In a new interview with Stereogum, Black Sabbath member Ozzy Osbourne spoke to a variety of matters; among the topics discussed though, Ozzy was asked about the last Sabbath record, 13. The interviewer brings up how it has almost been a decade since Sabbath released 13, and they ask Ozzy if he feels good about how the album left things. Well let’s just say that Ozzy is actually not that pleased with the record. This is what he had to say exactly:
“Not really, because to be perfectly honest, I didn’t really get a charge from the album. Although Rick Rubin is a good friend of mine, I wasn’t really… I was just singing. It was like stepping back in time, but it wasn’t a glorious period. Though Geezer [Butler] did a lot of lyric writing for me, which he’s very, very good at. It wasn’t an earth-shattering experience for me.”
In a follow-up to Ozzy’s response, the interviewer then asks him if the door may be open still for Black Sabbath (as in the possibility of them doing more as a band), or if they are absolutely done. While Ozzy does provide an answer to this, he also speaks to a big regret he has in regards to that last Sabbath album.
“I would like to say it’s completely done. I think it’s time. The only thing I really regret, to be honest, is that Bill Ward didn’t play on the album. It wasn’t really a Black Sabbath album. I’m not saying that one day we might not all go in a room and come up with the perfect Black Sabbath album. But I’ll say, [13] wasn’t recorded the way Black Sabbath recorded records. We’d gone right back past the point where we took charge, back to when someone else had full control of our recording. Which we never did from ‘Vol. 4’ onwards.”
What are your thoughts when it comes to that last Black Sabbath album? Do you think the band ended things on a high note, or would you like to see them come back and make new music?