During a recent interview with Guitar World magazine, Tony Iommi from BLACK SABBATH provided an update on his cancer treatment. The guitarist has been receiving treatment at the Parkway Hospital in Solihull and will have to return home from tour on a regular basis in order to receive treatment since he is not Cancer free. This totally explains why SABBATH will only be doing short tour runs for the time being.
"When I'd finished the chemo and the radiotherapy, I went to see the doctor again for my regular blood tests. I said, 'So it's gone now?' And he said, 'No, it's not going to go. You're not going to get rid of it. But we can treat it and work with it.' I got all dismal, because I thought it was gone. He said there was a 30 percent chance of it going away, but I was probably going to have this for life. Now I get treatments to keep it from spreading. So every six weeks I go in for an infusion of Rituximab, which is one of the four ingredients when they give you the chemo. It takes a few hours, and it makes you feel a bit crap inside and a bit sick. But a couple weeks after, I start perking up again. So that's how we are working it with the shows. I go out, then come back and go into the hospital for more treatment, more blood tests and all the rest of the rubbish. And then we do it all over again."
During the interview, Iommi also spoke about the bands NEW album, '13' — the first in 35 years to feature Tony, Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler. Here is what Iommi had to say about working with Rick Rubin:
"Honestly, I didn't quite know what to make of him at first. His whole idea [of pre-production] was, 'Write the song. Call me when you think it's ready.' So I would. Actually, I'd email him, because I couldn't phone him... nobody phones him. So I'd email him: 'Do you want to come down tonight?' And he'd pop in, have a listen, go, 'Yeah, I like that,' or, 'I don't like it.' We wanted him to be more involved, like, 'Well, what about changing that, or putting that bit there, or go to the A,' or whatever. But he was this elusive guy that we never really saw. But when we started recording, he was there all the time... lying on the bed with the microphone. [laughs] Blimey, what a strange guy. [laughs] His way of working was he'd have us playing it live in the studio like we did on the first album. We'd play the song a couple times, then Rick would say, 'Can you do it again?' After we'd finish, Geezer would be sitting next to me, and I'd say, 'That sounded all right didn't it?' And he'd say, 'It was a good one.' And Rick would go, 'Do another one.' [laughs] So we'd do another one, and another one, and then Rick would go, 'I think we've got it, but do you want to try another one to see if you can better it?' Ozzy would be sitting in the booth going, 'Fucking hell, we got to do it again?' [laughs] Rick definitely pushed us."
Upcoming BLACK SABBATH tour dates:
DATE CITY VENUE
+Thu- Jul 25 Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
+Sat-Jul 27 Austin, TX Frank Erwin Center
<Mon-Jul 29 Tampa, FL Live Nation Amphitheatre
+Wed-Jul 31 W. Palm Beach, FL Cruzan Amphitheatre
~Fri-Aug 02 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live
*Sun-Aug 04 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center
+Tue-Aug 06 Detroit, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre
+Thu-Aug 08 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena
+Sat-Aug 10 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
^Mon-Aug 12 Boston, MA Comcast Center
*Wed-Aug 14 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
+Fri Aug 16 Tinley Park, IL First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
+Sun-Aug 18 Indianapolis, IN Klipsch Music Center
+Thu-Aug 22 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
*Sat-Aug 24 Seattle, WA Gorge Amphitheatre
+Mon-Aug 26 San Francisco, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View
+Wed-Aug 28 Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
+Fri-Aug 30 Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center
+Sun-Sep 01 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
*Tue-Sep 03 Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Sports Arena
*Previously announced date.
^On sale Friday, May 3
+On sale Saturday, May 4
~On sale, Friday May 10
<On sale, Saturday, May 11
>On sale TBD
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Via Blabbermouth
Related links:
Ozzy's official site
BLACK SABBATH's Official Website
