Tony Iommi has been doing the media rounds promoting his solo album, From The Dark. And as well as the rock press, he’s been popping up in some more unusual places, such as the Channel 4 News podcast Ways To Change The World.
He talked on the show about how, in contrast to previous Sabbath albums, making the record was a more relaxing experience. “This time I’ve had no pressure,” he told host Krishnan Guru-Murphy. “ I could just come in and do it when I want. And so I worked on it with my engineer. I’d say, ‘Let’s work on Monday and Tuesday, and do that every week for a bit. And if you’ve got something [to keep you] busy, we’ll cancel it. And if I can’t do it, we’ll…’ And we worked like that, really. ‘Cause I still had to go for hospital appointments for my cancer checkups. So we’d work when we could and put the ideas down, and build it like that, really.”
Asked if, at the age of 78, a sense of his own mortality drives me on these days, the guitarist laughed: “I carry on wondering when I’m gonna keel over. Yes, I do that. But I enjoy [being creative]. I enjoy doing it, and it keeps me going.
Latest Videos FromMusicRadar
“Even when I was diagnosed with cancer, when we’d done the last album Sabbath album [13, in 201]), I wanted to work through that just to get my mind off it and not just give in. And it worked. And I was flying back, flying to LA when we’d done the recordings with Rick Rubin. Then I had to fly back to have a treatment and fly back again to carry on recording. But I enjoyed [staying busy]… I had to keep my mind focused on the music, really, and it helped me a lot.”
Iommi worked with Norwegian vocalist Jorn Lande on the album and it was Lande who penned the lyrics of one of the album’s highlights, World Alone. “It’s the things that’s happening in the world,” said the guitarist. “And even in them days with the old War Pigs we did, [the inspiration] was the Vietnam War. All the wars were going on then. It was relevant, and it is today. They’re the same thing – the wars and wars, and nuclear things now. And it’s hard to get away. How do you get away from it? It’s on the news every day. It’s constantly there. It’s in people’s heads, and it was obviously in Jorn’s head when he wrote all the lyrics.”
From The Dark – Iommi’s first solo album since 2005 – came out at the end of last week.
