Will Black Sabbath Ever Record Another Album? The Members Weigh In

Will Black Sabbath ever record another album now that they're about to play their last-ever live performance? The members weighed in during a recent interview with Classic Rock.

Sabbath's big farewell show "Back to the Beginning" is just a few days away, and it'll serve as the last time the original four members of the band ever perform together onstage. But the quartet recording another record together isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.

The last album Black Sabbath released, 13, came out in 2013, and the band has some mixed feelings about the finished product. Tony Iommi, in particular, didn't love producer Rick Rubin's approach to it.

"Some of the stuff sounded better when we were working at my house – it sounded more… alive. But it’s what it was. And it’s a shame Bill [Ward] didn’t play on it, but it was difficult," Iommi admitted.

"I was led to believe Ozzy [Osbourne] would write all the lyrics, but Rick Rubin insisted I write them," Geezer Butler added. "So I changed around some lyrics and ideas of Ozzy’s, then wrote everything in a mad rush. I like Sabbath’s lyrics to mean something, but trying to think of thirteen subjects to write about the night before committing them to recording gave me headaches."

The fact that they don't have the fondest memories of working on that last record, combined with the fact that Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk played drums on it instead of Ward, makes at least some of the members open to the idea of putting out another project together.

“I’ve been approached about doing a Sabbath album,” Iommi said. “It could be good, but I don’t want to take the time of sitting down and writing stuff like last time and it goes willy-nilly.”

“Do I wish we’d done another album? No, I don’t wish we had, but if anyone really wanted to do another, I’d be up for it. But not just for the sake of doing it," Butler chimed in.

Ward, on the other hand, is all for doing another record together.

"I'd love to do another album," the drummer asserted. "I'll be direct about that."

All four members have worked on music on their own over the years. Osbourne has put out two solo records in the 2020s alone, 2020's Ordinary Man and 2022's Patient Number 9. And he doesn't plan to stop recording as long as he's interested in whatever it is.

So perhaps he'll be interested in a Black Sabbath record in the future.