Interview with Heaven And Hell: They Say That Life’s A Carousel

Ozzy came out the other day and said, ‘I want to do another Sabbath record’ on mtv.com. It didn’t seem like anything different than what’s been said since you guys first reunited.

Things have been said, ‘Oh yeah, let’s do a Sabbath album,’ for years with the original lineup, and to be honest, I sort of gave up with that, because it was just going on and on and on. Next thing he’s doing MTV, ‘The Osbournes,’ next thing he’s somewhere else and somewhere else, and it got put off and put off and I just sort of thought, ‘We’re never going to do it.’ To do this lineup has been great. To actually go and do something, because also, we wanted to get out and play.

Doing the stuff with Ozzy was great, I loved it, but we didn’t go out and tour for a year, we toured for three months or four months at the most and that was it. You need to get around and play all these places. And it’s nice for me to do a longer set as well. At Ozzfest, we were doing a set amount of songs, and we tried various stuff with Ozzy of the older stuff. When we first got back together, at rehearsals, we were playing these songs. Then, of course, as you get on tour, they gradually get dropped, and you end up with the same old set again, which is a shame. Now, this is more rewarding for me, because I can play other stuff.

How was it working with Ronnie James Dio as opposed to working on the Fused record with Glenn Hughes?

Well, it’s very different. They’re two different singers, and this is for a totally different project altogether. Glenn’s great and I think we did a really great album, and I like his singing. It’s much the same. We sat down much the same way and constructed the ideas.

And how has it been having new songs to play live?

Good. (laughs) Again, playing all these songs we’re playing again now has been like playing new songs, because we haven’t played these, the Dio songs, for many years. And some of them we’ve never played live, so it has just been great. I’m really enjoying it. It’s a great challenge for us to stretch, and the thing I like about this show, it’s not in a pocket. We’ll sometimes extend certain songs and put in jamming bits. I really like to do that. It’s great, on an off night, you just try something different.