go out on the top and do it. I don't want to just go and slap someone together, you know? And I'm not saying it would've been, but it could have been difficult."

Tony Iommi on Dio's Time in Black Sabbath

Tony Iommi: "Ronnie, as you know, he always gave it all, and he'd always do his best. And he was really particularly concerned that he would, you know, give it everything he got. And he always did. He's never, ever failed. He was absolutely a star, you know, tremendous singer. And he put these, the old songs over in his way. It was very difficult to come in and follow Ozzy and be able to sing them, you know, here we are with a new singer and Ronnie's, I mean, to sing these, the old songs, but he was bloody good."

Eddie Trunk: Did you feel, Tony, that he had increased confidence on this tour versus the original Heaven and Hell tour? Because I would think on the Heaven and Hell tour, he's really the new guy. He's really the guy right in the footsteps of Ozzy. He told me himself that it was rough sledding a little bit in the beginning where he would be getting the middle finger, “Where's Ozzy?” All that stuff. Now, this record being recorded on the Mob Rules tour, he's entrenched, he's got two studio records under his belt already. Everybody knows he's the guy at that point. Just from being on tour with him on that run, did you sense that there was more of a confidence about him and more of a presence about him in the band on the road?

Tony Iommi: "Absolutely, definitely. I mean, once we'd recorded and released Heaven and Hell, we knew we loved it. It was different. It was something that we were offering that was, I thought was great. And it took the next album really for Ronnie. Ronnie was seeing it on tour. He was seeing, he was getting more and more taken, but, you know, our fans were accepting him more and it didn't take that long before we had a, you know, all the audience back again. I mean, obviously you are always gonna get some that don't agree with it because that's the way it is. But we managed to maintain a lot of our original fans and they really took to Ronnie, and certainly the Mob Rules album when that came out, Ronnie was very confident in that because he'd already sort of been able to establish himself with Heaven and Hell and the Mob Rules came out and there it was."

Tony Iommi on Live Evil's 40th Anniversary Reissue

Eddie Trunk: When did the idea, obviously  it's celebrating 40 years, remarkably since this came out, but when did the idea first come up to reissue this and more importantly, to remix it?

Tony Iommi: "Well, I've, I think Geezer and myself have never been happy with the mix. And, uh, so that was the first thing to do really, is to get it remixed. Because obviously when we actually recorded the album in different cities, we'd done sort of, in America that it was, it wasn't well recorded and the sound was never good. It was leaking into different mics, you know, guitar was coming through the drum mics and it was, it was a bit of a disaster, really. My idea, and Geezer’s idea really, we wanted to get the sound better if we could, you know, and get it remixed. So this came a while back. I mean, this was done many, many, many months ago really.

Tony Iommi on Future Black Sabbath Reissues

Tony Iommi: "Yeah, there'll be stuff coming. I mean, again, you know, if I say something, people expect it then, and then, but you can't do it that quick. You have to go through the routine of like, “Now we're on the Dio package,” and then it'll move on and move on. And the idea is yes, the Tony Martin stuff will be coming out and I'm looking forward to that as well cuz there's a lot of great stuff on there that got overlooked and the people would, you know, that wouldn't know of or didn't even know that there was an album with Tony Martin. A lot of people. And it'd been nice to be able to show that again. And as far as, again, I said to you, and I've mentioned before about the Ian Gillan the Born Again album, and when, as soon as I mentioned it, people think, 'Oh, I'm working straight on it.'"

"Well, no, because you have to get through the others first to get to that. And then, we have got the tapes now to Born Again. They're being transferred from reel to reel to digital so we can get a proper look at it. But again, it all takes time and it has to be done in its stages. We're open to release all the stuff at some point. It's just a matter of going through it, bit by bit really. And I know people get anxious and what, 'Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?' I'd like to be like that. I'd like to say 'Yes, it's here, it's here.' But it just takes time. You know that, to release it, you gotta release it in stages."

SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, hosted by SiriusXM's Eddie Trunk, airs daily at 3pm ET on SiriusXM’s Faction Talk. 

(Photo - Max Sticca)